mal-tier-list-bbcode-gen 2021.4.28

BBCode generator for MyAnimeList tier lists

MAL Tier List BBCode Generator

mal-tier-list-bbcode-gen is a Python package that generates BBCode for tier lists with custom images corresponding to entries in MAL (characters, anime, manga, people). Each image is also a link to the respective entry's MAL page.

Example character tier list

Installation

pip install mal-tier-list-bbcode-gen

or

git clone https://github.com/juliamarc/mal-tier-list-bbcode-gen
cd mal-tier-list-bbcode-gen
python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

For Windows use venv\Scripts\activate.bat or venv\Scripts\activate.ps1 to activate the virtual environment.

User guide

Tiers

Each tier is represented by one sheet of the tiers.ods spreadsheet. By default there are 7 tiers named 'tier S', 'tier A', 'tier B' ..., 'tier F'. I provided an example filled out tier in the sheet named EXAMPLE TIER.

Headers

Each tier has a header. The headers are images. I provided a default header for each tier in tiers.ods (color-coded in the typical tier list style).

Some example headers and the .xcf file (GIMP format) that was used to generate them can be found in example-headers.

Entries

Each entry consists of a link to MAL and a link to an image.

Image source

The images need to be hosted somewhere. Currently there are two options:

• upload your images to an image hosting service like Postimages and use the direct URL, or
• upload your images to Google Drive
  • create a folder for the images
  • make it public ("Anyone with the link can view")
  • use the generated share links ("Get sharable link" for each image)

Image size

It's best for all the images to be the same size. MAL's BBCode doesn't allow for resizing, so the desired image size needs to be set before upload.

Another tip on image size is to make the header width divisible by the entry image's width so they tile nicely.

Settings

Basic settings can be found in the SETTINGS sheet. Curretnly there are two settings:

• "Tier order" - list of the tier sheets that will be included in the BBCode and the order in which they will be displayed
• "Entries per row" - how many entries will be displayed in one row

Usage

You can edit the tiers.ods spreadsheet directly or create a copy of it. I will show an example for tiers.ods here, but if your file is named differently replace tiers with your file's name.

1. Fill out tiers.ods
2. Run
   • mal-tier-list-bbcode-gen tiers.ods if you installed with pip, or
   • python -m mal_tier_list_bbcode_gen tiers.ods if you used git clone

The BBCode can be found in tiers.bbcode.txt and a preview of it is in preview.html.

Adding a tier

Add a sheet to the spreadsheet and add its name to the "Tier order" in SETTINGS.

Removing a tier

Delete the tier's name from the "Tier order" in SETTINGS. The sheet doesn't have to be removed from the spreadsheet.