[Haskell-cafe] ANN: rss2irc-1.0, announces RSS/Atom feed updates to IRC

[Simon Michael]

I'm pleased to announce a new release of rss2irc, the software behind hackagebot on #haskell. rss2irc is an IRC bot that polls an RSS or Atom feed and announces updates to an IRC channel, with options for customizing output and behavior.  It aims to be an easy-to-use, reliable, well-behaved bot.

Release notes:

1.0 (2013/2/15)

New:

  * more robust item detection and duplicate announcement protection, with simpler options
  * easier irc address syntax, drop -p/--port option
  * can poll urls with semicolon parameter separator (eg darcsweb's)
  * can poll https feeds
  * can poll from stdin (-)
  * can poll a file containing multiple copies of a feed (eg for testing)
  * can announce item urls containing percent
  * `--cache-control` option sets a HTTP Cache-Control header
  * `--use-actions` announces with CTCP ACTIONs (like the /me command)

Fixed:

  * updated for GHC 7.6 & current libs
  * initialises http properly on microsoft windows
  * builds threaded and optimised by default
  * thread and error handling is more robust, eg don't ignore exceptions in the irc writer thread
  * no longer adds stray "upload:" to IRC messages
  * renamed --dupe-descriptions to `--allow-duplicates`
  * dropped --debug flag
  * new item detection and announcing is more robust
  * announcements on console are clearer
  * a simulated irc connection is not logged unless --debug-irc is used

Best,
-Simon