# RCWeb News Control

**News Control** is the phone-friendly companion to the **news** viewer. It shows what is currently on the display, lets you cycle through the loaded screens, and reconfigures which categories the viewer will pull from [thenewsapi.com](https://www.thenewsapi.com/).

![icon](pwa-512x512.png "News Control Icon")

## What it does

- Shows a thumbnail of the current screen's hero article
- Lists every article on the current screen with title, snippet, source and timestamp
- Provides large touch buttons for **Prev**, **Play / Pause**, and **Next**
- Provides a tappable category grid; toggling a category instantly reconfigures the viewer
- Provides a **Refresh headlines** action that pulls a fresh batch on the viewer
- Includes a link to the current hero article

## RCWeb communication

The viewer owns all news state. The control sends commands to the viewer:

```javascript
rc.sendFunctionCall("news", "newsViewer.prev");
rc.sendFunctionCall("news", "newsViewer.next");
rc.sendFunctionCall("news", "newsViewer.toggle");
rc.sendFunctionCall("news", "newsViewer.refresh");
rc.sendFunctionCall("news", "newsViewer.setCategories", ["general", "tech"]);
rc.sendFunctionCall("news", "newsViewer.requestState", rc.client);
```

The viewer pushes snapshots to controls through the global callback:

```javascript
newsControl.receiveState(snapshot);
```

The snapshot contains the active screen index and total, the play state, the active categories list and the master list of all available categories so the control can render the picker even before the user changes anything.

## Browser support

Written in ES5 with `XMLHttpRequest`-compatible state handling, simple flexbox controls, and conservative CSS for older mobile browsers.

## URL

`/news-c/?r=<room>`