Liferea Plugin Filter

A Liferea RSS/Atom feed reader plugin that hides articles matching configurable filter patterns. Supports both global filters and per-feed filters with real-time and periodic scanning.

Requirements

• Liferea 1.15.x (GTK3 / Liferea-3.0 GIR)
• Python 3.x with GObject Introspection

Features

• Global patterns — apply to every feed
• Feed-specific patterns — scoped to named feeds via [Feed Name] sections
• Case-insensitive regex matching — regex patterns are matched against article titles
• Real-time filtering — new articles are filtered immediately via row-inserted signal
• Periodic re-scan — catches late-arriving items every 2 seconds
• Automatic feed tracking — detects feed selection changes to apply correct patterns
• Clean deactivation — all signals and timeouts are disconnected on plugin disable

Installation

cp src/filter.plugin $HOME/.local/share/liferea/plugins/
cp src/liferea-plugin-filter.py $HOME/.local/share/liferea/plugins/
liferea

Then enable the plugin in Liferea: Edit → Plugins → Liferea Filter Articles.

Configuration

Create the configuration directory and file:

mkdir -p ~/.config/liferea-plugin-filter
touch ~/.config/liferea-plugin-filter/patterns.txt

Configuration can be hot reloaded in Liferea by disable / enable plugin.

Format

# Lines starting with # are comments
# Empty lines are skipped

# --- Global patterns (apply to all feeds) ---
breaking news
press release

# --- Feed-specific patterns ---
[The Example]
jesusphone review

[The Second]
kernel patch

• Patterns are regex substrings
• Matching is case-insensitive
• Feed names must match exactly as they appear in Liferea's feed list (Pango markup is stripped automatically)

Logging

Plugin output appears in the terminal when Liferea is started from the command line. Each message is prefixed with an ISO 8601 timestamp:

[2025-01-15T10:23:45.123456+00:00] liferea-plugin-filter: Plugin activated
[2025-01-15T10:23:45.123456+00:00]   Global regex patterns (2): ['breaking news', 'press release']
[2025-01-15T10:23:45.123456+00:00]   Feed-specific regex for "The Example" (1): ['jesusphone review']
[2025-01-15T10:23:45.123456+00:00]   Connected to feed selection changes, current feed: "The Example"
[2025-01-15T10:23:45.123456+00:00]   Filter active - scanning every 2000ms
[2025-01-15T10:23:47.123456+00:00]   REMOVED: JesusPhone X review: ...
[2025-01-15T10:23:49.123456+00:00]   REMOVED (live): breaking news: ...

Architecture

Component	Role
do_activate() -> None	Entry point — loads patterns, schedules on_ui_ready() via GLib.idle_add
do_deactivate() -> None	Cleans up: removes timeout source, disconnects model and feed-list signals
_on_ui_ready() -> bool	Finds the itemlist TreeView, sets up model signals, connects feed selection tracker, runs initial filter, starts periodic scan
_find_itemlist_treeview() -> Gtk.TreeView | None	Traverses widget hierarchy (normalViewItems / wideViewItems) to locate the article TreeView
_setup_model(model: Gtk.TreeModel) -> None	Connects row-inserted signal on the current model; disconnects old model if it changed
_on_feed_selection_changed(selection: Gtk.TreeSelection) -> None	Callback on feed selection change — updates current_feed_name so correct patterns apply
_on_row_inserted(model: Gtk.TreeModel, path: Gtk.TreePath, iterator: Gtk.TreeIter) -> None	Real-time callback — immediately removes newly inserted rows that match filters
_periodic_scan() -> bool	Runs every 2 s — detects model changes (feed switches) and re-filters to catch late arrivals
_load_filter_patterns() -> tuple[list[re.Pattern], dict[str, list[re.Pattern]]]	Reads patterns.txt, compiles regex patterns, returns global + feed-specific lists
_get_active_patterns() -> list[re.Pattern]	Combines global patterns with feed-specific patterns for the currently selected feed
_filter_items(model: Gtk.TreeModel) -> int	Two-pass scan: collects matching iterators, then removes them from the model
_item_matches_filter(model: Gtk.TreeModel, iterator: Gtk.TreeIter) -> tuple[bool, str]	Checks an article title (column 2) against all active patterns; returns (matched, title)
_get_selected_feed_name() -> str | None	Reads the selected feed from the feedlist TreeView, strips Pango markup
_log(msg: str) -> None	Logs the message to stdout
_to_str(val: Any) -> str	Safely converts a model column value to a string, guarding against None and GObject repr noise