Python scripts

I find Python especially useful for automating various mundane tasks. I've been writing a lot more of it lately since it integrates so well with the Linux way of doing things. This page contains some of the more useful scripts I've written, and while it's small right now, I expect it to grow.

Here is a screenshot of how everything fits together. Conky is running on the left side of my desktop and displaying (among other things) weather data and new classified results from two of the scripts on this page. You can see my custom volume control in the lower left corner, and just above that is my quick search launcher.

Classifieds Searcher

• This is a script I wrote to automatically search various classifieds sites for things I want to buy. It sets up webserver on the local machine, and searches a specified list of sites for the desired keywords. Keywords are entered on a per-site basis, and the script uses regular expressions to allow for powerful search queries. Full-text searches are accomplished by crawling the specified sites, and the script keeps track of visited links to avoid continually searching the same pages over and over again. The code is self documenting, and has no dependencies outside of a basic Python install.
• Download the script
• Screenshot of the results page

Weather Parser

• This script parses XML weather data from Yahoo. I use it in conjunction with Conky to display weather data on my desktop. Location and output format are hardcoded, but it's not difficult to modify the script if you want a different output format.
• Download the script
• Screenshot using Conky

Systray Volume Control

• A volume control that sits in the system tray. This is a Linux-only app because it relies on amixer. In gives a graphical indication of the current master volume level in the tray icon, and allows the user to change the volume using the mouse scroll wheel. It also supports mute/unmute via a middle click on the tray icon, and the user can access a full audio mixer via the right-click context menu. Requires GTK2 and PyGTK (Python GTK bindings).
• Download the script
• Download the icon set
• Screenshot showing tray icon and tooltip