Autoscrolling text for lazy reading

Author: Solène

Date: 17 May 2018

Tags: unix

NILToday I found a software named

[Lazyread](http://lazyread.sourceforge.net/) which can read and

display file an autoscroll at a chosen speed. I had to read its source

code to make it work, the documentation isn't very helpful, it doesn't

read ebooks (as in epub or mobi format) and doesn't support

stdin... This software requires some C code + a shell wrapper to

works, it's complicated for _only_ scrolling.

So, after thinking a few minutes, the autoscroll can be reproduced

easily with a very simple awk command. Of course, it will not have the

interactive keys like lazyread to increase/decrease speed or some

others options, but the most important part is there: **autoscrolling**.

If you want to read a file with a rate of 1 line per 700 millisecond,

just type the following command:

$ awk '{system("sleep 0.7");print}' file

Do you want to read an html file (documentation file on the disk or

from the web), you can use lynx or w3m to convert the html file on the

fly to a readable text and pass it to awk stdin.

$ w3m -dump doc/slsh/slshfun-2.html | awk '{system("sleep 0.7");print}'

$ lynx -dump doc/slsh/slshfun-2.html | awk '{system("sleep 0.7");print}'

$ w3m -dump https://dataswamp.org/~solene/ | awk '{system("sleep 0.7");print}'

Maybe you want to read a man page?

$ man awk | awk '{system("sleep 0.7");print}'

If you want to pause the reading, you can use the true unix way,

Ctrl+Z to send a signal which will stop the command and let it paused

in background. You can resume the reading by typing `fg`.

One could easily write a little script parsing parameters for setting

the speed or handling files or url with the correct command.

Notes: If for some reasons you try to use *lazyread*, fix the shebang

in the file lesspipe.sh and you will need to call lazyread binary with

the environment variable `LESSOPEN="|./lesspipe.sh %s"` (the path of

the script if needed). Without this variable, you will have a very

helpful error "file not found".