yorku-scheduler

Formats JSON output from yorku-class-scraper to a LaTeX timetable PDF.

Table of Contents

• What is this?
  • Why is this a separate program?
• Requirements
• Installation
  • Installing Through Git
• Running the Program
• Arguments
• Files in this Repository
• Donate

What is this?

This program inputs a JSON file generated by yorku-class-scraper, and the building and room you are looking for. This will output a LaTeX tex file that has the entire week's schedule of that class.

Why is this a separate program?

It's a separate program because if anyone wants to make something out of just yorku-class-scraper, they can (without all of this LaTeX conversion in this program).

Installation

To install this program, you have to clone this git repository and download the required libraries as well. Instructions below.

:note: This assumes you already have python3 installed.

git clone https://github.com/hussein-esmail7/yorku-scheduler
cd yorku-scheduler/
pip install configparser

Optional Dependencies

Since this program outputs a .tex file, it's recommended that you do use some compiler for LaTeX to PDF. You can paste your file into https://overleaf.com/ to compile it online easily, but for an offline mode of compilation, I use pdflatex.

Requirements

Running the program

To use this program, you have to make sure you are in the correct directory (using the cd command).

python3 yorku-scheduler.py <args>

Arguments

Here are possible arguments you can call in Terminal:

-h, --help --> Help message and exit program.
-j, --json --> Input the JSON path as a string.
-o, --output --> Input the output file name as a string.
-r, --room --> Input the room as a string.
-s, --sem, --semester --> Input the semester you want as a string.
-q, --quiet --> Quiet mode. Only display text when required.

Example: python3 yorku-scheduler.py -j "../yorku-class-scraper/json/su_2022_all.json" -r "db 0011" -o "test2.tex" -q -s "SU"

Program Output

This program outputs a .tex LaTeX file. There are multiple ways of comverting this to PDF:

1. Use an online compiler like Overleaf after the program runs.
2. Make a script that can run right after this program if you pass the file path of it to the PATH_POST_SCRIPT variable in your config file.

Files in this Repository

• yorku_scheduler.py: Main Python program that is run.
• timetable.tex: Template file that yorku_scheduler.py uses to make its final output file.

Configuration File

This section is the arguments you can put into your configuration file at ~/.config/yorku-scheduler/config

Entire Default Config:

[Default]
ITEM_TITLE={c} {n} {a}
ITEM_SUBTITLE={t} {s}
COLOR_BG_LECT=pink
COLOR_BG_ELSE=lightgray
COLOR_FG_LECT=black
COLOR_FG_ELSE=black
PATH_POST_SCRIPT=
PATH_TEMPLATE=./timetable.tex

Text Formatting

ITEM_TITLE={c} {n} {a}
ITEM_SUBTITLE={t} {s}

Values above are the default values

Options:

• {c}: Course department ("EECS", "ADMS", etc.)
• {n}: Course number ("1001" from "EECS 1001")
• {a}: Course section ("A", "B", "Z", etc.)
• {t}: Meeting Type ("LECT", "TUTR", "BLEN", "SEMR", etc.)
• {s}: Semester (if not the chosen one. Ex. If you chose "W", only shows "Y")
• {p}: Professor full name
• {f}: Professor first name
• {l}: Professor last name
• {t}: Professor last name
• \\: New line

⚠️ If at any point the specified field isn't available in your JSON input file, the program will not add it instead of raising an error.

Colours

The colour codes in this program comes from the xcolor package in LaTeX.

COLOR_BG_LECT=pink # Background colour for lectures
COLOR_BG_ELSE=lightgray # Background colour for everything else (TUTR, BLEN, etc.)

COLOR_FG_LECT=black # Foreground colour for lectures
COLOR_FG_ELSE=black # Foreground colour for everything else (TUTR, BLEN, etc.)

Values above are the default values

Available colours (only 1 per argument):

• red
• green
• blue
• cyan
• magenta
• yellow
• black
• gray
• white
• darkgray
• lightgray
• brown
• lime
• olive
• orange
• pink
• purple
• teal
• violet

For more info about modifying your own template file to add more colour options, please go to this link at https://latex-tutorial.com.

Post Script

This part of the configuration file lets you run another script after the output .tex file has been created. Personally, I have this set to my c.sh program that can be found at my hussein-esmail7/sh/ repository. By default, this field is left empty.

PATH_POST_SCRIPT= # Post Script file location here (including arguments)

The Python program runs whatever is in the PATH_POST_SCRIPT argument, then lastly the file name of the .tex file the program just outputted. Please do not put quotation marks in this argument even if there are spaces in your command.

Example:

PATH_POST_SCRIPT=python3 compile.py --latex

What is actually run (where output.tex was made by this program):

python3 compile.py --latex output.tex

Template LaTeX File

You can decide what template file this program uses. By default, it's the timetable.tex file in this repository, but you can set a different file location. The rest of this section explains what this program looks for in that file so that it works properly (you can skip it if you're not planning on changing the template file).

PATH_TEMPLATE=./timetable.tex

The timetable.tex uses the schedule LaTeX package that generates calendar items.

With the schedule package, you can create different appointment types. This program uses LECT and ELSE (which are where the colour codes are also used). The format the program types these commands are as follows:

\LECT{Line 1}{Line 2}{Day}{Start Time-End Time}
\ELSE{Line 1}{Line 2}{Day}{Start Time-End Time}

When the program adds lines, it adds them between the lines that say "[CLASSES START]" and "[CLASSES END]"

Wherever the program sees "[COLOR_BG_LECT]", "[COLOR_BG_ELSE]", "[COLOR_FG_LECT]", or "[COLOR_FG_ELSE]", it replaces those strings (including the square brackets) with the respective colour found in the config file.

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