Looking for a client to access arch bbs

Question

I find reading the arch forums on bbs.archlinux.org using firefox cumbersome and slow. Is there a command line client out there, i.e. ncurses-based, which will allow me to browse the bbs more quickly and efficiently?

Answer 1

Below is a script I run hourly with cron.
#!/bin/bash
export LC_COLLATE=C
script=${0##*/}
af=$HOME/doc/af ## to be read
afmaster=$HOME/doc/aflist ## have been read
afexclude=$HOME/doc/afexclude ## words to exclude
_usage() { cat << EOF
usage: $script
This script will download the most recent archlinux.org forum posts.
Forum posts means the post title along with its URL. It has the ability
to track which posts the user has viewed and store the unread forum
posts in a file.
EOF
(( $# != 0 )) && { _usage && exit 1 ;}
## If $af is open; exit
ps a | grep -q "[0-9] vim -c sort /^https/ + $af" && exit 1
## Read $afmaster into an array
## Append new posts to the master list array, leaving unseen posts marked with a '>'
## Remove any duplicate posts from master list
set -f; O=$IFS IFS=$'\n'
aflist=( $(< "$afmaster") )
aflist+=( $(curl -Ls "https://bbs.archlinux.org/search.php?action=show_24h" | \
awk -F'["=<]' '/viewtopic.php\?id=/ && !/stickytext/ {printf "%06d%s\n",$5,$6}') )
aflist=( $(printf "%s\n" "${aflist[@]}" | sort | uniq -w 6) )
## Read $af into an array. Format unseen posts. Exclude posts which aren't of interest.
## Recode html and unicode to ASCII.
af_array=( $(< "$af") )
af_array+=( $(printf "%s\n" "${aflist[@]}" | \
awk -F'>' '!/^[0-9]*#/ {gsub(/^0*/, "");print "https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=" $1,$2}' | \
grep -ivEf "$afexclude" | \
recode HTML) )
IFS=$O; set +f
## Mark all posts as read and write to master file
printf "%s\n" "${aflist[@]}" | sed -e 's/^\([0-999999]*\)>/\1#/g' > "$afmaster"
## Print unseen forum posts to $af file.
printf "%s\n" "${af_array[@]}" > "$af"
## OPTIONAL
## Add mail headers so file is viewable in mutt.
mailfilenew=$HOME/.mail/ml-rss/arch/new/1271109605.5731_0.donkey
mailfilecur=${mailfilenew/new/cur}:2,S
header=$(echo -e "Date: $(date -R)\nSubject: ArchLinux Forums\nTo: User\nFrom: User\n\n---")
printf "%s\n" "$header" "${af_array[@]}" > "$mailfilecur"
## If there are new forum posts, set mail file as unread
grep -q bbs <<< "${af_array[@]}" && mv "$mailfilecur" "$mailfilenew"
## The key binding in mutt
#macro generic,index,pager E "<shell-escape>vim '-c sort /\^https/' + $HOME/doc/af<enter>" "unread archlinux forum post titles"