bggcli - Command Line Interface for BoardGameGeek.com

Introduction

bggcli is a Command Line Interface providing automation for tedious tasks on BoardGameGeek (aka BGG). It relies on the Web UI and not on the official API which doesn't offer all features available. Originally written by Sylvain Francois and updated for Python 3.6 and the 2018 BGG interface by Greg Smith.

Only 3 operations are implemented at this time:

Updated for BGG 2018

• bulk import/update for your game collection from a CSV file
• bulk export as a CSV file, WITH version information (game's version is missing in the default export)

Not tested with BGG 2018

• bulk delete from a CSV file

Warning:

• Use it at your own risks, you may damage your game collection by doing mistakes! Ensure you have a backup of you collection first!
• This tool is not supported by BoardGameGeek, this is an independent development
• Be respectful regarding BGG web site: this kind of automated tools can impact performance when used "aggressively" (plenty of requests per second). Provided features are intended to be used for one-shot needs. Also they rely on a real web browser, and should conform with their Terms of Services

Installation

Python 3.6 is required.

pip install bggcli[2018]

Usage

You'll need Firefox to be installed; Firefox will be automatically controlled by bggcli to perform operations (through Selenium library).

Type bggcli to get the full help about available commands.

Here is an example to export a collection from an account account1 and import it to another account account2:

$ bggcli -l mylogin1 -p mypassword1 collection-export mycollection.csv
$ bggcli -l mylogin2 -p mypassword2 collection-import mycollection.csv

Update a collection

Here are some use cases this operation could be used for:

• Create a new account on BGG and transfer your collection: export the collection from the old account first, then use bggcli to import it
• Make a bulk update for all or some of your games: export the collection from your account first, modify details in the CSV file (using a text editor, OpenOffice, MS Excel, or whatever) and use bggcli to import the file

Export should be done with this tool to be complete. You can also do a manual export online, but you won't have information about the version of each game.

Example::

$ bggcli -l mylogin -p mypassword collection-import mycollection.csv

Notes:

• Column names are those exported by BGG. Any column not recognized will just be ignored
• When a game already exists in your collection, game is updated with provided CSV values only, other fields are not impacted. You could only update one field for all your game.
• Games are identified by their internal ID, named objectid in CSV file (name used by BGG). Having the objectname field (name of the game) is also recommended for logging.

Remove games from a collection

Goal is to remove from your collection all games identified in the CSV file you will provide as input.

Example::

$ bggcli -l mylogin -p mypassword collection-delete mycollection.csv

Notes:

• Only the objectid column will be used for this operation: this is the internal ID managed by BGG. All other columns will just be ignored.

Export a collection

Will create a CSV file with all your games, as you will do with the UI.

Example::

$ bggcli -l mylogin -p mypassword collection-export mycollection.csv

Notes:

• Only the objectid column will be used for this operation: this is the internal ID managed by BGG. All other columns will just be ignored.

Limitations

• Only Firefox is supported. This tools relies on Selenium to control browser, and only Firefox is supported out of the box by Selenium (i.e. without additional requirements). Support of additional browsers could be introduced, but I'm not sure it's worth it.
• Performance: Selenium+Firefox association is not the fastest way to automate operations, but it's probably the best regarding stability (no Javascript emulation, Firefox does the work) and simplicity (no need to install anything else), which is the most important in the current context. On my laptop, I see the import taking 1 min for 5 games.
• Some fields related to the game's version are not exported by BGG: the barcode and the language`. Note although this only applies to custom version you define yourself, which should be quite rare.

Ideas for future versions

Here are some ideas of additional tasks that could be implemented:

• Generic import for collections, based on game names and not on the BGG internal identifier. A confirmation would be required for each ambiguous name to choose among matching games provided by BGG, this is done by BGGUPLOAD available on github.
• Update/Delete for plays
• Update/Delete for forum subscriptions

Links

• BoardGameGeek: http://www.boardgamegeek.com
• Officiel XML API 2: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/BGG_XML_API2
• boardgamegeek - A Python API for boardgamegeek.com: https://github.com/lcosmin/boardgamegeek
• bggupload - This program helps you interactively find the BGGID from a partial name or inexact match.: https://github.com/HiGregSmith/bggupload

Final note (by Sylvain Francois) ==========

Does it really deserve such a development? Probably not, but my second goal was to discover the Python ecosystem!