Wednesday, October 08, 2008

UPCScan 0.6: It's Qt, Man!

Update: Version 0.7 released.

Getting drowned in your ever growing CD, DVD, book or comic collection? Then UPCScan might be for you.

UPCScan 0.6 is ready for download. There are many fixed and improvements. The biggest one is probably the live PyQt4 user interface (live means that the UI saves all your changes instantly, so no data loss if your computer crashes because of some other program ;-)).

The search field accepts barcodes (from a barcode laser scanner) and ISBN numbers. There is a nice cover image dialog where you can download and assign images if Amazon doesn't have one. Note: Amazon sometimes has an image but it's marked as "customer image". Use the "Visit" button on the UI to check if an image is missing and click on the "No Cover" button to open the "Cover Image" dialog where you can download and assign images. I haven't checked if the result of the search query contains anything useful in this case.

UPCScan 0.6 - 24,055 bytes, MD5 Checksum. Needs Python 2.5. PyQt4 4.4.3 is optional.

Security notice: You need an Amazon Web Service Account (get one here). When you run the program for the first time, it will tell you what to do. This means two things:

  1. Your queries will be logged. So if you don't want Amazon to know what you own, this program is not very useful for you.
  2. Your account ID will be stored in the article database at various places. I'm working on an export function which filters all private data out. Until then, don't give this file to your friends unless you know what that means (and frankly, I don't). You have been warned.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

much respect for this peace of software and thanks a lot.
I don't know if I make something wrong but I can't scan music-cd's and sometimes there is the artist missing.

Aaron Digulla said...

Can you give me a code that doesn't work?

Anonymous said...

Hi Aaron, UPCScan is exactly what I was looking for.
Thanks for that. Program works fine, though I had to correct some String-conversions to make it run on my linux box. Until now I did not went into code details, but I also stumbled across the music-CD problem. I do not get any response from Amazon on any of my music CDs....
Do you have an idea?
DVDs and books-queries work fine.
Best
Alex

Anonymous said...

Hi,
I get the following error.

-----
c = db.cursor()
TypeError: 'NoneType' object is not callable
----

Aaron Digulla said...

Re: Music CDs: I probably ask the wrong service. Can you give me a code that doesn't work so I can debug this?

Re sprk: In which line?

Anonymous said...

Hi,
i.e. 7 4321-24841-2 0 should be Danzig by Danzig. Amazon shows no picture, but that shouldn't be the problem....
The first '7' and the last '0' are outside of the barcode stripes. I do not know if it does matter....
Cheers
Alex

BTW, @sprk:
This error is somehow related to the unicode stuff in python. I changed some 'u-casts' to explicit str-conversions in some lines, step by step.

Anonymous said...

Hi,
I also have the prob with Music CDs.

The software doesn't even look-up for Music CD only books and DVD (german and english)

Here is what I snipped from the console:
--------------------
Fetcher : WARNING Service Deutsche Bücher: 8429085240422 is not a valid value for ItemId. Please change this value and retry your request.
Fetcher : WARNING Service Deutsche DVD: 8429085240422 is not a valid value for ItemId. Please change this value and retry your request.
Fetcher : WARNING Service Englische Bücher: 8429085240422 is not a valid value for ItemId. Please change this value and retry your request.
Fetcher : WARNING Service Englische DVD: 8429085240422 is not a valid value for ItemId. Please change this value and retry your request.
Fetcher : WARNING Service Deutsche DVD: 8429085240422 is not a valid value for ItemId. Please change this value and retry your request.
Fetcher : WARNING Service Deutsche DVD: 8429085240422 is not a valid value for ItemId. Please change this value and retry your request.
run : WARNING Article 8429085240422 not found anywhere. Adding it to "failed-codes"
-----------------

I'm still waiting for my scanner so I tpyed id but anyway it worked for books. That particular CD is "nubla voayuer".

Best Regards
Axel a.gerber/at/axel-gerber.de

Anonymous said...

BTW: just found: Music DVDs also don't work...

Regards
Axel

Anonymous said...

Guys
I made it to get the music CDs scanned but I think cannot post the code here. Actually I have no python capabilities. I acted as a script kid ;-)
Nice I am 40 but can be a kid ;>>>

I send it to you via a.gerber(at)axel-gerber.de

However, having a problem with QT4. Sometimes there are typos in the scan-code and than look-up of course messed. It is not the scanner because he NEVER fails if I scan to 'xterm'. The mode 2 doesn't work for me at the moment...

Regards
Axel