=========
About imm
=========

In a nutshell
-------------

**Technically**, *imm* is a little tool that retrieves a list of RSS/Atom feeds and fills a maildir with new items.

**Functionally**, *imm* makes it possible to use mail readers for feeds, for the sake of *I-want-the-mutt-of-feed-readers* zealots.

*imm* is written and configured in *Haskell*.

Informations about versions, dependencies, source repositories and contacts can be found in hackage_.


Need & purpose
--------------

Following numerous RSS/Atom feeds needs organization and aggregation.
Such needs are usually met by feed readers.
Although there are a lot of those, some people still feel unsatisfied with the existing implementations.

The expected features of a feed reader could be defined as follows:

- it retrieves items with the following attributes: an author, a date/time, a (possibly enriched) body;
- items can be sorted, categorized, marked as read/unread, tagged, shared/forwarded;
- items must be available from anywhere on the internet.

Luckily, there's already a widespread solution that provides such features: mail readers.
Considering that, *imm* aims at projecting the RSS/Atom paradigm onto the mail one; this way, all the existing tools that work on mails can be leveraged to work on RSS/Atom feeds as well, no wheel reinventing.


Function
--------

*imm* does only one thing and does it well: it downloads an RSS/Atom feeds list, and for each new item it writes a file in a local maildir. How and where to write mail files is setup in *imm*'s configuration file.

No *SMTP* sending, no *IMAP* serving, no aggregating: those should be performed by external tools.


Example usage
-------------

It is possible to setup a Google Reader-like on a server using the following steps:

- schedule *imm* to check feeds regularly and write new items into a local maildir;
- setup an IMAP server to publish the aforementioned maildir;
- setup a webmail, bound to the IMAP server above, to read feeds from any computer connected to the internet.


Getting started
---------------

To get started, please fill the configuration file at ``~/.config/imm/imm.hs`` with your feeds list and settings. An example configuration file is provided with the package. Configuring *imm* requires basic knowledge of *Haskell* language.


.. _hackage: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/imm