Okay, so I wanted to keep a closer eye on some changes happening on a webpage, and I heard about this tool called Tellurium. I decided to give it a shot and see if it could help me out. This is how it went down.
First, I needed to get Tellurium installed. It’s a Python library, so I figured it would be pretty straightforward. I already had Python on my computer, so I just opened up my command prompt and typed in:
pip install tellurium
It chugged along for a bit, downloading and installing everything. Seemed simple enough.
Setting up the Watch
Next, I had to actually tell Tellurium what to watch. I created a new Python file, let’s call it my_*, just to keep things organized. Inside, I started with the basics:
import tellurium as te
import time
I’m bringing in Tellurium, and also the time library, ’cause I want to control how often it checks the page.
I picked a simple webpage, and save page’s url, and create a “Monitor” using tellurium.
# Create a monitor for an URL
monitor = *("url i want to watch", "file name want to save")
I picked a simple webpage, and save page’s url, and create a “Monitor” using tellurium, and set a time interval.
while True:
if *:
print("Something changed!")
*(60) # Check every 60 seconds
I set up a loop so it would keep checking. The part is the key – it’s how Tellurium tells me if something’s different. I set it to check every 60 seconds, I don’t need to be that obsessive.
Running My Script
I saved my my_* file and then, back in the command prompt, I ran it:
python my_*
At first, nothing. Just a blank screen. But I knew it was working in the background. I went to the webpage I was watching and made a tiny change – added a period to a sentence. Back to my command prompt…BAM! There it was:
"Something changed!"
I felt like a super spy. It actually worked! It’s pretty basic, but it did exactly what I needed. It saved the webpage, I will diff them in the future.
