Guide: Maintaining TUJ Realm Edition Information Automagically

[Reverb]

The Undermine Journal is fantastic for a variety of reasons. One of the features of TUJ is realm specific market data via an addon with much more indepth market data than what is available in game. However, utilizing this resource requires manually downloading the up to date information. Thankfully, this manual step is able to be automated. While how to do this is likely trivial for those familiar with programming etc., for the majority of people who play World of Warcraft setting such automation up is black magic. The purpose of this guide is to elucidate how to automate this process for those of you for whom this is not trivial.

This guide will utilize the following utilities:

1) The Undermine Journal
You will need to setup an account on the Undermine Journal and set what server(s) you wish to acquire the realm information from. You can do so here: http://theunderminejournal.com/user.php

2) Python 3.2
Python will be used to create a program which will perform one part of the automation process.
You will need to download the Python 3.2 Installer here:
http://www.python.org/download/releases/3.2/

3) *Windows 7's Task Schduler
This comes with Windows 7 by default.
*There are similar utilities on every operating system, but this guide will use the one on Windows 7

4) The Python Script I wrote to manage this all
You can download this here (it's a drop box link):
http://db.tt/3eeBDvd

Now onto bringing it all together:

Launch a text editor and then open the file downloaded in step 4. In the file there will be $ that you will need to replace with relevant information specific to your installation.

The first $ that is encountered is replaced with the url provided in the settings for your Undermine Journal account, available via the url displayed where it says "Download Your Addon Here" in the profile settings. The profile page where this is located at should look something like this:
http://i.imgur.com/NfYlC.png
You want to copy the url pointed to by the red arrow.

The third $ that is encountered is replaced with the directory that contains your World of Warcraft Addon folder. Once that directory is pasted between the "" you will need to follow every \ shown (after you paste the directory name between the "") with another \

Now that the python file is edited for your particular settings you can stop here, having successfully automated the downloading and unzipping process for your realm data or take it one step further and also have your computer run that python script at a particular time every day or week or whatever you decide upon, which is where the Windows 7 task manager comes into play.

A general guide for setting this up is here:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...chedule-a-task

Provided that everything has gone as hoped for, you should now have a program scheduled to run regularly that will download the market information for the realm(s) that you play on for you, which is quite nice for using within addons like TradeskillMaster as seen below:

TSM Crafting
http://i.imgur.com/eZKrI.png

TSM Auctioning
http://i.imgur.com/Bz4FF.png

Erorus explains how the mean is calculated here:
http://consortium.stormspire.net/sho...n-market-price
and the market price here
http://consortium.stormspire.net/sho...price-computed
for those of you interested.

Also note that you are limited to 5 (at the time of this writing) downloads of the market information per day.

[Kathroman]

Awesome idea. +rep. I guess we'll just wait and see whether I did it right

[Bookerz]

None of my data was replaced. Is there a specific zip program I need? or did I just miss something simple. TY Bookerz


import urllib.request
import zipfile
#replace the $ with your account specific download URL (don't share this account link with anyone
#the URL should look something like http://theunderminejournal.com/TheUn...%1AB-Maelstrom
url = "http://theunderminejournal.com/api.market.php?key=(****replaced****)4KTcxKIv6n2nA AqACythXwbYilPR&realm=H-Mannoroth"

#replace the $ with the directory & filename you wish to download the realm info to (filename should end with .zip)
#the filename should look something like C:\documents\TheUndermineJournal.zip
#note: all \ in the filename must be followed by another \
#so from our previous example C:\documents\TheUndermineJournal.zip
#becomes C:\\documents\\TheUndermineJournal.zip
filename = "C:\\Users\\harvey\\Desktop\\TheUndermineJournal.z ip"

#replace the $ with your World of Warcraft Addon Directory with each \ followed by another \ when replacing $ as before
#the addon directory should look something like C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface\Addons
destinationPath = "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\World of Warcraft\\Interface\\addons"

urllib.request.urlretrieve(url,filename)
sourceZip = zipfile.ZipFile(filename, 'r')
for name in sourceZip.namelist():
sourceZip.extract(name, destinationPath)
sourceZip.close()

[Kathroman]

Well, there's a space between "z" and "ip" - did you copy and paste?

[Erorus]

Note: you do not want the Market Data XML URL for this. If you see "api.market.php" you're doing it wrong.

You do want the addon URL for this. You can get it by selecting your realms in the "Addon Download" section, then right-clicking the "Download Your Addon Here" link, and copying the URL to the clipboard.

[Kathroman]

Note: you do not want the Market Data XML URL for this. If you see "api.market.php" you're doing it wrong.

You do want the addon URL for this. You can get it by selecting your realms in the "Addon Download" section, then right-clicking the "Download Your Addon Here" link, and copying the URL to the clipboard.

Lol. I did that naturally, but Reverb, perhaps highlighting that in the instructions or on the screenshot might clear things up for others

[Bookerz]

Perfect fix!!! I was trying to pull the wrong data. The space showed up when I tried to show you my settings. Thank you for watching the thread. Have a good day. Bookerz

[Reverb]

Lol. I did that naturally, but Reverb, perhaps highlighting that in the instructions or on the screenshot might clear things up for others

I updated the image with one that should make which url to copy less ambiguous. Thanks

[blademagical]

iam having problems, the script downloads the undermined journal but the archive has only 0kb, when the prompt close theres a error on line 18 my script below:

import urllib.request
import zipfile
#replace the $ with your account specific download URL (don't share this account link with anyone
#the URL should look something like http://theunderminejournal.com/TheUn...%1AB-Maelstrom
url = "http://theunderminejournal.com/TheUndermineJournal.zip?key=<removed part of the key xD>DyAjaKhDc8F0Voq8G&realms=H-Warsong"

#replace the $ with the directory & filename you wish to download the realm info to (filename should end with .zip)
#the filename should look something like C:\documents\TheUndermineJournal.zip
#note: all \ in the filename must be followed by another \
#so from our previous example C:\documents\TheUndermineJournal.zip
#becomes C:\\documents\\TheUndermineJournal.zip
filename = "C:\\Users\\Mercynario\\Downloads\\TheUndermineJou rnal.zip"

#replace the $ with your World of Warcraft Addon Directory with each \ followed by another \ when replacing $ as before
#the addon directory should look something like C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface\Addons
destinationPath = "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\World of Warcraft\\Interface\\Addons"

urllib.request.urlretrieve(url,filename)
sourceZip = zipfile.ZipFile(filename, 'r')
for name in sourceZip.namelist():
sourceZip.extract(name, destinationPath)
sourceZip.close()

theres something wrong? ty guys

Ps.: theres no space bettewen Jou rnal, this happened on the forum

[Erorus]

iam having problems, the script downloads the undermined journal but the archive has only 0kb

You can download the addon up to 3 times in any 24-hour period. You used up your downloads for the day.