JRSST: A Java RSS and Atom Ticker/Aggregator/Reader

This is a simple, lightweight, RSS ticker/aggregator/reader. I had checked out a number of tickers that look pretty as they scroll etc., but took a lot of CPU cycles and cost money. I wanted a simple, OS independent ticker so I wrote this one in Java. JRSST read RSS 0.91, 1.0, 2.0, and Atom feeds. A jar file containing both the .class bytecode files and the source files and a Windows executable built with launch4j can be downloaded from: http://sourceforge.net/projects/jrsst/. Executables for various platforms are also available there. To use, do:

java -jar JRSST-2.2.2.jar [args] [URL...] where URL... is the list of RSS URLs to display. If no URLs are given, a RSS feed of the BBC world news is shown.

Specific instructions for creating a Windows shortcut to make launching easier can be found here.

Command-line arguments:

Long Meaning

--init=URL Read the specified JRSST initialization file.

--opml=URL Read an OPML reading list.

--pause=seconds The time between changing the display from the default 10 seconds.

--verbose Show site names as they are being read

--font=FONT Set the font to FONT.

--font-size=SIZE Set the font size to SIZE.

--font-style=STYLE Set the font style to STYLE (currently PLAIN, BOLD, and ITALIC).

--version Display the version number and exit.

--undecorated[=TRUE|FALSE] Whether the frame is decorated by the operating system.

--growleft[=TRUE|FALSE] Whether the windows grows to the left.

--upperright[=TRUE|FALSE] Position the window at the upper right corner of the screen.

--lowerright[=TRUE|FALSE] Position the window at the lower right corner of the screen.

--lowerleft[=TRUE|FALSE] Position the window at the lower left corner of the screen.

--x=# Position the window with an X coordinate of #.

--y=# Position the window with an Y coordinate of #.

--do_nothing_on_close ignore window close requests.

Long	Meaning
`--init=URL`	Read the specified JRSST initialization file.
`--opml=URL`	Read an OPML reading list.
`--pause=seconds`	The time between changing the display from the default 10 seconds.
`--verbose`	Show site names as they are being read
`--font=FONT`	Set the font to FONT.
`--font-size=SIZE`	Set the font size to SIZE.
`--font-style=STYLE`	Set the font style to STYLE (currently PLAIN, BOLD, and ITALIC).
`--version`	Display the version number and exit.
`--undecorated[=TRUE\|FALSE]`	Whether the frame is decorated by the operating system.
`--growleft[=TRUE\|FALSE]`	Whether the windows grows to the left.
`--upperright[=TRUE\|FALSE]`	Position the window at the upper right corner of the screen.
`--lowerright[=TRUE\|FALSE]`	Position the window at the lower right corner of the screen.
`--lowerleft[=TRUE\|FALSE]`	Position the window at the lower left corner of the screen.
`--x=#`	Position the window with an X coordinate of #.
`--y=#`	Position the window with an Y coordinate of #.
`--do_nothing_on_close`	ignore window close requests.

Example URL's include:

http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_topstories.rss
It handles non-roman character sets with ease:
http://rss.xinhuanet.com/rss/native.xml
Here's a "meta" feed of the JRSST project from sourceforge:
http://sourceforge.net/export/rss2_projsummary.php?group_id=144756

More RSS feeds can be found at: http://www.syndic8.com/

The title bar will display the current URL title. A mouse click in the window should bring a browser up with the current item displayed. For items that have a longer description, hovering over the window will display that.

You can create a configuration file by hand that contains your URL's. The format of the file is simple, just a list of channels and their URL's:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<jrsst version="1.0">
 <channel>
  <url>http://www.nws.noaa.gov/data/current_obs/KDEN.rss</url>
 </channel>
 <channel>
  <url>http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_topstories.rss</url>
 </channel>
 <channel>
  <url>http://sourceforge.net/export/rss2_projsummary.php?group_id=144756</url>
 </channel>
 <channel>
  <url>http://beatys1.mscd.edu/~beaty/acm.rss</url>
 </channel>
</jrsst>

JRSST will automatically look for a .jrsst file in your home directory. For Windows, this will look something like: C:\Documents and Settings\Steve.BEATY-88AC5C2C5\.jrsst You can create one in Notepad, but when you save the file, make sure you put the file name in quotes: ".jrsst" so that Notepad will not append a .txt extension. You can also specify the location of a configuration file with the --init= command line option, and either a http: or a file: URL. OPML files are also supported with the --opml command line option.

In progress: drag and dropping RSS feeds, and a configuration panel.