get_iplayer_downloader is a GUI download utility for the BBC get_iplayer program. It displays episodes in a large tree view with three text columns: series title, series categories and episode title plus episode description.
Features:
- Find episodes. Filter on categories, channels, recently cached episodes
- Download episodes or queue episodes for download
- Visit the episode's "BBC iPlayer" web page
- View episode properties
- View download logs and errors
Screenshots:
About:
This is a small utility program for me to try and find out the capabilities of the standard Python libraries and GTK+ 3. This is after I tried creating a version of the downloader with zenity in bash, which was far too slow.
This program works best on a high resolution screen. You can continue using the program, while get_iplayer is downloading in the background. There is also an option to run get_iplayer in a terminal emulator window when it is downloading episodes.
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This program is licensed under GPLv3 (see included COPYING file).
Disclaimer: this program does not perform any downloading itself. It relies on the get_iplayer program to perform the actual downloading.
The dependencies are:
- get_iplayer and its dependencies
http://www.infradead.org/get_iplayer/html/get_iplayer.html - Python 3 (3.2 or higher)
- Python 3 setuptools for Distutils, used to install get_iplayer_downloader. On Debian/Ubuntu, package: python3-setuptools
- Python 3 GI/GIR (GObject Introspection Repository) libraries. On Debian/Ubuntu, packages: python3-gi, python3-gi-cairo
- GTK+ 3 libraries (3.14 or higher). On Debian/Ubuntu, package: gir*-gtk-3* (* is a wildcard character)
- Linux. This program may work on other platforms with a few minor changes, however, that has not been tested
In short:
- The get_iplayer_downloader preset names should refer to existing get_iplayer presets (by default, files "tv" and "radio" in ~/.get_iplayer/presets/)
- The get_iplayer "info" property needs to be disabled by default (in the preset files)
- To modify the category or channel filters, the configuration file needs to be edited manually
get_iplayer_downloader's default configuration has two get_iplayer presets defined:
- radio - for radio episodes
- tv - for television episodes
The preset names are configurable. There is also an option in get_iplayer_downloader to disable the use of get_iplayer presets.
To configure get_iplayer for use with two presets, either reuse existing preset files or create new preset files. To create new preset files, run get_iplayer --preset=radio --prefs-add ..., etc., or create and edit the preset files ~/.get_iplayer/presets/radio and ~/.get_iplayer/presets/tv directly.
Here are two preset file examples. Lines starting with # are commented out. The "info" property should not be set or should be disabled by default, otherwise displaying episode search results will take a very long time.
File ~/.get_iplayer/presets/radio:
#command /usr/share/get_iplayer_downloader/scripts/get_iplayer_post_subdir.py --categories="<categories>" --dir="<dir>" --filename="<filename>" --subdir-format="bbc.<week>//<categorymain>_<categorysub>//<longname>" --force
info 0
output /home/willemw12/Music/bbc
#radiomode better
File ~/.get_iplayer/presets/tv:
#command /usr/share/get_iplayer_downloader/scripts/get_iplayer_post_subdir.py --categories="<categories>" --dir="<dir>" --filename="<filename>" --subdir-format="bbc.<week>//<categorymain>_<categorysub>//<longname>" --force
info 0
output /home/willemw12/Videos/bbc
#tvmode good,better
Verify that get_iplayer --preset=radio ... and get_iplayer --preset=tv ... work properly from the command line.
Optionally, setup a get_iplayer pvr scheduler (a cron job) to download queued episodes. Check the get_iplayer documentation on how to do that.
Most configuration options can be managed from the GUI. Other options can be found in the configuration file (~/.config/get_iplayer_downloader/config), which will be created after running the program for the first time. Make sure the program is not running, before editing the configuration file.
Leave options, such as Channels and Download folder, empty in Preferences to use the default value specified in get_iplayer.
Before downloading episodes for the first time, verify the download paths and, optionally, the terminal emulator program name and program arguments.
When searching for episodes, add a minus sign in front of the whole search term to exclude it from the search.
If the program crashes immediately on startup or when the mouse cursor moves over the first column in the episode list, disable the "show-tooltip" option or update GNOME 3 (or just update the GTK+ 3 and GI/GIR libraries).
The radio and tv category lists and the radio channel list are very long and have been reduced to what is on the BBC iPlayer Radio and TV web pages. You can define your own search categories by editing the configuration file (they are lists of key-value pairs, i.e. lists of "search term"-"GUI label" pairs). File ./extra/my_default.config is an example of that. To generate lists containing all the available categories and channels, which can be put in the configuration file, run from this directory:
$ ./get_iplayer_downloader.py --list-categories --quiet
$ ./get_iplayer_downloader.py --list-channels --quiet
Add a minus sign in front of a channel or a category to exclude it from the search and cache refresh.
There are several ways to install the program. See below.
To execute without installing, run:
$ <path to this directory>/src/get_iplayer_downloader.py
Or create a symbolic link of get_iplayer_downloader.py to a directory in $PATH. From this directory, run:
$ ln -s $(pwd)/src/get_iplayer_downloader.py ~/bin/gipd
and then run:
$ gipd
This should work on any Linux distribution. Run from this directory:
$ ./install.sh
To uninstall, run from this directory:
$ ./uninstall.sh
When python has been upgraded to a newer minor version, then uninstall and install again.
To install the latest git version:
$ ./install-pkg-git.sh
To install the latest version:
$ ./install-pkg.sh
Warning: this may not work. Distutils command "bdist_deb" in package "python-stdeb" is required for Python 3.
Install build and package tools (run as root)
# apt-get install python-stdeb
Then
$ ./install-deb.sh
The keyboard shortcuts are:
Shortcut Command Description
alt+enter Properties View properties of the highlighted episode
ctrl+c Clear Clear episode download selection
ctrl+d Download Download selected episodes
ctrl+f Find Go to search entry field on the tool bar
ctrl+l Log View download log
ctrl+p Play Go to BBC iPlayer web page of the highlighted episode
ctrl+q Queue Queue selected episodes for one-off downloading
ctrl+r Refresh Refresh episode cache, limited of the selected programme type (radio or TV)
ctrl+s, ctrl+shift+s Since Select since episodes were added to the search cache
ctrl+t Type Select programme type (radio or TV)
f1 Help View keyboard shortcuts
ctrl+1 Type
ctrl+2 Category
ctrl+3 Channel
ctrl+4, ctrl+5 Since
down-arrow Go from tool bar to episode list
space or enter Toggle selection in the episode list
Q: How to have episodes in separate subfolders, grouped by main category and subcategories or by week?
A: Use the get_iplayer_post_subdir.py script.
File ./extra/get_iplayer_post_subdir.py is a get_iplayer post-processing script. It is an extension to the get_iplayer "subdir" output option. It requires get_iplayer_downloader to be installed and it does not update the download location recorded in the (localfiles) download history. The script supports additional formatting fields (categorymain, categorysub, week) in the subdirectory names. Field <categorymain> is the same as field <category> from get_iplayer. For more information, run:
$ ./extra/get_iplayer_post_subdir.py --help
The script is installed in /usr/share/get_iplayer_downloader/scripts or in /usr/local/share/get_iplayer_downloader/scripts.
To configure get_iplayer to use this script, put for example in ~/.get_iplayer/presets/tv:
command /usr/share/get_iplayer_downloader/scripts/get_iplayer_post_subdir.py --categories="<categories>" --dir="<dir>" --filename="<filename>" --force --subdir-format="bbc.<week>//<categorymain>_<categorysub>//<longname>"