Canvas-Stream

A smart and small python module for downloading the current favorite courses files from Canvas-LMS.

Setup

Installation

Be sure to have python3 downloaded and in PATH.

First, add a config.toml file with the canvas url and the API access_token (with is usually available at ${url}/profile/settings#access_tokens) like this:

url = 'https://to.canvas.com'
access_token = 'insert-random-chars-here'

Then run the following commands:

python3 -m venv .venv

# on unix-like system
. .env/bin/activate
# on Windows
. .\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

python -m pip install -r requirements.txt

Then, run the program with:

python -m canvas_stream

Development

Adicionales requirements should be installed:

python -m pip install -r requirements.dev.txt

This project uses type annotations, so enable or install mypy or other type checker extension (like pylance) to use useful suggestions and automatic reporting of errors with types ✨

Before committing, run the following commands:

black canvas_stream
mypy canvas_stream
pylint canvas_stream  # TODO: add linter config

Notes

Small

In comparison with other popular canvas files downloaders, like canvas_grab and canvasFileSync, this program doesn't have big or a lot of dependencies, this module has only 2: request and toml.

The codebase is also small, at around 550 lines of code.

Smart

It uses a mix of the GraphQL and the REST API with a sqlite3 database cache to fetch only stuff as needed. After the first run, the fetch iteration should take a second.

Also, if the program is stopped, the next time it will continue where it left and check additionally if there was an update in the courses.

Asome things to implement in the future

• Handle if a file is downloadable or not
• Download multiple files in the same time (async+await, threads poll?)
• Download files from Google Drive (see gdown)
• Make url / links with common external urls pages (Wikipedia, YouTube, etc)
• Better logging (see how to logging)
• User configuration
• Better correlation with DB File and filesystem file
• Simple user interface (separated from the core code)
• Guide of how to install python3 (Windows Store!)
• Guide on how to add the program to PATH, so it could be used everywhere