I built a self-contained thread scraper uniquely catering for Carbonite over the last 2 weeks or so. This came about from the frustration of wading through tons of threads looking for the ones I'm interested it and having to deal with things I have absolutely did not want to see. I think it's time to show you guys. Of course, the boss and his team have the last say on whether this is acceptable and whether they're okay with me making it available or what. I do not wish to break any rules (I reviewed them), I just want to make people's lives a little easier. Well, at least it made mine much easier!
In a nutshell, it checks the New Posts view Carbonite has. It scrapes only the first post of each thread for the number of pages you specified and populates the app based on your preferences. It stores a list of all the threads the app has seen so it knows when to stop scraping. The user gets to choose whether they only want to see new threads or if they are interested in bumped threads as well. Filters are generated dynamically and are incredibly useful. Not interested in Wordle? You'll never have to see it again! The user can decide to dismiss, banish, track threads (or OPs). The user can even decide not to show locked threads or only threads where the OP has a certain feedback score. When I developed this, I did so on a widescreen(21:9) monitor. Moving it to a 16:9 monitor f-ed the interface quite hard. So I added a Widescreen option that keeps Thread Info data in a longer format, and if it is not ticked, it shortens some of the text so it fits on 16:9.
The app is rate-limited to not impact the Carbonite servers. Limits are in place for interval and the number of pages to check. It caters for anything *I* found useful. There are also some maintenance tools to keep it clean.
Here are two screenshots that show the UI. I have no f-ing idea why people would want to use it in light mode, but I catered for those weirdos too.
Glorious Dark Mode
Light Mode, *kots-kots*
At the risk of repeating what I posted above, here's the features list from the readme.md.
## 🚀 Core Features
### Thread Monitoring
- **Multi-Page Scraping**: Configurable depth (default: 1 page, up to multiple pages)
- **Bump Detection**: Automatically detects when threads are updated and marks them as "Bumped"
- **Age Display**: Shows relative time since last activity ("Just now", "5m ago", "2h ago", "3d ago")
- **Background Monitoring**: Automated polling with configurable interval (minutes)
- **Live Status**: Shows scan status, last check time, and thread counts
- **Rate limiting** Respectful self-imposed limits implemented
### Thread Management
- **Eligible Threads**: Main viewing pane with real-time updates
- **Dismissed Threads**: Archive of filtered/dismissed threads with restore capability
- **Tracked Threads**: Monitor specific threads of interest
- **Tracked OPs**: Track all activity from specific users (renamed from "Tracked Users")
- **Ignored OPs**: Block threads from specific users (renamed from "Ignored Users")
- **Banished Threads**: Permanently block threads (renamed from "Hard Ignore")
- **Thread Archive**: Complete history of all seen threads with search
- **Widescreen Support**: Widescreen toggle showing thread location, categories, and authors (L:, C:, A
### Intelligent Filtering
- **Filter Strategy Pattern**: Modular, extensible filtering system
- **Category Filtering**: Include/exclude categories with right-click toggle
- **Prefix Filtering**: Filter by thread title prefixes (e.g., "[For Sale]", "[Wanted]")
- **iTrader Bias Filter**: Block threads based on OP's iTrader score (0-1000+)
- **Locked Thread Filter**: Option to ignore locked threads
- **Ignored OPs**: Block threads from specific users
### Tracking & Notifications
- **Toast Notifications**: Optional Windows toast alerts for new/bumped threads
- **Repeat Bump Alerts**: Optional alerts for threads bumped multiple times
- **Tracking Mode**: Monitor specific threads or OPs across all categories
- **Track Reason**: Shows why a thread is being tracked ("Thread" or "OP")
### OP Experience
- **Dark/Light Theme**: Toggle between dark and light modes (why??)
- **Font Scaling**: Three font sizes (Small, Normal, Large) with proper UI scaling
- **Resizable Panes**: Draggable divider to adjust dismissed pane size
- **Search**: Real-time search across all thread collections
- **Tools Menu**: Access to Reset DBs, Import / Export and Dump HTML Logs.
### Data Management
- **Import/Export**: Backup and restore all settings and threads via ZIP archive
- **State Persistence**: All preferences saved automatically
- **Debug HTML Dump**: Export raw scraped HTML for analysis
I've been killing bugs and as far as I know, it's in a good space now. Of course more will be found and adjustments will need to be made as it is used more.
@Ageless , your and your team's input would be greatly appreciated and will be taken to heart. Happy to add/remove/limit features as you see fit. The repo for this is private and no one but me has access. Happy to share the current version with you and your team if you want to try it out.
In a nutshell, it checks the New Posts view Carbonite has. It scrapes only the first post of each thread for the number of pages you specified and populates the app based on your preferences. It stores a list of all the threads the app has seen so it knows when to stop scraping. The user gets to choose whether they only want to see new threads or if they are interested in bumped threads as well. Filters are generated dynamically and are incredibly useful. Not interested in Wordle? You'll never have to see it again! The user can decide to dismiss, banish, track threads (or OPs). The user can even decide not to show locked threads or only threads where the OP has a certain feedback score. When I developed this, I did so on a widescreen(21:9) monitor. Moving it to a 16:9 monitor f-ed the interface quite hard. So I added a Widescreen option that keeps Thread Info data in a longer format, and if it is not ticked, it shortens some of the text so it fits on 16:9.
The app is rate-limited to not impact the Carbonite servers. Limits are in place for interval and the number of pages to check. It caters for anything *I* found useful. There are also some maintenance tools to keep it clean.
Here are two screenshots that show the UI. I have no f-ing idea why people would want to use it in light mode, but I catered for those weirdos too.
Glorious Dark Mode
Light Mode, *kots-kots*
At the risk of repeating what I posted above, here's the features list from the readme.md.
## 🚀 Core Features
### Thread Monitoring
- **Multi-Page Scraping**: Configurable depth (default: 1 page, up to multiple pages)
- **Bump Detection**: Automatically detects when threads are updated and marks them as "Bumped"
- **Age Display**: Shows relative time since last activity ("Just now", "5m ago", "2h ago", "3d ago")
- **Background Monitoring**: Automated polling with configurable interval (minutes)
- **Live Status**: Shows scan status, last check time, and thread counts
- **Rate limiting** Respectful self-imposed limits implemented
### Thread Management
- **Eligible Threads**: Main viewing pane with real-time updates
- **Dismissed Threads**: Archive of filtered/dismissed threads with restore capability
- **Tracked Threads**: Monitor specific threads of interest
- **Tracked OPs**: Track all activity from specific users (renamed from "Tracked Users")
- **Ignored OPs**: Block threads from specific users (renamed from "Ignored Users")
- **Banished Threads**: Permanently block threads (renamed from "Hard Ignore")
- **Thread Archive**: Complete history of all seen threads with search
- **Widescreen Support**: Widescreen toggle showing thread location, categories, and authors (L:, C:, A
### Intelligent Filtering
- **Filter Strategy Pattern**: Modular, extensible filtering system
- **Category Filtering**: Include/exclude categories with right-click toggle
- **Prefix Filtering**: Filter by thread title prefixes (e.g., "[For Sale]", "[Wanted]")
- **iTrader Bias Filter**: Block threads based on OP's iTrader score (0-1000+)
- **Locked Thread Filter**: Option to ignore locked threads
- **Ignored OPs**: Block threads from specific users
### Tracking & Notifications
- **Toast Notifications**: Optional Windows toast alerts for new/bumped threads
- **Repeat Bump Alerts**: Optional alerts for threads bumped multiple times
- **Tracking Mode**: Monitor specific threads or OPs across all categories
- **Track Reason**: Shows why a thread is being tracked ("Thread" or "OP")
### OP Experience
- **Dark/Light Theme**: Toggle between dark and light modes (why??)
- **Font Scaling**: Three font sizes (Small, Normal, Large) with proper UI scaling
- **Resizable Panes**: Draggable divider to adjust dismissed pane size
- **Search**: Real-time search across all thread collections
- **Tools Menu**: Access to Reset DBs, Import / Export and Dump HTML Logs.
### Data Management
- **Import/Export**: Backup and restore all settings and threads via ZIP archive
- **State Persistence**: All preferences saved automatically
- **Debug HTML Dump**: Export raw scraped HTML for analysis
I've been killing bugs and as far as I know, it's in a good space now. Of course more will be found and adjustments will need to be made as it is used more.
@Ageless , your and your team's input would be greatly appreciated and will be taken to heart. Happy to add/remove/limit features as you see fit. The repo for this is private and no one but me has access. Happy to share the current version with you and your team if you want to try it out.
