WebWatcher

WebWatcher is a small docker image meant to be a sidecar container to other applications.

WebWatcher will watch folders you specify for new audio or image files and convert them to the much smaller webm/webp formats.

Configurable to do things like keep source files, lossless compression, and quality control.

Getting Started

Running

Python

python -m webwatcher --path <dir> [--path <other_dir>] [--source-dir <dir>] [...args] [command]
# If you want to copy source file to keep, you should specify a source-path

Docker

docker run --name webwatcher --rm -D -v /path/to/media/dir:/watch/media -v /path/to/more/media/dir:/watch/extra -v /path/to/storage:/source webwatcher:latest

Simply, you run the container, mounting any number of directories under /watch, and, if you wish to keep the original files, a folder under /source. Other options can be added either via environment variables using the -e flag, or by passing a custom cmd to the docker container.

Docker Compose

---
version: "2.1"
services:
  webwatcher:
    image: registry.gitlab.com/cclloyd1/webwatcher:latest
    container_name: webwatcher
    environment:
      - IS_WINDOWS=true # Only required if running on a Windows host
    volumes:
      - /path/to/media:/watch/media
      - /path/to/storage:/source
    restart: unless-stopped

Subcommands

Command	Description
clean	Moves old files to source if a converted file was found and deletes old files (respecting configuration options)
watch	Default command that is run when no command is specified. Watches the directories for new files and converts them if it matches a filetype, then cleans up the old file.
convert	Run a one-time pass of the watch command on the directories that will scan all existing files and process them.

Configuration Options

There are a few configuration options available when running the module. Environment variables have higher priority than command line arguments.

Some CLI args are inverse of the environment variable, because the default behavior is True.

Default File Types

• Images: .png, .jpg, .bmp, .jpeg
• Audio: .mp3, .aac, .flac, .wav, .wma, .aac, .m4a, .ogg

All options

CLI Argument	Env Variable	Description	Default
--path <dir>	WATCH_DIRS	Path(s) to watch for. You can use --path multiple times.	/watch
--source-dir <path>	SOURCE_PATH	Where to store original files	/source or C:\source
--dry-run	DRY_RUN	Print output but perform no file/conversion operations	False
--no-copy-source	COPY_SOURCE	Moves source file to folder after converting	True
--no-watch-audio	WATCH_AUDIO	Watch for new audio files	True
n/a	DELETE_AUDIO	Delete audio files from watch dir once converted	True
--no-delete-audio	n/a	Inverse of DELETE_AUDIO(after copying source)	False
--audio-format <str>		Specify another extension to watch for as an audio file. Can use multiple times.	-
	AUDIO_FORMATS	Comma separated list of extra audio extensions to watch for.	[]
--audio-bitrate <str>	AUDIO_BITRATE	Target bitrate for audio conversion. If not specified, uses libopus quality filter set to 100.	libopus quality setting 100
--no-watch-images	WATCH_IMAGES	Watch for new image files	True
	DELETE_IMAGES	Delete image files from watch dir once converted (after copying source)	True
--no-delete-image	n/a	Inverse of DELETE_IMAGES	False
--image-format <str>		Specify another extension to watch for as an image file. Can use multiple times.	-
	IMAGE_FORMATS	Comma separated list of extra image extensions to watch for.	[]
--webp-command <path>	WEBP_COMMAND	Set the executable path of ImageMagick, when running as a module1	convert
--webp-quality <int>	WEBP_QUALITY	Quality when converting to webp. 0 - 100 (lossless).	60
--webp-lossless	WEBP_LOSSLESS	Losslessly convert to webp (average 20% size reduction)	False
--windows	IS_WINDOWS	Use compatibility polling for watching filesystem changes2	False
Subcommands		These commands only apply to subcommands, and are only available in the CLI (no env)
--force	n/a	Deletes matching media files even if no matching webm/webp found.	False
--all	n/a	Deletes ALL files that aren't webm/webp.	False

Planned Changes

• More conversion options

Footnotes

1. On Windows, you would want to set this to magick ↩

2. If you are running from docker and mounting a Windows volume, you must specify this for the container to be able to see filesystem changes. ↩