rsvp-term

A terminal UI for RSVP (Rapid Serial Visual Presentation) speed reading of Markdown and EPUB files.

What is RSVP?

RSVP = Read Si Vous Plait (French for "read, if you please") — and also known as Rapid Serial Visual Presentation.

RSVP displays text one word at a time at a fixed position, eliminating eye movement and enabling faster reading. This implementation uses ORP (Optimal Recognition Point) highlighting - the letter your eye naturally focuses on is highlighted in red and centered.

Features

• ORP-centered display - Spritz-style word presentation with optimal recognition point
• Markdown support - Parses CommonMark with GFM tables
• EPUB support - Read EPUB books directly, or export chapters to Markdown
• Context display - Faded surrounding text above/below current word
• Outline navigation - Jump between sections via heading outline
• Adaptive timing - Longer words, punctuation, and paragraph breaks get extra display time
• Vim-style controls - Familiar keybindings for navigation

Installation

cargo install --path .

Or build from source:

cargo build --release
./target/release/rsvp-term document.md

Usage

# Read a Markdown file
rsvp-term document.md

# Read an EPUB book
rsvp-term book.epub

# Export EPUB chapters to Markdown files
rsvp-term book.epub --export-md

Controls

Key	Action
Space	Pause/Resume
j / ↓	Slower (-25 WPM)
k / ↑	Faster (+25 WPM)
h / ←	Rewind ~10 words
l / →	Skip ~10 words
o	Toggle outline view
Enter	Jump to section (in outline)
q	Quit
?	Toggle help
Ctrl+C	Force quit

How It Works

1. Parsing - Markdown/EPUB is parsed into tokens with style (bold, italic, code, link) and block context (paragraph, list, quote, heading)

2. Timing - Each word gets a base duration (60000ms / WPM) plus modifiers:

   • Long words: +10-20ms per character over 6
   • Punctuation: +150-200ms for commas, periods, etc.
   • Structure: +150-300ms for new blocks/paragraphs

3. ORP Calculation - The optimal recognition point is ~1/3 into the word:

   • 1-3 chars: position 0
   • 4-6 chars: position 1
   • 7-9 chars: position 2
   • 10+ chars: position 3

4. Display - Word is centered on ORP position, with context lines fading by distance

Dependencies

• ratatui - Terminal UI framework
• crossterm - Cross-platform terminal handling
• markdown-it - CommonMark parser
• epub - EPUB reader
• clap - CLI argument parsing

License

MIT