foursquare-feeds/README.md

Foursquare Feeds

A python script that will generate an iCal (.ics) feed of your checkins on Foursquare/Swarm. If you set it up to save this file to a publicly-visible location on a webserver, and run the script regularly, you can subscribe to the feed in your favourite calendar application.

Foursquare used to have such feeds but they've stopped working for me.

Installation

1. Make a Foursquare app

Go to https://foursquare.com/developers/apps and create a new App.

2. Install python requirements

Either:

$ pipenv install

or:

$ pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Set up config file

Copy config_example.ini to config.ini. Change the IcsFilepath to wherever you want your file to be saved.

To get the AccessToken for your Foursquare app, you will have to go through the laborious procedure in step 4...

4. Get an access token

On https://foursquare.com/developers/apps, in your app, set the Redirect URI to http://localhost:8000/

In a terminal window, open a python shell:

$ python

and, using your app's Client ID and Client Secret in place of YOUR_CLIENT_ID and YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET enter this:

import foursquare
client = foursquare.Foursquare(client_id='YOUR_CLIENT_ID' client_secret='YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET', redirect_uri='http://localhost:8000')
client.oauth.auth_url()

This will output something like:

'https://foursquare.com/oauth2/authenticate?client_id=YOUR_CLIENT_ID&response_type=code&redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2Flocalhost%3A8000%2F'

Copy the URL from your terminal without the surrounding quotes and paste it into a web browser.

Your browser should redirect to a URL like the one below, with an error about not being able to connect to the server (unless you have a webserver running locally on your machine):

http://localhost:8000/?code=XX_CODE_RETURNED_IN_REDIRECT_XX#_=_

Copy the code represented by XX_CODE_RETURNED_IN_REDIRECT_XX (note that there may be an extra #_=_ on the end which you should not copy).

Back in your python shell, with that code, enter this, replacing XX_CODE_RETURNED_IN_REDIRECT_XX with the code you just copied:

client.oauth.get_token('XX_CODE_RETURNED_IN_REDIRECT_XX')

This will output another long code, which is your Access Token.

Enter this in your config.ini.

Run the script

You're ready to go:

$ ./generate_feeds.py

This should create an .ics file.

By default it only fetches the most recent 250 checkins. To fetch ALL of your checkins add the --all flag:

$ ./generate_feeds.py --all

If the file is generated in a location on your website that's publicly-visible, you should be able to subscribe to it from a calendar application. Then run the script periodically to have it update.

Depending on how many checkins you have you might only want to run it with --all the first time and, once that's imported into a calendar application, subsequently only fetch recent checkins.

Note that the file might contain private checkins or information you don't want to be public. In which case, it's probably best to make the name of any such publicly-readable file very obscure.