RSS Filter is an open-source program that sits in your taskbar and periodically checks for new articles from RSS feeds you specify. You can filter out the results based on keywords by title, description, and/or creator, and reject articles in the same way.

This program was something I wrote for myself to keep up with scientific journals such as PRL or the arxiv (cond-mat), but it should work with any RSS feed.

Currently it only works in windows, but it is written in the cross-platform library wxWidgets, so it should be easily portable (though we've been fiddling with a mac port unsuccessfully so far). For windows, it should compile right out of the box with wxDev-C++, a somewhat buggy but decent open source RAD IDE. Please tinker with the code (included) as you see fit, and let me know if you compile it under other platforms.

Filter String Syntax:

Here's a note special characters.  You can specify search strings using + and | for "AND" and "OR" logic.  For example, the Title Search

    spin+transfer|magnet|chicken pot pie

with Title Rejections

    chicken+beef|plasma

will return items containing both "spin" AND "transfer", or "magnet", or the full string "chicken pot pie", but ignore items containing both "chicken" AND "beef" or "plasma".  

The usual rules apply for logical order of operations: "AND" behaves like multiplication (performed first) and "OR" behaves like addition (second). 

As a final warning, watch out for white space!  It's included in the search (same goes for quotes/symbols).

Adding a Feed:

The list of feeds to check is located in the file User/feeds.txt. RSS Filter will automatically create an example file when you first run it. To add a feed, just add a line of the form URL|name, such as

http://my.personal.feed.com/rss/morestuff|my feed 

and then restart RSS Filter. With the above line in feeds.txt, "my feed" should appear in the configuration list box, and RSS Filter should start checking it with the rest.

Known Issue:

Those of you using Windows XP and googletalk / gmail notifier to open email links have probably noticed that there are a lot of bugs in gmail's handling of complicated email links (like those generated by this program). For one thing, all the capital letters will be set to lowercase, so article links (i.e. PRL) using capital letters will NOT work for the people receiving the email! On top of this, if you include a body or subject in your email link, the "To:" field will pop up empty! It's been like this for over a year, and no one will fix it or respond to my queries. I've included a workaround checkbox in the program that will use "CC:" instead of "To:" to send, but I have no workaround for the capital letters issue.

If you want a bulletproof way of sending articles from your gmail account, you might try setting up a different program to handle email links. For example, I now use Outlook Express (since it comes with windows) for my email links. Setting this up is outlined here:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=13276

I would not use Outlook Express as your main email client, though. It's not a very secure program! 

Also, after all is said and done, let me just say that other than this one annoyance, GO GMAIL!

Plans: 

I have limited free time and RSS Filter already does everything I want it to, but if I get really bored, I may add these features:

• add/remove buttons for RSS feed list (rather than editing feeds.txt)
• option to change 10-sec timeout, update frequency, and retry-time

Change Log: 

RSSFilter v0.71b

• Made the xml-parsing more intelligent. It now recursively loops through all the xml nodes and their children looking for <item> tags (and now works with nanoletters).
• Added the "Überdebug" option for some hard-core debugging.