BASC-Archiver 0.8.4

Makes a complete archive of imageboard threads including images, HTML, and JSON.

BASC Archiver

The BASC Archiver is a Python library (packaged with the thread-archiver script) used to archive imageboard threads. It uses the 4chan API with the py4chan wrapper. Developers are free to use the BASC-Archiver library for some interesting third-party applications, as it is licensed under the LGPLv3.

It comes with a CLI interface for archiving threads, the thread-archiver, with a GUI interface under development.

The thread-archiver is designed to archive all content from a 4chan thread:

• Download all images and/or thumbnails in given threads.

• (NEW!) Download all child threads (4chan threads referred to in a post)

• Download a JSON dump of thread comments using the 4chan API.

• Download the HTML page

• Convert links in HTML to use the downloaded images

• Download CSS/JS and convert HTML to use them

• Keep downloading until 404 (with a user-set delay)

• Can be restarted at any time

The thread-archiver replaces the typical “Right-click Save As, Web Page Complete” action, which does not save full-sized images or JSON. It works as a guerilla, static HTML alternative to Fuuka.

Usage

Usage:
  thread-archiver <url>... [options]
  thread-archiver -h | --help
  thread-archiver -v | --version

Options:
  --path=<string>            Path to folder where archives will be saved [default: ./archive]
  --runonce                  Downloads the thread as it is presently, then exits
  --delay=<float>            Delay between file downloads [default: 0]
  --poll-delay=<float>       Delay between thread checks [default: 20]
  --nothumbs                 Don't download thumbnails
  --thumbsonly               Download thumbnails, no images
  --ssl                      Download using HTTPS
  --follow-children          Follow threads linked in downloaded threads
  --follow-to-other-boards   Follow linked threads, even if from other boards
  --silent                   Suppresses mundane printouts, prints what's important
  --verbose                  Printout more information than normal
  -h --help                  Show help
  -v --version               Show version

Example

thread-archiver http://boards.4chan.org/b/res/423861837 --delay 5 --thumbsonly

Installation

The BASC-Archiver works on both Python 2.x and 3.x, and can be installed on Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X.

New stable releases can be found on our Releases page, or installed with the PyPi package BASC-Archiver.

Linux and OSX

1. Make sure you have Python installed.

2. Run easy_install basc-archiver

3. Run thread-archiver http://boards.4chan.org/etc/thread/12345

Threads will be saved in ./archive, but you can change that by supplying a directory with the --path= argument.

Windows

1. Download the latest release from our page.

2. Open up a command prompt window (cmd.exe), and move to the directory with thread-archiver.exe

3. Run thread-archiver.exe http://boards.4chan.org/etc/thread/12345

Using the Windows version will become simpler once we finish writing the GUI.

License

BASC-Archiver is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License v3.