PowerShell NewsBlur API and Push with Boxcar

Posted: 02/03/2014 in PowerShell
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I’ve been using IFTTT for a while now and its really changing the way I use online services. Just recently they added Channels for NewsBlur and Boxcar which allows for some really interesting Recipes, such as if there is a new blog post (NewsBlur) then let you know via a Push notification to your mobile device (Boxcar). This works great for the majority of my feeds but there are some that are just to busy and need to be filtered on certain keywords or RegEx matches before sending me Push notifications, as this is not currently possible (hoping it will one day) I set out to do it myself..

Thankfully NewsBlur provide a simple web based API which can be easily access with PowerShell.

First we must login to the API

$postParams = @{username='jfrmilner';password='new$blur'}
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri 'https://www.newsblur.com/api/login' -Method Post -Body $postParams -SessionVariable newsblur

In the above lines we pass the credentials to the NewsBlur endpoint and store the session in a variable $newsblur.

$stories = @()
foreach ($i in 1..20) {
$postParams = @{page="$i";read_filter="unread"}
$newsContent = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri 'https://www.newsblur.com/reader/feed/4340960' -Method Get -WebSession $newsblur -Body $postParams
$stories += $newsContent.Content | ConvertFrom-Json
}

In the above lines we create an array to store our stories and then collect 20 pages of results from NewsBlur that are unread. The ability to get only unread messages is one of the main reasons I collect the feeds from NewsBlur rather than directly from the sites RSS feed.

The above feed is actually for HotUKDeals. HotUKDeals allow you to customise your own RSS feeds which is nice so for this example I setup one for Gaming deals in the UK – http://www.hotukdeals.com/rss/jfrmilner. You will also notice the feed uses a numeric ID, you can obtain this with a GET /reader/feeds call but for quick ad-hoc use the NewsBlur web portal, click your feed and you will see the number in the address bar, for example:

NewsBlurWebPortalIDLookup

$myWatchList = $stories.stories | ? { $_.story_title -match "Humble|Uncharted 3" }

In the above line I use a simple RegEx to filter for stories that mention Humble or Uncharted 3.

NewsBlurResults1

In the above screenshot we can confirm this is working as expected; now I just need to Push this information to my phone.

Now we will just loop the results to the Send-BoxcarPush function I created my previous post.

foreach ($story in $myWatchList) {
Send-BoxcarPush -notificationTitle $story.story_title -notificationLongMessage $story.story_permalink -notificationSound cash
}

And to the notification sound of cash (the cash I’ll be saving) my phone lights up

NewsBlurResults2

#POST /reader/mark_feed_as_read
$postParams = @{feed_id=4340960}
$newsContent = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri 'https://www.newsblur.com/reader/mark_feed_as_read' -Method POST -WebSession $newsblur -Body $postParams

In the above lines we mark the feed as read to prevent getting duplicate notifications.

#POST /api/logout
#Logout the currently logged in user.
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri 'https://www.newsblur.com/api/logout' -Method POST -WebSession $newsblur

And finally we logout in the above lines.

Now all you need to do is sent this up as a scheduled task in Windows to run as frequently as you need.

As always thank you for reading and if you found this post useful please share and/or leave a comment.

Regards, jfrmilner

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