XNetflix www

[Atlas]

#
http://www.geocities.com/diceshooter70/ ... etflix.jpg
##
Plugin to view your Netflix information in Xlobby.
###

EDIT: UPDATED TO 0.6 ON 8/11/2007

Release 0.6
________________________________________________________________________
* Updated webpage scraping code to handle changes to Netflix site

You will need to delete your existing cache.


#################################################################

Download here:
http://www.geocities.com/diceshooter70/xnetflix.html

Here are the steps to setting up the Netflix plugin

1) Copy the xnetflix directory into the Xlobby plugins directory.

2) Start Xlobby and bring up the Setup window (F2). Go to Plugins and select XNetflix and Press Configure.

3) Click on the "Login To Netflix". This will bring up Internet Explorer at the Login screen of Netflix. Sign in to Netflix through the browser as you normally would. There is alot of traffic back and forth during the login, so I chose to let IE handle that.

4) Close the IE window once you are logged in. The plugin will then get the ID out of your cookies and place it in the text box. You can also manually set the ID field. This info is saved so you do not need to login each time.

5) Select the RSS Feeds that you would like the plugin to retrieve and press "Save".

6) Exit and restart Xlobby. This will save off databases for the feeds. This is due to Xlobby not having a "create database" command for plugins.


Your Netflix Plugin is now configured! See README for more info

-- Information the plugin grabs

* coverart: Box cover of movie
* display: The rss movie title ie 1-Mr. and Mrs. Smith
* title: The movie title ie Mr. and Mr.s Smith
* rating: The rating image ie PG-13, R
* ratingtext: The rating text ie For mild violence
* plot: The movie plot
* description: The movie plot with possible additional rss information. Used mainly with athome for Shipped date etc.
* stars: The stars rating image. If you have rated the movie you will see yellow stars, else red stars just like the Netflix site.
* movieid: Netflix movie id. Mainly used inside plugin
* genre: Netflix genre.
* year: Year released.
* runtime: Length of movie in minutes.
* cast: List of cast members.
* director: Director of movie.

[sharp_1]

Atlas

Great Job!! I can't wait to give it a try.

[ScAndal]

WOW cool

[sharp_1]

Atlas

Any way to slip in the actors names to the database?

[Atlas]

Sure. I'll add it to my next release which should be sometime this week. The new release will have queue editing functionality. It now allows you to Add, Move To Top, and Remove items in the queue. I want to add move up 1 and move down 1 before releasing.

[sharp_1]

Perfect..thanks for the great work. Are we going to be able to rate the movies too?

[Atlas]

I'm hoping to add in the capability to rate movies as well. I have it last on my list right now. They use java script to make the # of stars dynamic with your mouse. I'll have to dig deeper into it, but it is definitely on the TOTRY list. Also I'm trying to figure out how I would handle something like that in xlobby.

Thanks for the requests. I'm wanting to make the plugin mimic the website capabilities as much as possible.

[Naylia]

very cool Atlas, i'll have to try this out this week!

[Atlas]

Just so people know, that until my next release some sections of the movie info won't work. Netflix just changed their movie webpages so my info grabbing code isn't working for all fields!

That's not good for coding especially when you are adding new stuff to your code! I spent over an hour trying to figure out what I jacked up in my code when it turned out to be the website changes!

These changes are making me have to redo how I grab some of the text info. That is the cause for the delay on the release. Good news all queue editing functions are working! (No rating movies yet).

[Atlas]

Released new version 0.2. See first post.

[Atlas]

Has anyone successfully tried the plugin? Just wondering if there are bugs being found. I know my coding isn't that good!

Also as I was coding for the movie rating, I came across a dilemma. After rating a movie I then redownload the movie info to grab the "new stars", ie yellow version of your rating. I may or may not have to grab the new image but I at least need to get the new rating. This appears fine for one movie at a time. This made me realize that I'm caching the stars rating, so if you modify a rating through the website (not through the plugin) I never check for new stars rating. However if I do check then I have to download the entire movie page just to get stars, which pretty much nullifies the purpose of caching the info. And if you have a large queue, and top 100 etc. the download time goes way up. Any comments or suggestions for this? I may put this on hold until I figure out something.

On another note anybody interested in using the search function of netflix through the plugin? Would depend on me getting the search string to the plugin...maybe through variables?

[sharp_1]

I've got some of the netflix plugin working but haven't been able to work on the other rating stuff yet..I am using Colby's skin so I have to make a custom skin for the netflix plugin...I'm kinda slow at the creating new screens thing. Thanks for the plugin...so far I really like what your doing.

[bazac]

Just tried to set up xnetflix but the plugin dont appear in XL setup/configure, copied the xnetflix DIR over to XL Plugins but it dont appear any ideas ?

[Atlas]

Could be an extra directory in the path due to unzipping the file. Copy the xnetflix folder that is the same level as the README.txt file. The directory structure should be

<your_xlobby_path>\plugins\xnetflix\XNetflix.dll

Also this plugin was made with .NET 2.0 so you would need the latest exe.
http://www.xlobby.com/xlobby2.zip

Let me know if it is not either of those and I'll dig deeper.

[bazac]

Thanx for replying, only running .NET 1.1 so thats what it will be. Tried .Net 2.0 and found it a bit buggy but will give it another go . Thanx again will try it tommorrow.