webcomic2xbmc: feed enclosure tweak for xkcd, smbc, etc.

README.md

Some webcomics have RSS/ATOM feeds that include the images themselves. XBMC, however, require feeds to include the images as RSS enclosures. This script fetches a feed and prints an "XBMC-compliant" one to stdout. You can run a cron job that saves this to an http-accessible file on your pc. You can then use its URL as an rss picture source.

usaage: python webcomic2xbmc.py FEED_URL [IMG_URL_REGEXP]> myxbmcfeed.xml

Examples:

• python webcomic2xbmc.py http://xkcd.com/rss.xml > ~/public_html/feeds/xkcd.xml
• python webcomic2xbmc.py http://feeds.feedburner.com/DailyAndertoons "/toons/" > ~/public_html/feeds/andertoons.xml

In the second example, if you don't supply the "/toons/" regexp, you'll also get logos and "share this" graphic items in the feed. All cartoons are under a "/toons/" folder, so the regexp makes sure we don't get anything else.

Note that you can also use regular expression syntax: you could write "cartoon[0-9]+.png$" instead of "/toons/" and get the same results while feeling more geeky ;)

Here's how xkcd looks on my TV:

Feeds to try:

• http://xkcd.com/rss.xml
• http://feeds.feedburner.com/smbc-comics/PvLb "/comics/"
• http://feeds.feedburner.com/wondermark
• http://www.lunarbaboon.com/comics/rss.xml
• http://qwantz.com/rssfeed.php "/comics/"
• http://cupcakegraffiti.thecomicseries.com/rss
• http://feeds.feedburner.com/DailyAndertoons "/toons/"
• http://www.jamesbreakwell.com/feeds/posts/default
• http://www.unfridgeworthy.com/feeds/posts/default

Please add your recommendations in the comments.

webcomic2xbmc.py

import sys,re,feedparser,PyRSS2Gen

if not (len(sys.argv) in [2,3]):
    sys.stderr.write(
        'usage: {0} FEED_URL [IMG_URL_REGEXP]> myxbmcfeed.xml\n'

The I has recommended Lunar Baboon (thanks).
Its feed http://www.lunarbaboon.com/comics/rss.xml has img src urls with query strings in them and that made mimetype matching go sour.

So no more mister mimetype: new [shorter] code produces enclosures with mimetype image/whadever. XBMC can deal with it. Back to the couch.