---
name: "canto-curses"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "canto-curses"
version: "0.9.9-9"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/canto-curses"
---

# canto-curses(1)

An ncurses frontend for canto-daemon

## NAME

Canto-curses - An ncurses frontend for canto-daemon

## COMMAND LINE USAGE

canto-curses (options)

## OPTIONS

- \-V

  Print version info and exit.

- \-h/--help

  Print usage help

- \-v

  Enable verbose logging (debug)

- \-D/--dir \[directory\]

  Change base directory for canto-daemon (default: $XDG\_CONFIG\_HOME/canto)

- \--noplugins

  Disable all plugins

- \--enableplugins 'plugin1 plugin2...'

  Enable these plugins (overrides --noplugins)

- \--disableplugins 'plugin1 plugin2...'

  Disable these plugins

- \-a/--address \[IP\]

  Attempt to connect to address instead of local Unix socket, defaults to loopback (127.0.0.1)

- \-p/--port \[port\]

  Use port when listening with -a

- \-l

  Append pid to log filename (debug)

## GETTING STARTED

- **: (colon)**

  Will bring up the canto-curses command line

- **:help**

  Will bring up the internal help (more complete list of keybinds and commands)

## BASIC COMMANDS

- **:set browser \[browser\]**

  Set your favorite browser

- **:set browser.text \[True\|False\]**

  Set this to True if you're using a text based browser like elinks so canto-curses knows to give up the screen to it.

- **:add \[URL\] (username=user password=secret) (name="Some name")**

  Subscribe to a feed, with optional arguments

- **:del**

  Unsubscribe from the selected feed

## BASIC KEYBINDS

- **j/k up/down**

  Previous item / Next item

- **J/K**

  Previous tag / Next tag

- **PgUp/PgDown**

  Previous page / Next page

- **g**

  Goto the selected item in your browser

- **\<space\>**

  Open / close the internal item reader

- **c/v**

  Collapse (minimize) / uncollapse the selected tag

- **C/V**

  Collapse (minimize) / uncollapse all visible tags

## ADVANCED USAGE

Canto-curses supports a lot more features like categorizing feeds/tags, filtering and sorting, searching, and more that can be discovered with **:help**

It also supports a variety of **plugins** that can add a lot of extra functionality, which are included with this install or available on the homepage.

## PLUGINS

Plugins are packaged in \<prefix\>/canto/plugins (i.e. /usr/lib/canto/plugins) and can be enabled by copying them into your configuration directory (i.e. $XDG\_CONFIG\_HOME/canto/plugins). Many of them have configuration in them, so you may want to open the files to make changes. Here are a few example plugins included with the canto-curses source.

- autocmd.py

  Issue commands automatically on startup (useful to change configuration on startup)

- reader-extras.py

  Adds extra content to some feeds, also useful to see what's included in a feed.

- xtermtitle.py

  Set the title of xterm compatible terminals on startup, and optionally include selected item title

- yank.py

  Adds **:yank-link (defaults to 'y')** and **:yank-title** commands (needs xclip installed)

- favorites.py

  A proof of concept user "favorites" tag, that can change the appearance of certain items selected by the user.

- smartlink.py

  A plugin that lets you define specific handlers for links based on the URL or the output of \`file\` on the downloaded content. Useful for listening to podcast enclosures or displaying PDF/image/other content in a dedicated program.

- cleantitle.py

  A plugin that helps strip bad content (newlines, HTML, etc.) out of item titles

## FILES

- *$XDG\_CONFIG\_HOME/canto/curses-log*

  Canto-curses log file.

- *$XDG\_CONFIG\_HOME/canto/plugins/*

  Canto-curses enabled plugins directory

- */usr/lib/canto/plugins*

  Default packaged plugin directory.

## HOMEPAGE

http://codezen.org/canto-ng

## AUTHOR

Jack Miller \<jack@codezen.org\>

## SEE ALSO

[**canto-daemon**(1)](/canto-daemon/1.md) [**canto-remote**(1)](/canto-remote/1.md)