[Sugar-devel] Some thoughts on GetBooks activity

[Chihurumnaya Ibiam]

Thanks for the update.

-- 

Ibiam Chihurumnaya
ibiam at sugarlabs.org



On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 5:15 PM James Simmons <nicestep at gmail.com> wrote:

> I tried updating feedparser.py with a later version that still fits in two
> files. It looks like the developers made some attempt to get it working
> with Python 3 but did not finish it. I spent a couple of hours with it and
> it looks like it's working. I can browse OPDS feeds now. That's the good
> news.
>
> The bad news is it looks like the OPDS feeds for Feedbooks don't exist
> anymore and in a month or so Feedbooks itself won't exist. I'm looking into
> alternative feeds.
>
> The Internet Archive feeds work. I'm thinking of getting rid of one. It is
> supposed to list books in alpha order. What it actually does is list out
> letters of the alphabet and there appears to be no way to drill down to see
> books for that letter. Even if you could do that, the lists would be too
> long to be useful.
>
> There are other lists I might add for Internet Archive. For example, there
> is one for Kids books.
>
> Clicking on a book in one of these lists should make it available for
> download. That isn't working now. I'll fix it.
>
> There is a way to list out My Books, which are books in your journal. It
> looks like you can copy books from thumb drives into the Journal too. Looks
> a bit like my Sugar Commander Activity.
>
> In any case, I think I can make this Activity worth having.
>
> James Simmons
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 5, 2024 at 11:20 AM James Simmons <nicestep at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> It turns out that feedparser has a version that is new enough to support
>> Python 3 but old enough to fit in two files, one of which replaces sgml.py.
>> I can get rid of the current files instead of trying to make them work with
>> Python 3 myself. I'm going to try this tonight.
>>
>> It also turns out that the Activity does use OPDS for Internet Archive,
>> just not for book searches. It uses it to browse catalogs like most
>> downloaded, newly added, alphabetical by title, etc. So if I got that
>> working we'd have a fancier Get IA Books even if Feedbooks goes away.
>>
>> James Simmons
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 5, 2024 at 10:07 AM Chihurumnaya Ibiam <ibiam at sugarlabs.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Agreed, activities depending on external APIs are difficult to maintain
>>> and if anyone is willing to do it
>>> then it can work.
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Ibiam Chihurumnaya
>>> ibiam at sugarlabs.org
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 5, 2024 at 6:04 AM James Cameron <quozl at laptop.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Yes, I remember some of this from when I last maintained those
>>>> activities.
>>>>
>>>> I felt that activities that depended on external APIs become difficult
>>>> to maintain.  ;-)
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Mar 04, 2024 at 01:46:44PM -0600, James Simmons wrote:
>>>> > Back in 2009 I wrote the Get IA Books activity which uses the
>>>> Advanced Search
>>>> > service of the Internet Archive to search their catalog and makes it
>>>> possible
>>>> > to download these books to the Journal and put some metadata in there
>>>> as well.
>>>> >
>>>> > Shortly after I finished this Sayamindu Dasgupta made a similar
>>>> Activity that
>>>> > used OPDS to search book catalogs. Specifically he was interested in
>>>> using OPDS
>>>> > to search [1]https://www.feedbooks.com, which had an OPDS server
>>>> that included
>>>> > public domain books. He also made it possible for the Activity user
>>>> to add an
>>>> > entry for his own OPDS server, but you had to edit a text file using
>>>> the
>>>> > Terminal activity to do it.
>>>> >
>>>> > I have just fixed my own Activity to work with Python 3 and wanted to
>>>> try
>>>> > fixing this one too. I've run into a few problems which makes me
>>>> think this
>>>> > Activity might not be fixable.
>>>> >
>>>> > 1. Feedbooks.com is going out of business very soon. It is possible
>>>> that their
>>>> > OPDS server is already not working: [2]
>>>> https://www.feedbooks.com/catalog/
>>>> > public_domain
>>>> > 2. There are other ODPS servers, but not for public domain titles:
>>>> [3]http://
>>>> > opdshome.uo1.net/
>>>> > 3. The Internet Archive has an OPDS server but this Activity doesn't
>>>> use it.
>>>> > Instead it adapted code from my GetIABooks activity. Apparently the
>>>> IA OPDS
>>>> > server had issues when this was written.
>>>> > 3. The Activity makes use of code from [4]http://feedparser.org/.
>>>> > Unfortunately, the latest version of this cannot be contained in just
>>>> one file.
>>>> > The old version depends on sgmllib.py, which was included with Python
>>>> 2 but not
>>>> > with 3. Somebody found the code for this and ran it through a Python
>>>> 2 to 3
>>>> > converter. I added this to the project.
>>>> > 4. I managed to convert enough code in feedparser.py and sgmllib.py
>>>> to get the
>>>> > Activity to run without generating diagnostic messages. I have no
>>>> idea if it is
>>>> > actually working.
>>>> >
>>>> > Thoughts?
>>>> >
>>>> > James Simmons
>>>> >
>>>> > References:
>>>> >
>>>> > [1] https://www.feedbooks.com/
>>>> > [2] https://www.feedbooks.com/catalog/public_domain
>>>> > [3] http://opdshome.uo1.net/
>>>> > [4] http://feedparser.org/
>>>>
>>>> > _______________________________________________
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>>>> > Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>> > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>>>
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>>>
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