coursera_offline 1.0.0

Download Coursera videos for offline viewing

Coursera Offline
================

Download and save the video lectures of your favorite courses for
offline viewing.

Contents
========

- `Installation <#installation>`__
- `Proxy Settings <#for-those-behind-proxy>`__
- `Requires <#requires>`__
- `Running <#running>`__
- `Features <#features>`__
- `Full Usage <#full-usage>`__
- `Some sample invocations <#some-sample-invocations>`__
- `First time download <#first-time-download>`__
- `Obtaining the shortname <#obtaining-the-shortname>`__
- `Synching <#synching>`__
- `Auto Synch <#auto-synch>`__
- `Fetch using file <#fetch-using-file>`__

Installation
------------

- Make sure you have python version 2.7 installed. If you don't have
python, get it from
`here <https://www.python.org/download/releases/2.7/>`__
- If you have python and are not sure of the version, type
``python -V`` in the terminal. If it says 2.7.x+ then you may proceed
to the next instruction. Otherwise, go to the link provided above.
- Install ``pip`` using ``sudo apt-get install python-pip``. Install
the application using ``sudo pip install coursera_offline``
- Before proceeding to the next step, make sure you have ``setuptools``
module installed. If it isn't, you can find the installation
instructions
`here <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/setuptools#installation-instructions>`__.
- If you don't want to install pip, you can download the tar.gz from
`PyPi <https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/c/coursera_offline/coursera_offline-0.1.0.tar.gz>`__
or zip from
`Github <https://github.com/sanketh95/coursera-offline/archive/master.zip>`__,
extract the archive file and follow the installation instructions in
the README.txt file.
- You may also clone the repo onto your local workstation and follow
the instructions in the README.txt file
``git clone https://github.com/sanketh95/coursera-offline``

For those behind proxy
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You just need to set ``HTTP_PROXY`` and ``HTTPS_PROXY`` environment
variables and python automatically sends all requests through proxy.
Here's the way to set proxy in windows and linux

Windows
'''''''

Run ``set HTTP_PROXY=http://user:password@address:port`` and
``set HTTPS_PROXY=https://user:password@address:port``

Linux
'''''

Run ``export HTTP_PROXY=http://user:password@address:port`` and
``export HTTPS_PROXY=https://user:password@address:port``

REQUIRES
~~~~~~~~

- Python2.7
- pyquery 1.2.9
- crontab 1.8.1

**Note:** You need not install the requirements manually, the setup
script takes care of installing them for you.

Running
-------

Windows
~~~~~~~

- Open command prompt and change the ``cd`` into the directory
containing **coursera-offline** and run
``python coursera_offline -h``

Linux
~~~~~

- Open terminal and run ``coursera_offline -h``.

Features
--------

- All the videos are downloaded according to the folder structure and
you don't need to take care of sorting the videos into separate
folders manually.
- You need not track the order of the videos/weeks as the script
intentionally renames them so that the week and video order
maintained.
- The downloads are lightning fast as the videos are downloaded
parallely.
- The script creates a crontab entry automatically to fetch any newly
added videos in the course. You can also force synch with Coursera
just by running a simple command.
- The script also downloads the subtitles automatically and saves them
in *Subs* folder. So when you play the videos using VLC, the subs are
automatically loaded.
- The script saves a *data.json* file in the course directory. This has
all the information required to fetch the videos. So even if you lose
some videos or if you forget the course name, as long as you have the
*data.json* file, you can always re-download the lost videos.

Full Usage
----------

::

usage: coursera_offline [-h] [-s SHORTNAME] [-e EMAIL] [-p PASSWORD] [-S] [-f]
[-d DIR] [-a [AUTO]]

optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-s SHORTNAME, --shortname SHORTNAME
Short name of the course being downloaded. This option
is required when running the script for the first time
-e EMAIL, --email EMAIL
Email id registered with Coursera
-p PASSWORD, --password PASSWORD
Coursera Password
-S, --synch Give this flag to synch with Coursera
-f, --file Give this flag to force the script to obtain the
course information from data.json instead of Coursera
-d DIR, --dir DIR Give this option to save the videos in the path
specified as argument. Defaults to Present Working
Directory (PWD).
-a [AUTO], --auto [AUTO]
Give this option to create a crontab entry inorder to
automatically synch with Coursera. Argument must one
among 'MON', 'TUE', 'WED', 'THU', 'FRI', 'SAT', 'SUN'.
The argument is optional and defaults to 'SUN'

Some sample invocations
-----------------------

**Note:** In order to download some courses, you need to register to the
course and accept the honor code in Coursera site before running the
script.

Let's say you're downloading a course called **Introduction to Logic**
and you want to download it to the ``~/Logic`` directory.

First time download
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

::

coursera_offline -d ~/Logic -s intrologic-005 -e <email> -p <password>

Do this to download the video lectures arranged as per weeks. This
creates the ``Logic`` directory in the home directory (if it doesn't
exist) and downloads all the videos into this directory. This also
creates a ``data.json`` file that contains all the information requried
to download the videos.

The argument **intrologic-005** is called the **shortname** and is
unique for every course. It can be obtained from the class url. For
example for the course under discussion, the url is
https://class.coursera.org/intrologic-005.

Obtaining the shortname
'''''''''''''''''''''''

- Signin to Coursera from
`here <https://accounts.coursera.org/signin>`__.
- You'll be redirected to a page containing all your registered
courses.
- Choose the course you want to download and click the **Go to class**
button.
- You'll be redirected to the class page whose url looks like
``https://class.coursera.org/<short name>``.
- Copy the short name.

**Note:** If the ``-d`` options is not given, the videos will be
downloaded to the current working directory.

Synching
^^^^^^^^

::

coursera_offline -d ~/Logic -S -e <email> -p <password>

Okay, so you've been a few weeks into the course, now u need to fetch
the updated videos. Don't worry, there's a way to do it ! The above
command takes care of fetching the updated video content and synching it
with your local directories.

Auto Synch
^^^^^^^^^^

::

coursera_offline -a <Day of the week> -s intrologic-005 -e <email> -p <password>

You're downloading the course for the first time, and you don't want to
keep using the 'Synch' command whenever you want to update the video
content, you can just pass the ``-a`` flag which creates a crontab entry
for the Synch command whch will be run at 11:59:59 pm on that particular
day of the week. If no day is specified, it is defaulted to **Sunday**.

**Note:** You can still force the script to synch with Coursera by using
the Synch command described above.

Fetch using file
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

::

coursera_offline -d ~/Logic -f -e <email> -p <password>

So, you might be wondering the point of saving the ``data.json``, right
? That wasn't totally pointless. The file's data is acquired by fetching
the coursera video lectures page, parsing the html content. All the
information required to download that course's videos is in that file.
So, as long as you have the file, you can download the course without
fetching the lecture page and the above command is the way to do it.