GancioF2F/README.md

[[[ SYNOPSIS ]]]

gancioff [options] <configuration file path>

[[[ DESCRIPTION ]]]

 This is GancioFF v0.4.1, a CLI PHP script that can be used to periodically
fetch the RSS feed from an instance of Gancio (https://gancio.org) and post
its new entries – the events announcements – on the fediverse through a
Mastodon account, recording into a state file a reference to each already
posted announcement in order to post only new or changed ones on each run.
 It can be useful, for example, when the admins of a Gancio instance chose not
to use its federation feature because it would be too heavy on its server:
in fact, GancioFF is a light alternative to federating the Gancio instance,
moving from its server to the one running Mastodon the burden of posting each
announcement to each fediverse instance hosting at least one follower, and of
sending them the image a Gancio user can attach to each announcement, because
GancioFF will fetch it only once and attach it to the Mastodon post; moreover,
by default, if an announcement on the Gancio instance fits into a Mastodon
post GancioFF doesn’t place a link to the original announcement into the post,
thus further reducing the burden due to the requests the Gancio instance gets
from every Mastodon instance trying to generate a “link preview”.
 GancioFF is meant to be run periodically, every half an hour or so, by a cron
job, or systemd timer, or the likes (you can find a sample «gancioff.timer»
and a commented sample «gancioff.service» in the «systemd» directory).
 In order to work, GancioFF needs a configuration file path to be passed to it
as an argument on the command line.

[[[ CONFIGURATION FILE ]]]

 The configuration file needs to be like this:

--- Example configuration file ---
# Lines beginnig with a «#» and empty lines will be ignored

# «feed_url» is required to specify the URL to fetch the RSS feed from.
# For example:
feed_url = https://gancio.some.domain/feed/rss?show_recurrent=true

# «fedi_hostname» is required to specify the hostname of the Mastodon instance
# you want to post to. For example:
fedi_hostname = mastodon.another.domain

# «fedi_token» is required to specify an «app token» to access the account
# that you want to use on the instance defined by «fedi_hostname». On Mastodon
# default web frontend you can get such a token under «Preferences» ->
# «Development», by clicking on the «New application» button; the new
# application should have at least the «write:media» and «write:statuses»
# privileges; when you’ll be done setting it up, it will be listed under
# «Your applications», and by clicking on its name you’ll be able to copy
# «Your access token» and paste it here. For example:
fedi_token = w6oQ_Ot2LSAm_Q31hrvp0asfl22ip3O4ipYq1kV1ceY

# «state_file_absolute_path» is required to specify the absolute path of the
# state file where GancioFF will store the references to already posted
# announcements (on every run, GancioFF will check this file for entries older
# than one year and discard them, to avoid the state file to grow too much).
# For example:
state_file_absolute_path = /var/local/cache/gancio.some.domain.feed.state

# «posts_language» is required to specify the ISO 639-1 code for the language
# of posts (see https://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_list.php for
# a complete list). For example:
posts_language = it

# «posts_visibility» is optional and lets you override the default “public”
# visibility of posts; it can be set to «public» (posts will be visible in the
# «Local» and «Federated» timelines, and any user will be able to boost them),
# «unlisted» (posts will be visible only in the «Home» timeline of followers
# and on the profile of the Mastodon account in use, not in the «Local» or
# «Federated» timelines, but any user will still be able to boost them),
# «private» (AKA «followers only»: posts will be visible only by followers and
# won’t be boostable by anyone), and «direct» (since GancioFF posts won’t ever
# explicitly mention any account, posts with this visibility will be visible
# only from the Mastodon account in use, which may be good for testing).
# For example:
post_visibility = unlisted

# «max_post_length» is optional and lets you override the automatically
# detected maximum length that a post can have on the instance specified with
# «fedi_hostname»; it can be used for testing purposes or just to keep the
# posts shorter than they would be otherwise. For example:
max_post_length = 840

# «always_link_gancio_post» is optional and if unspecified it defaults to
# «false», which means that GancioFF adds to the Mastodon post a link to the
# original Gancio post only if the latter is too long to fit into the first
# (i.e. into the maximum post length allowed by the Mastodon instance, or into
# the «max_post_length» specified in this configuration file - see above);
# this further reduces the burden on the Gancio instance (see the second
# paragraph of the «Description» section).
# If set to «true», GancioFF will instead always add a link to the original
# Gancio announcement.
always_link_gancio_post = true
--- End of example configuration file ---

[[[ OPTIONS ]]]

-h / --help
  Show this help text and exit.
-p / --do-post <y|n>
  When a state file already exists, this option defaults to «y» («yes»), which
 means that GancioFF will try to post all the new or changed announcements it
 may find in the feed; if set to «n» («no»), GancioFF will not try to post
 them, but it will still record a reference to each of them into the state
 file, so they won’t be posted again on subsequent runs (unless they were
 changed in the meantime).
  This option is mainly useful on GancioFF’s first run on a given feed, i.e.
 when the state file specified in the configuration file doesn’t exist yet and
 thus all the announcements in the feed will be considered “new”: in this
 case, GancioFF refuses to run unless you explicitly set this option to «y» or
 «n»: this is a way to prevent you from unintentionally flooding your Mastodon
 instance’s «Local» timeline, and possibly your followers’ «Home» timelines,
 with all the announcements in the feed.
  When “test mode” is active (see the next option description), setting this
 option has no effect.
-t / --test
  Do a test: GancioFF will try as always to read the configuration file, fetch
 the defined Mastodon instance’s info, load the state file and fetch the feed,
 but it will post only the first of the announcements it may find there, with
 a visibility of «direct», even if according to the state file it has already
 been posted, and won’t update the state file.
  This option also activates “verbose mode” (see below).
-v / --verbose
  When this option is not set GancioFF prints only warning and error messages;
 when it is set it also prints informational messages about what it’s doing.
--
  Treat every possible subsequent argument as non-options. Useful only in the
 very improbable case your config file is named «--help» or as another option.

[[[ EXIT VALUES ]]]

0: regular run
1: some error occurred
99: killed with signal (ctrl+c, etc.)

[[[ DISCLAIMER AND LICENSE ]]]

 This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details see the source.
 This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain
conditions; see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/> for details.