So, I wanted to make a simple news aggregator, and I heard about this thing called Whippet. Thought I’d give it a shot. Here’s how it went down.
Getting Started
First, I had to, you know, actually get Whippet. Figured out I needed Python, which I already had, cool. Then it was just a matter of using pip, like they said: pip install whippet. Seemed easy enough, and it was! No crazy errors or anything.
Setting Things Up
Next, I poked around and found I needed a config file. They called it . Made one of those. Started simple, just wanted to see if it worked. I put in a couple of news sources, like, you know, BBC and… I dunno, some tech blog I read. Just copied their example and changed the URLs.
Running the Thing
Okay, moment of truth. Typed in whippet run in the terminal. Boom! A bunch of stuff scrolled by. Looked like it was working. It created a folder called “output” – went in there, and yep, there were some HTML files. Opened one up, and there it was, a basic page with headlines and stuff. Pretty neat!
Making it Nicer (or Trying To)
It looked kinda plain, though. So I messed with the templates. They had this “templates” folder, found a file called something like . I know a little HTML, so I added some basic styling, changed the colors, made the headlines bigger. Nothing fancy, just wanted it to look less… default.
Adding More Stuff
Got a little braver. Added a few more news sources to my . This time, I also tried that “categories” thing they talked about. Like, put some under “World News,” others under “Tech,” you get the idea. Ran it again, and hey, it actually organized the stuff! Sweet.
The Final Test
Checked the output files again.
- Opened up the main HTML.
- Saw all headlines from diff sources that I like.
- Clicked the title and read the content.
Everything just worked perfectly.
Final Thoughts
Honestly, it was way easier than I expected. I’m no programmer, but I managed to get a working news thingy in, like, an hour? Whippet’s pretty cool for simple stuff like this. Might even try adding more features later, who knows.
