What is rtv?

Reddit Terminal Viewer, known as RTV, was a text-based application for browsing and interacting with Reddit directly inside a terminal window. It rendered the Reddit interface using the terminal's character display, letting users scroll through posts, read comment threads, log in, vote, and write replies without a web browser. The project is no longer actively maintained and the developer has formally shut it down. When it was active, RTV was available through pip, Homebrew on macOS, the Arch Linux package manager, Nix, Debian, and FreeBSD. It could also be tried over the network without installing anything, by connecting to a demonstration server via telnet or SSH. Navigation used either arrow keys or Vim-style movement keys. Users could browse front pages, specific subreddits, multi-reddits, user profile pages, and domain-filtered feeds by typing paths into a navigation prompt. The keyboard shortcut reference is documented in a separate CONTROLS file in the repository. RTV supported themes for changing the color scheme, including prebuilt options like Solarized Dark and Papercolor. Configuration lived in a file stored in the home directory. Media links such as images and videos could be opened by configuring a mailcap file, which maps file types to specific programs on your system. Environment variables let users choose which editor opens for composing posts, which browser handles external links, and which tool extracts URLs from text blocks. Clipboard support on Linux required either xsel or xclip. The codebase is written in Python and distributed under the MIT license. The repository and controls reference remain publicly available, and the developer posted a gist listing alternative projects for those looking for a maintained replacement.