The Mnemosyne Project

Since this script was written (nearly two years ago at time of writing), flashcardexchange made some changes to their site. This script assumes that plain html tables are used in the HTML file; however, flashcardexchange now uses the YUI javascript framework to build their flashcard lists. Unless the author updates this script, it will be permanently broken.

when i try to execute the script i get
KeyError: u'cardSetId'
does this script still work for people?

This program looks like it would be extremely useful however I have never used Python before and thus I am not sure how to correctly use the program. I read the read-me and the other comments but still do not know how to properly run the program. I would greatly appreciate some one explaining to me in very simple terms how to download cards successfully using this program. I have windows and python 2.6.3 installed.

So, I've tried this on a few of the flashcardexchange decks, and I quite like it - certainly it beats paying for downloads all hollow! But here're my suggestions to make it easier to use:
# Instead of requiring the deck ID number, why not let the parameter also be just a link? so one could go 'python getcards.py http://www.flashcardexchange.com/flashcards/view/341422' OR 'python getcards.py 341422'
# By default, dump to a file. I know of no way to take a dump to stdout and pipe it to Mnemosyne, so dumping to stdout by default is kind of useless. You always have to redirect to a file, either with the shell and <>, or explicitly with the -o option, no? So why not parse the page to get the deck name and just dump to ./deck-name.txt? (Perhaps with suitable substitutions of whitespace and capitalization - although 'About Philosophy Chapter 2.txt' would be perfectly cromulent).

On Windows, you have to specify the location of the Python interpreter. Check exactly where it is on your system, but the default is "C:\python25\python.exe", so put that before "getcards.py" and your other options and run it from a command prompt.

You need Python 2.5 for this. If you don't have it on your computer, download the latest version from python.org.

I made a similar script, but discovered it violated the site's terms of service, so users beware.