Calibre - Custom news sources (RSS feeds) aren't being saved in my recipes

[matthewkrieger]

Hi - I read this article http://kindlelove.wordpress.com/2010...friend-part-1/ about using Calibre to email articles to a Kindle based on RSS feeds.

First, I've having a problem adding custom RSS feeds. Here's what I'm doing.

Click on Fetch News, Add a custom news source.
Create a new recipe.
Add a feed to the recipe by filling in the feed title and url fields.

At this point the feed(s) show in the "Feeds in recipe" list box. There's no Save button so I click Close. When I go back to this screen and click on my recipe, none of the feeds I entered show up.

Second, can I save a recipe (and it's associated RSS feeds) to a file? I have a lot of RSS feeds to enter so I figured if I could save a file and then automatically populate the file with my feeds in the proper format that it would save me a lot of typing using the UI. I see the option to load recipes from a file but not save.

Thanks

[tolyluis]

Hi matthewkrieger.

To make this, the process in Calibre is a little "special", the steps are in basic mode:

1 - Click on Fetch News, first push the button "Add a custom news source". You'll see a new element in the list, left-click on it.

2 - Go to the right of this screen and add the url pointing to the feed and the feed title in the corresponding boxes.

3 - Press "add channel", you see the data "going up". Write the recipe title in the corresponding box.

4 - Push the button "Add/update recipe" again, you'll see your new recipe created in the list. Close this screen.

5 - Press the button "Download news (rss)" on Calibre main screen The new recipe is in the tag "personaliced".

Of course, basic mode is very limited, I suggest you to explore the advanced mode, is cool!

[matthewkrieger]

Thanks for the quick answer.

<< Push the button "Add/update recipe" again, you'll see your new recipe created in the list. Close this screen. >>

This works! It is a REALLY odd and unintuitive user interface. It should either save the entries automatically or put a Save button.

<< Press the button "Download news (rss)" on Calibre main screen The new recipe is in the tag "personaliced". >>

Do you mean the Fetch button?

Also do you know if there's a way for me to save my new recipe file to disk as a .recipe?

[tolyluis]

Originally Posted by matthewkrieger

Thanks for the quick answer.

Not at all.

Originally Posted by matthewkrieger

Do you mean the Fetch button?

Yes, sorry, i'm using the spanish version of Calibre, i just translate the icons. But, yes, is the fetch button

Originally Posted by matthewkrieger

Also do you know if there's a way for me to save my new recipe file to disk as a .recipe?

Of course, i'm working on spanish .recipes. It's (almost) impossible to do recipes without using testing properties of ebook-convert command-line, it saves a lof of time testing new recipes and is mandatory to use this command to have .recipes filed on your hard disk.

I use a free text editor called notepad-plus-plus (npp), just copy the text shown in "advanced mode" on npp and save it with .recipe extension (tip: copy exactly all the text, to avoid undesirable future errors). Make sure you use the ASCII format to the .recipe saved.

Tip: You can group various rss blogs (by themes for example) in a one-single recipe, for example:

class AdvancedUserRecipe1296246973(BasicNewsRecipe):
    title          = u'My Blogs'
    oldest_article = 150
    max_articles_per_feed = 100

    feeds          = [
                           (u'Guerra Eterna', u'http://www.guerraeterna.com/index.xml')
                          ,(u'El Teleoperador', u'http://elteleoperador.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss')
                          ,(u'La Aldea Irreductible', u'http://feeds2.feedburner.com/LaAldeaIrreductible')
                       ]

[matthewkrieger]

Your suggestion to edit the recipe in advanced mode worked perfectly! I took my RSS reader's opml file and transformed it into the proper recipe format. It took me a while since I had to strip out commas and apostrophes which the recipe file format didn't like.

I expected to see the list of RSS feeds when I switched back to basic mode but it didn't show them. I guess if you work in advanced mode then your stuff will only show there.

I brought in about 120 feeds into a single recipe. I will test to see if this makes sense or if I should create multiple recipes. I'm not sure of the pros and cons yet for doing so.

Do you know how I can delete all the other feeds that are included in the program? There's groups for each language and feeds under each. I tried to find the recipe files for them so I could delete them but I wasn't able to.

[tolyluis]

Originally Posted by matthewkrieger

Do you know how I can delete all the other feeds that are included in the program? There's groups for each language and feeds under each. I tried to find the recipe files for them so I could delete them but I wasn't able to.

I DON'T RECOMMEND YOU, I don't know (I don't tried that) what happens if you remove the official .recipe files, but you can wait any unexpected performance of Calibre. I suggest you to use the default list for your self-made recipes and personaliced ones



that list is shown under your tag "personalized" (sorry, I don't know the exact english name) in the screen for downloading news



Sorry for the bad explanations, my english level is so low.

Originally Posted by matthewkrieger

I expected to see the list of RSS feeds when I switched back to basic mode but it didn't show them. I guess if you work in advanced mode then your stuff will only show there.

Exactly, in fact I believe the basic mode is

Spoiler:

a poor GUI of the full-powered advanced mode (shhh don't say it too loud, hear that can disgust the Calibre developers ) Seriously, the basic mode is a (basic) tool to add feeds you like, but don't show the real-power reached in advanced mode.

Originally Posted by matthewkrieger

I brought in about 120 feeds into a single recipe. I will test to see if this makes sense or if I should create multiple recipes. I'm not sure of the pros and cons yet for doing so.

Pros - Groups news in a single-recipe
Cons - Is really hard to wait until the creation of the ebook

I suggest you group temathic feeds (computers, cellulars, etc) for not overload the process of creating a ebook, and for not carry a text (in fact, time lost waiting the creation) that you don't read. I.E. I have a not-published-yet spanish recipe with blogs from one publisher. Good, it has around 50 feeds, but they takes various themes (from living the night until the attentions to a baby, dispar themes), I'll publish the entire recipe, but I have personalized recipes with the feeds grouped by themes I like.

[dieguille]

Hi there,
I was looking for some help to create a recipe. I'm from Costa Rica and I wanted to add Costa Rica's main newspaper "La Nacion", I followed the procedures and fetch the news, however the Ebook comes up in pure html code... How can I fix this?

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by dieguille

Hi there,
I was looking for some help to create a recipe. I'm from Costa Rica and I wanted to add Costa Rica's main newspaper "La Nacion", I followed the procedures and fetch the news, however the Ebook comes up in pure html code... How can I fix this?

Moderator Notice

This is an old thread. You should usually start a new one due to the rate at which calibre changes.

Your site will need an advanced recipe if the basic one produces html.
Start here:
http://calibre-ebook.com/user_manual/news.html#news
or ask for someone to write it for you (in a new thread). There is no guarantee anyone will have the time to write it for you, but if you do it yourself, you can usually get your questions answered here.

[yusufselim]

Hello,

I am using Calibre Rss News for a long time actively. I have added many rss source to news succesfully. I am trying to add another rss source but can not manage to get news from my source. The source which I am trying to add is
"e2e.ti.com/blogs_/b/thinkinnovate/rss".

Is there any solution for that problem?

Thanks