Installation

PyPI package

RTV is available on PyPI and can be installed with pip:

<pre><code class="lang-bash">$ pip install rtv</code></pre>

Native packages

See Repology for an up-to-date list of supported distro packages:

<pre><code class="lang-bash"># macOS $ brew install rtv

Arch

Nix

Debian

FreeBSD

From source

<pre><code class="lang-bash">$ git clone https://github.com/michael-lazar/rtv.git $ cd rtv $ python setup.py install</code></pre>

Windows

RTV is not supported on Windows, due to a lack of resources and interest. Sorry!

Usage

To run the program, type:

<pre><code class="lang-bash">$ rtv --help</code></pre>

Controls

Move the cursor using either the arrow keys or Vim style movement:

• Press <kbd>▲</kbd> and <kbd>▼</kbd> to scroll through submissions
• Press <kbd>▶</kbd> to view the selected submission and <kbd>◀</kbd> to return
• Press <kbd>space-bar</kbd> to expand/collapse comments
• Press <kbd>u</kbd> to login (this requires a web browser for OAuth)
• Press <kbd>?</kbd> to open the help screen

Settings

Configuration File

Check out rtv.cfg for the full list of configurable options. You can clone this file into your home directory by running:

<pre><code class="lang-bash">$ rtv --copy-config</code></pre>

Viewing Media Links

You can use mailcap to configure how RTV will open different types of links.

<p align="center"> <img alt="title image" src="resources/mailcap.gif"/> </p>

<pre><code class="lang-bash">$ rtv --copy-mailcap</code></pre>

This template contains examples for common MIME types that work with popular reddit websites like imgur, youtube, and gfycat. Open the mailcap template and follow the instructions listed inside.

Environment Variables

The default programs that RTV interacts with can be configured through environment variables:

<table> <tr> <td><strong>$RTV_EDITOR</strong></td> <td>A program used to compose text submissions and comments, e.g. <strong>vim</strong>, <strong>emacs</strong>, <strong>gedit</strong> <br/> <em>If not specified, will fallback to $VISUAL and $EDITOR in that order.</em></td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>$RTV_BROWSER</strong></td> <td>A program used to open links to external websites, e.g. <strong>firefox</strong>, <strong>google-chrome</strong>, <strong>w3m</strong>, <strong>lynx</strong> <br/> <em>If not specified, will fallback to $BROWSER, or your system's default browser.</em></td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>$RTV_URLVIEWER</strong></td> <td>A tool used to extract hyperlinks from blocks of text, e.g. <a href=https://github.com/sigpipe/urlview>urlview</a>, <a href=https://github.com/firecat53/urlscan>urlscan</a> <br/> <em>If not specified, will fallback to urlview if it is installed.</em></td> </tr> </table>

Clipboard

RTV supports copying submission links to the OS clipboard. On macOS this is supported out of the box. On Linux systems you will need to install either xsel or xclip.

Themes

Themes can be used to customize the look and feel of RTV

<table> <tr> <td align="center"> <p><strong>Solarized Dark</strong></p> <img src="resources/themesolarizeddark.png"></img> </td> <td align="center"> <p><strong>Solarized Light</strong></p> <img src="resources/themesolarizedlight.png"></img> </td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center"> <p><strong>Papercolor</strong></p> <img src="resources/theme_papercolor.png"></img> </td> <td align="center"> <p><strong>Molokai</strong></p> <img src="resources/theme_molokai.png"></img> </td> </tr> </table>

For instructions on writing and installing your own themes, see THEMES.md.

FAQ

<details> <summary>Why am I getting an error during installation/when launching rtv?</summary> > If your distro ships with an older version of python 2.7 or python-requests, > you may experience SSL errors or other package incompatibilities. The > easiest way to fix this is to install rtv using python 3. If you > don't already have pip3, see http://stackoverflow.com/a/6587528 for setup > instructions. Then do > > <pre><code class="lang-bash">&gt; $ sudo pip uninstall rtv &gt; $ sudo pip3 install -U rtv &gt;</code></pre>