Well, I got a good number of sweet testimonials and I’m one of those who keeps these things saved like a treasure, and every once in a while is ready to drown back into nostalgia by going through things like this.

So, I went ahead, and now that the testimonials deadline is way past over, I decided to download all my testimonials. But. Uh oh. I ended up getting this ugly output from the otherwise beautifully built website.

Screenshot from 2014-09-20 21:52:22

Problems
1. csv file. [not so user friendly]
2. Content and user IDs. Where are the fucking names of my friends?
3. Seriously. Who thinks I’m scrolling all the way right to read the long ones?

So, I sat alone in the after PPL(Principles of Programming Languages) T1 blues, and wrote a small script that takes your username and password of Melange website, and gives you three text files – one containing the testimonials for you that are public, one containing those that are private, and one containing those that you wrote for others.
Also, this doesn’t list the forever memorable BITS IDs, but puts the names of the people with the testimonials.

Here’s a quick view at something it should look like :

Screenshot from 2014-09-20 22:00:28

Like it?
It’s easy as hell to use.

Pre-requisites:

  1. Python v2.x installed on your Windows/Linux machine. Though I will port the script to Python v3.x, right now it only works on v2.x. Anyway, if you don’t have it installed, just install it. It’s beautiful. How beautiful? Check this : http://xkcd.com/353/

How to install and use?

  1. For Linux Users
    • Open terminal and execute the following commands.
      sudo apt-get install python-pip
      pip install melange_downloader

    • Change directory to wherevr you wanna place the three output files. Example : cd $HOME/Downloads
    • Execute these commands, one by one : python
      import melange_downloader as mel
      mel.download_testimonials()
    • Give it a few seconds. It’ll do the job nicely.
    • It’ll make a fourth file – melange.cookiesbypython. After you get your three txt files, you can safely delete this file.
  2. For Windows Users
    • Open Command Prompt. Try writing ‘python’, if it opens python command prompt there, Good. Else, install python first. Version 2.x preferably. Google.
    • Install ‘pip’ and ‘setuptools’. Take help from here : https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/installing.html
    • Change directory to your favourite one. Use cd command. If you don’t know what I’m saying, you should be knowing it. It’ll take 5 minutes. go and learn here: http://dosprompt.info/
    • Execute these commands, one by one : python
      import melange_downloader as mel
      mel.download_testimonials()
    • Give it a few seconds. It’ll do the job nicely.
    • It’ll make a fourth file – melange.cookiesbypython. After you get your three txt files, you can safely delete this file.

Screenshot from 2014-09-20 22:29:56

Hope it helps. 🙂

Oh, and if you think this is a clever plan to hack all the BITS Melange accounts and delete or read everyone’s testimonials, you’re correct. I’m as evilish as the villains of Courage the cowardly dog. I’ll eat you. And all your testimonials.

In fact, I’ve uploaded the source code on github, so that you can go through and get to know yourself how to hack it. Really. 😐 (Keh ke lunga?)

Just kidding. It just logs in, downloads your testimonials on your system and that’s it. Nothing goes anywhere out of your system. I created it for myself, and thought it would help. 🙂 Have fun! And, report bugs in the comments/on github. Also, you can fork and make the code better, if you know python.

Here’s the source : https://github.com/bhavul/testimonials-downloader