Support "Google Now" type commands

[Phyks]

Hi,

What about adding an option (say --now for instance) to fetch only the Google Now answers to some questions.

For instance,

$ googler --now "20 + 30 * 1/2"
20 + ((30 * 1) / 2) = 35

Same thing with capital, weather, people, etc.

Thanks!

[jarun]

Sorry, no plans at the time. We don't intend to bring all of Google's services to the cli.

[Phyks]

So no need to make a PR if I get something working?

[jarun]

We have the ToDo list just for that.
Added @zmwangx for his opinion.

Are you interested in contributing to googler or just this feature?

[Phyks]

We have the ToDo list just for that.

I saw it, but there was nothing linked to this issue. And I thought it would deserve its own issue to ease discussion on this.

Are you interested in contributing to googler or just this feature?

Actually I had the idea of making Google Now features (not sure how to call them, the rectangle with parsed infos when you type some specific queries) available from the CLI. I looked up for similar script, and came across a very basic Ruby script, not updated anymore, and this Googler script which I did not know about. I thought it might be interesting to add such a feature, and was willing to write my own script. If I get something functional and you are interested in it, I was offering you to merge it in Googler.

[jarun]

Actually I had the idea of making Google Now features

I'll leave it to you and @zmwangx.
Re-open the defect as you guys see fit.

[zmwangx]

The box does many things. I don't think there's a generic way to parse it.

Just to give you a concrete example: calculator and unit converter are two entirely different things and will need two entirely different handlers.

So no need to make a PR if I get something working?

If you have something then please do raise a PR, but as you know, there's no guarantee that features will be merged — we really need to look at how well it works, how good the implementation is, etc.

[zmwangx]

By the way, half related, WolframAlpha is much better for this purpose, and they have an API. I personally wouldn't recommend wasting time on this.

[Phyks]

Hmm, I have something which is working fine for calculations (calculations with or without units) and for unit conversion.

It extracts weather as well, and it's just a matter of formatting to render it nicely (using lynx at the moment).

It does not work yet for cities / countries / people.

These are all the queries I can think of at the moment.

I know about wolfram alpha, but it only works in English (whereas Google handles French as well) and results are not comparable with Google for weather forecasts for example.

[zmwangx]

You could raise a PR with what you have actually. We could take a look at whether it could possibly end up in a mergeable state. If it doesn't then you might not want to waste your time; if it does then you can work from there. Thanks.

[jarun]

You could raise a PR with what you have actually.

I second this. Please share what you've got as a PR and we can discuss this further.

[Phyks]

Re weather on WolframAlpha: if you query about "Stanford, CA weather" for instance, it gives a temperature curves, cloud cover curves, station info, etc. Much more complete than Google. Not that I'm a big fan of WolframAlpha; just stating the facts.

Actually, I do agree on this particular point. But you have to query in English (weather in Paris works in WolframAlpha and Google but météo Paris only works in Google, météo is the French word for weather). Plus it does not clearly show the data for complex queries such as weather in paris tomorrow, at least in my quick test, and returns much much information (maybe too much actually for a simple CLI tool). But that's another point, and I agree WolframAlpha may be an option to consider.

You could raise a PR with what you have actually.

What I have at the moment is a quite dirty script, written in a couple of minutes and built around scrapy. I am not sure I should open a PR with it, and I'd rather put it in a Gist https://gist.github.com/Phyks/a9458568ef3b66590a860f0afcc4a59c.

As stated above, it works with:

• calc (with or without units): python3 google_now.py 10+20 or python3 google_now.py "10Hz + 20Hz".
• unit conversions: python3 google_now.py "Hz in GHz".
• weather, although render is not perfect: python3 google_now.py "weather in Paris" | lynx -stdin.

It does not work with people and places at the moment.

[jarun]

scrapy

@zmwangx has written a very well-documented parser. We must remove scrapy dependency to start with and extend googler parser.

calculator

do scientific calculations work?

weather

We don't need to bother about rendering in lynx (or any browser for that matter). googler shows the data in plaintext. You can either open a URL or the current search in browser. It should work with places is all.

It does not work with people and places at the moment.

no problem.

[Phyks]

Sure about scrapy. As stated above, this is a quick and dirty proof of concept coded in a couple of minutes.

What are "scientific calculations"? Isn't it already covered by python3 google_now.py "10Hz + 20Hz" ?

Concerning weather, I do not want to render in Lynx, I want to ncursify the HTML output. That is why there is this Lynx dependency at the moment.

[jarun]

What are "scientific calculations"

If it covers logarithmic/trigonometric ratios, then fine.

Concerning weather, I do not want to render in Lynx, I want to ncursify the HTML output. That is why there is this Lynx dependency at the moment.

I guess there's cmdline a weather util to do just that. For googler, plaintext output and opening the search link in browser (if any) would suffice.

[Phyks]

% python tmp/google_now.py "ln(2)"
ln(2) = 0,693147181

Concerning weather, I do not see your point. For now, I have

% python google_now.py "weather in Paris"
### **Météo** à **Paris**

![Ensoleillé](//ssl.gstatic.com/onebox/weather/60/sun.png)| 21 °C |
[°F](/setprefs?fheit=1&sig=0_AW4nLDP-xA6rZMZqS72g4gxdUxU=&prev=https://www.goo
gle.fr/search%3Fq%3Dweather%2Bin%2BParis)| | sam.| dim.| lun.| mar.  
---|---|---|---|---|---|---  
![Pluie](//ssl.gstatic.com/onebox/weather/35/rain.png)|
![Pluie](//ssl.gstatic.com/onebox/weather/35/rain.png)|
![Pluie](//ssl.gstatic.com/onebox/weather/35/rain.png)|
![Averses](//ssl.gstatic.com/onebox/weather/35/rain.png)| | | | | | |  
Ensoleillé  
Vent : N à 11 km/h  
Humidité : 66%| 21 °C| 15 °C| 19 °C| 14 °C| 15 °C| 13 °C| 16 °C| 14 °C

My goal is to make it a bit more readable.

[jarun]

From what I see below:

can we scrape: time, "light thunderstorms and rain", temp (F and C both), precipitation, humidity and wind? Just the data, no images.

BTW, time can be another option in addition to calc and weather.

[Phyks]

Here we go, supporting people and places as well (output is made as Markdown at the moment): https://gist.github.com/Phyks/a9458568ef3b66590a860f0afcc4a59c.

Plus it does support time:

% python google_now.py "what time is it in NY"
13:41

samedi, 28 mai 2016 (UTC−4)

Heure (New York, État de New York, États-Unis)

I think we can scrape it further for the weather, but we have to find the correct xpaths to use.

[jarun]

I think we can scrape it further for the weather, but we have to find the correct xpaths to use.

We should get rid of html2text too. We strive to keep our dependencies minimal... reduces external factors affecting the project in addition to other obvious benefits.

@zmwangx, I think we are now in a position to take a call. IF the dependencies are gone, I believe calc, time and weather are good additions. What do you think?

[zmwangx]

IF the dependencies are gone, I believe calc, time and weather are good additions.

1. With a cursory look, it would be a pain to actually convert the xpaths to usable HTMLParser code. It would be a lot of code with little gain, and who knows if it would break at some point (I can certainly imagine Google improving these cards as time goes on, whereas the regular search result structures are much less likely to change). We already have enough things to worry about. I wouldn't be the one converting or maintaining that code.
2. These are certainly not worthless additions, but not so useful either.
   • Calc: too many ways to calculate in the command line. Python itself is a calculator.
   • Time: date is usually enough (TZ=America/New_York date). If you don't remember the timezone names, no problem, googler "what time is it in NY", then press o, or 1, then <enter>. Bam.
   • Weather: Again, googler --> o/1 <enter>. Or get something better? https://github.com/schachmat/wego/

Shortcuts are nice, but I would rather do one thing and one thing well.

@Phyks If your script works for you and you need that functionality often, good for you, just polish your script and make it a googlenow executable or something. For everyone else, googler then open the first result shouldn't be that hard. They could even search in the issue tracker and find your script.

@jarun Your call, but I vote for nay.

[zmwangx]

Reopening because it should be open at this point (before a decision is made).

[jarun]

Thanks @zmwangx! I understand the concerns over RoI here.

@Phyks don't have your hopes high but let me think over it and get back tomorrow. I'll also consult some non-dev googler users to make it a fair call.

[jarun]

Guys,

From the feedback I got it seems cmdline users prefer wcalc or speedcrunch as the calculator. And for weather the visual forecast seems quite important. It's either wego or a weather indicator or directly weather.com.

So despite my personal inclination to have a handy app, I've come to the conclusion that everything can't be done well by a single app. And then there's the chance of losing the identity as a cmdline google search utility to cmdline utility for google search, calc, weather ....

@Phyks thanks for the suggestion and effort with the samples.

Closing the request accordingly.