Medium Clapper

Are you a big fan of a content creator on Medium? Then Medium Clapper can be your best friend. This is a tool developed to make the clapping process easier for you. All you have to do is run the script, give them a few commands and let it do the rest for you!

Contents

• Requirements
• Installation
• First time: What do I need to know?
  • How do we generate a new security key?
  • Considerations
• Usage
  • Options
  • Examples
• Exclude users
• Roadmap
• Disclaimer
• Donate

Requirements

This tool uses Python, Playwright and a few more libraries to do its job. Below the list of dependencies you need to have installed in order to use it. Of course, in addition to these libs, you need Python3 (How to install) and PIP installed.

# playwright
pip install playwright
playwright install
# cryptography
pip install cryptography
# requests
pip install requests

Installation

Download this project manually or clone the repo with git

git clone https://github.com/alefranzoni/medium-clapper.git

First time: What do I need to know?

As the tool stores cookies locally to save session data, thus avoiding having to log in to your account at each run, it is imperative that this data is protected from prying eyes. To achieve this, the data is encrypted with a unique, personal key. We only need to generate it for the first and only time and then save it, either in the default directory or in a secure location.

How do we generate a new security key?

To generate a new security key, it is as simple as running the script with the desired options and including the -gk argument. This will automatically generate your personal key and store it in the ./data folder.

# example - generate new passkey
python3 medium_clapper.py -t <target_username> -gk

⚠️ Note that target_username means the username to will clap his articles to.

Considerations

• If we move the security key to another place, before each execution we must place it in the ./data folder.
• If we lose the key, we can always generate a new one, but the session data previously protected with the old key will be lost.

Usage

After installing the dependencies, go to the project directory and run the medium_clapper.py with Python3

cd medium-clapper
python3 medium_clapper.py -t <target_username> [OPTIONS]

Options

You can also customize the script execution by adding any (or all) of the following available commands.

Command	Type	Mandatory	Description
-t	String	Yes	Target username (including @ if needed)
-sd	Float	-	Adds a delay (in seconds) to the scrolling process. Default: 0.85
-sr	Int	-	Adds attempts to the scrolling process. Default: 3
-c	Int	-	Number of claps to give. Default: 50
rt	Float	-	Time in seconds to wait in article to emulate reading time. Default is 10
-gk	Boolean	-	Generate a new passkey to protect PII data
-h	-	-	Show the help message

Notice that the delay or retries options are similar and do not replace the default values, but are added to them. In slow connections, we can increase one or both of these values. Remember that setting very high values for either of these two options will cause the required processing times to be longer.

Examples

# without passing any args but the mandatory
python3 medium_clapper.py -t @alefranzoni
# changing claps and read time
python3 medium_clapper.py -t @alefranzoni -c 10 -rt 3

Exclude users

This option is intended for pages or profiles that republish other people's articles. If you do not wish to "clap" the articles of a certain user/s, we can exclude them in a very simple way from the 'clapping' process.

To do that, we'll have to edit the ./config/excluded file and add one user per line. The correct format should be <username,full_name>. For example:

@someuser,Some User Full Name
@anotheruser,Another User Full Name

Note that both the user and the full name must be exactly as given in Medium, as the check is case sensitive.

Roadmap

What's the upcoming features that I have in mind?

• Get the reading time (calculated by Medium) of each article.
• Support for multi-target with one run
• Improve the clapping process by obtaining the number of claps given, this way if you have already given the maximum number of claps, do not waste time and continue with the next one.

Disclaimer

The use of this tool should not present any problems, however, it should be used at the user's discretion. The author assumes no liability for any claims, damages, or any other inconveniences that may occur.

Donate

You can support me through Cafecito (🇦🇷) or PayPal (Worldwide). Thank you ❤️