Shape up downloader

What does it do?

This is a simple CLI application that downloads basecamps excellent free shape up book into a single, self-contained HTML file.

• uses base64 images
• uses document-internal links
• only the bare minimum of CSS

Why does this exist?

The book is currently available in an HTML format, where every chapter is one document and a PDF document where all chapters are in one self-contained file. While reading the book I was yearning for a way to read it on my e-book reader, but reading PDF on a Kindle sucks and converting PDFs to epub or mobi is wonky at best. The software used to generate this particular PDF combined some character combination (e.g. "tf") into a single UTF-8 codepoint with ligatures. This however trips up most converting software.

Thus, this project was born to download and combine all web documents into a single self-contained file without styling. You are not intended to read the book in that HTML format - but it can be used as a basis for further conversion steps.

To convert the file into more useful formats I recommend using calibres ebook-convert utility:

$ ebook-convert shape-up.html shape-up.epub \
    --authors "Ryan Singer" \
    --title "Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters" \
    --book-producer "Basecamp" \
    --publisher "Basecamp" \
    --language "en"

Where can I download this HTML/EPUB/MOBI single page version?

I am not quite sure about the legal implications of hosting these files - thus I am not doing it. The code to download it yourself is here, but you must use it yourself.

Usage

Local PHP

1. Install PHP
2. Install Composer
3. Run php composer.phar install (or composer install in case composer is installed globally)
4. Run php cli.php download:single-html

This will create a shape-up.html file in your current directory. That's it.

Docker way

There is a way to not deal with php at all. For that it is enough to have docker engine installed.

Usage

docker run -it --rm -v $(pwd)/output:/app/output thej6s/shape-up-downloader

This will create a shape-up.html file in ./output directory