Xultr, a free newspaper from Texas
A free online newspaper that gathers news from public sites. Texas first, then the world.
Xultr is a free newspaper I made. You say it like “culture.” In Spanish, that’s cultura.
It puts Texas news first, then the rest of the world. It looks and reads like a newspaper, but it lives online and it doesn’t cost anything.
Why I made it #
When it comes to news, I believe the information should be public.
So Xultr only pulls from news sites anyone can read. If a site makes you register or pay before you can read the story, I leave it out.
How it works #
Xultr doesn’t write the news. It gathers it. A site that does this is called a news aggregator: it collects stories from many places and puts them together in one spot.
Most news sites publish a feed. A feed is a simple list of their newest stories, kept up to date automatically, that other programs can read. It’s often called RSS. Xultr checks those feeds on its own throughout the day and adds the new stories.
Each story shows a short summary and where it came from. To read the whole thing, you tap Read the full story, and it opens on the original news site. The people who did the reporting get the visit.
What you can do there #
You can read everything without an account. If you sign up, which is free, you can also:
- Comment on stories and react to them.
- Save stories to read later.
- Follow the sections and news sites you like, so they show up in your own “My Paper.”
- Suggest a news site that should be added.
What it’s built with #
It’s written in PHP, a programming language that runs on most web hosting. I kept it plain on purpose, without extra frameworks or add-ons, so the code stays easy to read.
What’s next #
I plan to expand it, but not yet. For now, the focus is Texas first, then the world.