🎲 Daily Random xkcd 🎲

📖 About

This repository automatically generates a daily random xkcd comic and serves it as an RSS feed. Each day, a new comic is fetched, formatted, and made available for subscription. Users can configure RSS feed reader to send email notifications whenever a new comic is available in the feed. It also features a fun xkcd-themed 404 error page that showcases a random comic in a playful layout.

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🌟 Features

• 🕒 Daily random xkcd comic fetching.
• 📡 Generates an RSS feed that updates with new comic details.
• 🔄 Tracks seen comics to avoid duplicates via seen_comics.json.
• 🎨 Custom xkcd 404 HTML page showcasing a random comic in a unique format.

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⚙️ How It Works

1. 🕔 Daily Trigger: A GitHub Actions workflow is triggered every day at 8:00 AM UTC+3 to run a Python script (generate_rss.py).
2. 📥 Random Comic Fetch: The script fetches a random comic from the xkcd API, ensuring it hasn’t been seen before.
3. 📝 XML Generation: Comic details are formatted as XML and saved to docs/xkcd_feed.xml.
4. 🗂️ Seen Comics Tracking: The comics are tracked in seen_comics.json to avoid repeats.
5. 🚀 RSS Hosting: The RSS feed is hosted on GitHub for easy access by RSS web feeds.
6. 📧 Email Notifications: RSS feed reader monitors the feed and sends email alerts when a new comic is available.
7. 💡 404 Page: A Python script generates an xkcd-themed 404 page with a random comic.

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🛠️ Getting Started

You can use this tool in two ways:

1. Use the Pre-Generated RSS Feed Hosted by GitHub

• Subscribe to the Daily Random XKCD RSS Feed.
• Optionally, configure email notifications via RSS feed readers or any other RSS service to receive daily updates whenever a new comic is available.

2. Fork the Repository and Automate Your Own Feed

If you’d like to run your own instance of this tool:

1. Fork this repository to your GitHub account.
2. Enable GitHub Actions in your forked repository.
3. Set up RSS feed reader:
   • Create a new RSS feed alert for the URL.
   • Configure email notifications based on your preferences.
4. Enjoy daily xkcd emails and check the latest comic each day.
5. Access the 404 Page whenever you want a random xkcd comic.

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🔗 Links

• 🚧 404 HTML Page
  A beautifully styled 404 page demonstrating an XKCD comic.

• 📡 RSS Comic Feed
  An RSS feed of random XKCD comics, formatted in XML.

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📂 Files

• generate_rss.py: Python script to fetch a random xkcd comic, track seen comics, and generate the RSS feed.
• generate_html_404_style_xkcd.py: Python script to generate the random xkcd-themed 404 page.
• seen_comics.json: JSON file that tracks comics to prevent repeats.
• docs/rss/xkcd_feed.xml: RSS feed with the latest comic details.
• docs/404/xkcd_404_style.html: HTML file for the 404 page.
• .github/workflows/update_xkcd_rss_feed.yaml: GitHub Actions workflow to update the RSS feed daily.
• .github/workflows/update_html_404.yaml: GitHub Actions workflow to update the 404 page daily.

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🔮 Future Expansion

We plan to expand this project to include other webcomics such as Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (SMBC). The vision includes:

• Daily Fetching: Automatically fetching a random SMBC comic each day, similar to the xkcd functionality.
• Separate RSS Feeds: Creating distinct RSS feeds for each comic to cater to different audiences.
• Integration: Providing a unified interface for users to subscribe to multiple comic feeds simultaneously.
• Themed Error Pages: Developing themed 404 pages for each comic style, making the error experience unique and enjoyable.

Stay tuned for updates as we explore these exciting new features!

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📝 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for more details.

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🙏 Acknowledgements

• Thanks to xkcd for their amazing comics.
• Shoutout to GitHub Actions for making automation easy.
• Thanks to Feedrabbit for helping automate RSS-to-email services.

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📬 Contact

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to open an issue in this repository!