LinLog

Yay! I can finally do it! I can finally use Opera and Akregator together! Well, at least to a certain extent.

Yesterday I discovered this blog entry by zeroK on this very subject. The basic concept is so simple it's brilliant: define a custom protocol. Opera allows you to modify the handler programs for protocols like mail, telnet, etc. Well, the solution is to simply define a feed:// protocol and set the handler to your RSS aggregator.

Unfortunately, there's really no such thing as a feed:// protocol, so you need some JavaScript. For feeds linked in the page header, the solution was to use the modified bookmarklet that extracts the links and pops up a list with feed:// substituted for http://.

As for the handler application, I banged out a little shell script using DCOP calls and KDialog to add a feed to a selected group. I didn't use the Akregator command line options because they don't seem to work when you're embedding Akregator in Kontact.

The only problem with this is that it doesn't work with Opera's built-in RSS icon. Changing the protocol on the linked RSS feeds with a user JavaScript just seems to make them stop working altogether.

Hopefully Opera will eventually add a setting to configure an external feed reader. While I love Opera as a web browser, I never really cared for the mail client. And since the RSS reader is based on the mail client, I don't like that either. In fact, not only is the feed reader based on a mail client I don't like, but it seems to work more like a mail client than an RSS aggregator. I tried it out again the other day and I really hate it. I'd much rather have something with the three-panel layout like Akregator or SharpReader, so I don't think I'm going to be switching any time soon.

But, at any rate, at least I'm making progress in this department.