futurelearn-dl

An early Python3ic attempt at automating downloads from the FutureLearn website (for enrolled courses).

There are no doubt problems with this, but it seems to work on my initial tests

TESTED: Tested on Windows 8 under Cygwin, using Anaconda Python3. Should work for other installations ... YMMV

futurelearn-dl.py:

First attempt at a Python3 version.

Currently succeeds to obtain authenticity_token and to login using this token.

It then

• downloads the appropriate course page
• downloads each 'week' page for the course
• downloads each 'step' page for each week of the course
• finds downloadabls urls (pdf and mp4 for the moment) in each 'step' page
• it chooses a filename (not a meaningful one for mp4) and downloads to that file
  • skips already downloaded files
  • it skips the file if it contains "request signature": seems to indicate a video file which isn't available yet

TEST_futurelearn-dl.py.sh:

This is simply a template for calling futurelearn-dl.py.

Put your email, password and course_id as arguments within this file

Usage:

''' futurelearn-dl.py <course_id> <course_run>[<week_num>]

e.g.

for run 1 of data-to-insight

futurelearn-dl.py  user password data-to-insight 1

or to get just week1:

futurelearn-dl.py  user password data-to-insight 1 1

'''

Note: To override the temp file directory export TMP_DIR=/tmp

Note: To override the output file root directory export OP_DIR=/e/Education/FUTURELEARN

Note: Under cygwin, Anaconda I needed to set in the form DRIVE:/path e.g. export OP_DIR=e:/Education/FUTURELEARN

TODO:

• Fix unicode errors
• Extend to more download types
• Lots more ...