InTheaters plugin via XScript - Discontinued

by **tswhite70** on Sat Mar 25, 2006 9:41 pm

My wife and I have this routine when there is nothing on TV where we look at our unwatched movies in Xlobby and try and decide what to watch. Almost every time we end up checking Movies.com to see what’s showing at the local theater. I’ve been thinking about writing a plugin for a longtime to get this info into Xlobby, but never took the time till now. ptrinchi wrote a great plugin called Xscript that exposes VB.Net for those of us that either don’t have access to a compiler, don’t have the know-how, or just don’t want to be bothered with DLL’s and such. So I’ve written a script called InTheaters that utilizes the Xscript plugin that I think is ready for others to test.

The script is designed to find movies currently playing in theaters in your area and create a Xlobby XML database file with the movie info including local theaters and showtimes, download coverart and stills, and provide links to trailers. The script takes country, zip code and radius as inputs. It uses regex to parse the pertinent movie information, coverart and showtimes from http://www.moviestickets.com. Stills are downloaded from http://www.movies.com, and trailer urls are parsed from Itunes.

This plugin is US, Canada, UK, and Ireland at this time (results are limited to whatever movietickets.com shows for you postal code). Instructions for installing the script are below. I’ve also updated Steven’s Simplicity Default skin to utilize the script as an example. The zip files are at the bottom of the post. Here are some screens shots:

Main screen:

Details screen:

Showtimes overlay:

Theaters overlay:

Purchase screen:

Progress Overlay:

---------------- InTheaters Installation Instructions -----------------
The script requires .NET 2.0!

This script utilizes the XScriptNG plugin written by spencer171. To call this script, install the XscriptNG plugin as described and located here:
http://www.xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4290

See the following post for additional required XscriptNG configuration:
http://www.xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 994#p36994

If you want to test the script with Steven’s Simplicity Default skin download the updated skin files here:
http://home.comcast.net/~twhite644/inth ... eaters.zip
Unzip and copy the files to the locations indicated by the folders. Start Xlobby and hit F2 - select
Eventgroups\Skin\intheaters\Refresh intheaters - in the right hand window
change the countrycode~postalcode and radius variables to your location, close the event editor.

Valid country codes are US, UK, CA, IR. The parameter should be the country code followed by a ~ and then the postal code, a space and then search radius in miles ie:

Note: Postal codes should be input with ~ in place of spaces, see examples above for UK and CA.
Irish counties need to be designated using the MovieTickets.com county number:
County Armagh=1
County Carlow=2
County Cavan=3
County Clare=4
County Cork=5
County Donegal=6
County Dublin=7
County Galway=8
County Kerry=9
County Kildare=10
County Kilkenny=11
County Laois=12
County Leitrim=13
County Limerick=14
County Longford=15
County Louth=16
County Mayo=17
County Monaghan=18
County Offaly=19
County Sligo=20
County Tipperary=21
County Tyrone=22
County Waterford=23
County Westmeath=24
County Wexford=25
County Wicklow=26

From the Xlobby main menu hit the "Movies" button and then the
"In Theaters" button and then "Refresh". Stop and start Xlobby after the refresh has finished.

To integrate InTheaters into another skin follow the instructions below…
Download and install the InTheaters_GetMovies script here: http://home.comcast.net/~twhite644/inth ... movies.zip
Unzip the script and copy the text file to your Xlobby\plugins\Xscript\Scripts directory.

The script will automatically determine the path to your Xlobby folder, you should NOT need to modify it, but if you do... Search for the following at the start of the Main subroutine:
Dim XLpath_str as string = ""

Add your path without a trailing \.

Once you have the script in place start Xlobby and hit F2 -select Eventgroups, add a group called "InTheaters"
to your skin and inside that create an event called "Update InTheaters". Select “plugin” in the right hand window,
choose “executescript” and put the following in parameters.

Code: Select all: intheaters_getmovies.txt COUNTRYCODE~POSTALCODE RADIUS

Where COUNTRYCODE is: US, CA, UK, or IR. POSTALCODE is your zip code in the US, postal code with a ~ in place of the space for Canada and the UK, or the proper County # for Ireland (see above for County/# associations). Valid Values for RADIUS are 5,10,15,20,25.
(Note: Canadian and UK postal codes should be input with "~" in place of the space ie "V69~J4H").

Execute the "Update InTheaters" event. The script will begin spidering for the information on current movies in your area from MovieTickets.com. A "intheaters" directory will be created in the Xlobby root directory that will contain a folder for each movie. Stills and coverart will be downloaded and stored in the folder for their respective movies. The script will check to see if the files already exist to reduce bandwidth on subsequent runs. A cleanup routine runs at the end of the script to delete folders for movies that are no longer showing. Once the script has completed spidering for all movies it will write the output file to Xlobby\plugins\Xscript\Scripts directory as intheaters.xml. The previous intheaters.xml file in Xlobby\databases will be renamed to intheaters.xml.old if it exists and the new file will be copied into the databases directory. Finally, a category refresh will be performed for the Xintheaters category within xlobby.

After the first run you need to close Xlobby and restart so the database can be initialized, this only needs to be done once.

To view the intheaters data:
Create a new screen for InTheaters (I would suggest cloning your movies screen (and any associated screens/overlays) as the template.

Name the category "Xintheaters" and set the database to "intheaters".
**** NOTE! THESE NAMES ARE NOT OPTIONAL!!!!!! *****

You can access the data using "category>Xintheaters>variablename"

************************************************************************
InTheaters.xml Variables
************************************************************************

The InTheaters database has mutiple levels (ie subitems) to allow for viewing via theater & showtime categories (see example skin). Variables associated with subitems are:

************************************************************************
SCRIPT OPTIONS
************************************************************************

The script allows you to set several options, they are described below. To
change the options in the script, open it in Notepad and search for:

"Script Options are delimited below!"

Modify the options based on your config and desires...
************************************************************************

Xlobby Path Option:
The script will automatically determine your Xlobby path, you should NOT need to modify it, but if you do change the value below for XLpath_str. Note: no trailing \ is needed.

InTheaters Path Option:
The InTheaters path can be modified to the location you wish
to have the stills, and coverart downloaded too. The default is the root of your Xlobby folder. You can specify a specific local path or you can specify a network share such as
"\\server1\sharename" (No trailing \ is needed). The script will create
a directory called "intheaters" at the specified path.

Dim XLpath_str As String = ""
Dim InTheaterspath_str As String = ""
**********************************************************************

Timout Option:
A timeout value is available for slower internet connections, this is
the time the script will wait for a response from a website in milliseconds.
Slower internet connections may need a higher value.

Timeout = 10000
**********************************************************************

Get Trailers Option:
GetTrailersVal is dimmed below, if this is set to 1 then the script will try to get trailer URL's from Itunes. Set value to 0 to disable.

FuzzyMatch will use the Levenshtein Distance fuzzy string matching algorithm to try and match trailers when an exact match fails. This helps when Itunes fat fingers a movie title. Set value to 0 to disable.

TrailerSize can be set to the max size trailer link desired. Valid values are "IPod", "Small", "Medium", "Large", "HD 480", "HD 720", "HD 1080".
If the specified size is not available the script will link to the next largest available link unless only a single link is available.

TrailerIsAvail_str and TrailerNotAvail_str can be set by the user to determine what is displayed in the %traileravail% variable. This can be simple text or an image (ie "skin://buttons/TrailerIsAvail.png")

Dim GetTrailersVal As Integer = 0
Dim FuzzyMatch as Integer = 1
TrailerSize="Large"
Dim TrailerIsAvail_str as String = "skin://buttons/TrailerIsAvail.png"
Dim TrailerNotAvail_str as String = "skin://buttons/TrailerNotAvail.png"
**********************************************************************

Get Stills Option:
The script will download stills for the movie by default. If you don't use stills then set the value to 0 to disable.

MaxStills can be used to limit the number of stills downloaded per movie.

Dim GetStills As Integer = 1
Dim MaxStills as Integer = 99

**********************************************************************

HQ Coverart Option:
The script gets low quality coverart from movietickets.com by default. If this option is set to 1 then the script will do it's best to download high
quality coverart from impawards.com. Leave value to 0 if you just want the low quality movietickets.com coverart which is guaranteed to be correct when available.

Dim HQ As Integer = 0

'**********************************************************************

Purchase Availability Option:
PurchaseIsAvail_str and PurchaseNotAvail_str can be set by the user
to determine what is displayed in the %purchaseavail% variable for
individual showtime subitems. This can be simple text or an
image (ie "skin://buttons/TrailerIsAvail.png")

Dim PurchaseIsAvail_str As String = "Available"
Dim PurchaseNotAvail_str As String = "Not Available"
'**********************************************************************

Extended Searching Option:
Extended searching is configured below. If Extended is set to 1 the script will try searching other sites for movie info & stills that are not available from the default movietickets.com and movies.com. Default is 0, or disabled. NOTE: This functionality is still be debugged - IMDB should be working though.

Dim Extended as Integer = 0

'Individual sites for extended searching can be enabled (1) or
'disabled (0) below:

Dim Extended_IMDB as Integer = 0
Dim Extended_IndiaFM as Integer = 0
Dim Extended_IMAX as Integer = 0
'**********************************************************************

Display Progress Option:
The script is set up to display a progress overlay if you want to see
how the script is running. Movies.com can be a little tempermental so
I personally think its a good idea. You can turn this feature on
and off by setting the following variable in the Script Options section
of the code. Setting DisplayProgress to 1 enables it, set it to 0 if you
dont want to see the progress:

DisplayProgress = 1

The overlay screen name can also be changed with the variable:

ProgressOverlay = "intheaters_progress"

The variables for display on your progress overlay screen are:

%variable>progover% - Overall script progress text
%variable>progbarover% - overall progress delimiter text "...."
%variable>progtext% - Movie progress text
%variable>progbar% - movie progress delimiter text "...."

*** NOTE: This Overlay will Automatically close at the end of the script,
there is no need to have a close button on it!

************************************************************************
Thats it for the current Script Options
************************************************************************

Note - the script writes a debug log to the Xlobby\Plugins\Xscript\Scripts
directory called "intheaters_debug.log".

************************************************************************
End Documentation
************************************************************************

Revisions:
v1.1 03/30/2006 - I had a chance to work on the script and switch it over to using movietimes pages on movies.com instead of flickfinder. I also added some code for IMAX movies (if you have a IMAX theater near you) to pull info from http://www.bigmoviezone.com.
v1.2 04/09/2006 - Fixed problem with bad folder names. Update IMAX movie section. Updated trailers with new regex.
v1.3 04/10/2006 - Added error handling for folder paths.
v1.4 04/30/2006 - Fixed sorttitle code for movies with short names.
v1.5 04/30/2006 - Added better error handling for folder paths...
v2.0 05/27/2006 - Switched to MovieTickets.com as the source, updated documentation with new input parameter info (please read - things have changed!)
v2.1 05/27/2006 - Added High Quality coverart option
v2.2 06/03/2006 - Added error handling for Ads from movietickets.com, modified showtime regexes to fix certain scenarios
v2.3 07/01/2006 - Modified showtime code for movies with no showtimes, fixed regex for stills from movies.com.
v2.4 11/11/2006 - Fixed the showtime regexes to fix the problem that Zap found with abnormal purchase links.
v2.5 12/09/2006 - Fixed the stills code.

v5.1 02/18/2007- Major Update!
- XScriptNG now required!!!!!
- Parameter variable now contains link to MovieTickets.com url for the movie (internal use)
- Trailers now pulled from Itunes
- Fuzzy matching of trailer names using Levenshtein Distance
- TrailerSize can be set to the max size trailer link desired. Valid values are "IPod", "Small", "Medium", "Large", "HD 480", "HD 720", "HD 1080". If the specified size is not available the script will link to the next largest available link unless only a single link is available.
- New "TrailerURL" variable: for link to Itunes trailer url; replaces previous "trl_small", "trl_medium", "trl_large" variables
- New "TrailerAvail" variable: TrailerIsAvail_str and TrailerNotAvail_str script options can be set by the user to determine what is displayed in the %traileravail% variable. This can be simple text or an image (ie "skin://buttons/TrailerIsAvail.png")
- Database is now multi-level with subitems for each theater and showtime per movie (see the screenshot of the "Theaters" view).
- New "PurchaseLink" variable: Movietickets.com online purchase url for individual showtime if available
- New "PurchaseAvail" variable: PurchaseIsAvail_str and PurchaseNotAvail_str can be set by the user to determine what is displayed in the %purchaseavail% variable for individual showtime subitems. This can be simple text or an image (ie "skin://buttons/TrailerIsAvail.png")
- New MaxStills option can be used to limit the number of stills downloaded per movie (default = 99).
- Extended searching option is now available. If Extended is set to 1 the script will try searching other sites for movie info & stills that are not available from the default movietickets.com and movies.com. Default is 0, or disabled. Individual sites for extended searching can be enabled (1) or disabled (0) for IMDB, IndiaFM, and BigMovieZone (IMAX). NOTE: This feature has not been completely debugged.
- New "filterrating" variable: short rating for searches
- New "theaternames" variable: for filtering on theaters
- New "showtimeslist" variable: for filtering on showtimes

v5.2 03/03/2007 - Updated movie title regex to reflect change at MovieTickets.com.
v5.5 06/06/2007 - Updated movies.com and indiafm.com code.
v5.6 06/15/2007 - Updated trailers code exception handling.
v5.9 09/01/2007 - Updated trailers code to match Itunes backend change. Updated IMDB extended searching code.
v6.1 12/29/2007 - Updated movie title regex to reflect change at MovieTickets.com. Updated IMDB extended searching code.
v6.2 01/01/2008 - Updated coverart regexs for MovieTickets.com and Impawards.com.
v6.3 01/19/2008 - Fixed problem with Extended Search code and added some more error handling.
v6.5 02/24/2008 - More error handling for showtimes and updated IMDB extended search code.

That’s it for now – let me know if you run into any problems!
Good luck,
tsw

by **Colby** on Sat Mar 25, 2006 10:23 pm

Looks good. I would love to try this but Xscript doesnt work here. Xlobby hangs on prepareing to start, if Xscript dll. is anywhere in plugin folder

by **tswhite70** on Sun Mar 26, 2006 1:24 am

Colby - do you have the XScriptClass.dll in the root of Xlobby? Seems like I had a similar problem when I first installed Xscript and moving that file out of Plugins and into Xlobby root fixed it.

tsw

by **Colby** on Tue Mar 28, 2006 12:18 am

I managed to get this working, it was not easy to configure, but I must say I am impressed. There are a couple things I wonder. Is there a way to use xlobby's directory:// approach to configure this plugins path?

http://www.xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... =directory

stevenhanna6 wrote:ok how about this if you use "directory://" xlobby will check to see if there if "directory" exists in its root folder....and if it does it will change "directory://" into something like "c:\xlobby\directory\" and anything after "directory://" will just get added onto the new transformation...."skin://" is still a speacial case because it is not in the root.

#2 Is it possible to get the show times as filteralble variables. The wife and I usually want to know whats playing @ 8pm and then 9pm etc. If we could filter times or something that would be awesome. Save opening up every movie showtime overlay.

#3 All we need now is a button in Xlobby to buy through someone like fandango and print our tickets and we are off and running!!

by **Vaporware** on Tue Mar 28, 2006 2:34 am

Wow.. This is nice. I think this is a great addition to Xlobby. It does appear to have a BUG. I live in zip code 47906 and when I check movies.com the movies 'Failure to Launch' , 'Stay Alive' and 'Curious George' are clearly in the movie listings but they do not come up as movies showing in Xlobby.

Tom

by **scottw** on Tue Mar 28, 2006 4:28 pm

I just set it up and it is great!!!! Thanks

t does appear to have a BUG. I live in zip code 47906 and when I check movies.com the movies 'Failure to Launch' , 'Stay Alive' and 'Curious George' are clearly in the movie listings but they do not come up as movies showing in Xlobby.

It appears that the FlickFinder in movies.com (which is what this script is using) does not show all of the same movies as the movies.com main page. Not really a fault of the script but of the site, but it would be nice if this could be fixed somehow.

#2 Is it possible to get the show times as filteralble variables. The wife and I usually want to know whats playing @ 8pm and then 9pm etc. If we could filter times or something that would be awesome. Save opening up every movie showtime overlay.

#3 All we need now is a button in Xlobby to buy through someone like fandango and print our tickets and we are off and running!! Smile

Agree and Agree

by **tswhite70** on Tue Mar 28, 2006 6:43 pm

Glad it's working for somebody other than me!

Colby - Any suggestions on making the configuration easier? I tried to provide all the options I could but that does make it kind of pain...

1) directory:// - Do you mean for the intheaters_getmovies.txt script itself, or for the coverart/stills directory? If it's for the script I think the Xscript plugin requires it to be in Xlobby\Plugins\Xscript\Scripts but I could test it to see if I could pass it a path.

2) Filter on Times/Theaters - I've thought about this quite a bit, I'm just not sure how to implement it. Multilevel db, or multiple db's? How do I display the information since the result would be dynamic - movies in 77004 playing between 9:00 and 9:30pm - display movie name,theatre and start time for each instance.... Any help here on how you see this working and the db structure to facilitate would be great! I just can't get my head around it.

3) Online purchase - Fandango? I hadn't thought of that, I've actually never purchased movie tickets online! I'll have to think about that one, although I think I'd need #2 above sorted out first so that I had a theatre and showtime as a unique variable?

Vaporware - ScottW hit the nail on the head as far as your results go, I use the following url to get the movies: http://movie-times.movies.go.com/moviet ... &radius=10

For some reason this has different values than the main Movies.com page: http://movie-times.movies.go.com/moviet ... 906&zip=10

Once the script gets the movie links from that query, it goes to the individual movie page, adds zip code and radius to the Tickets & Times link and pulls theaters & showtimes from there. If the Tickets & Times link doesn't exist on the movie info page or if the regex for theaters and showtimes fails the script skips to the next movie.
I didn't notice a problem in my zip code with a difference between the two pages, but maybe I just never noticed. I'll look into it a little and see if there is anything I can do. Querying from the main page would be a hassle since it doesn't really fit the database structure.

tsw

by **scottw** on Tue Mar 28, 2006 6:52 pm

I thought the setup was fairly easy, the only problems I had were my fault not the instructions.

Alot of the movies that did not show up for me were at the "cheap" theater that are almost or already out on video, like Chicken Little, King Kong, etc...

As far as the filter 2)
I would think you could pick a time, say 8:00 and it would show you a list of Movies that start at or around 8 and upon clicking on them you would see what theaters they are at. Just my opinion.

Your script is already GREAT so anything you can add is a bonus for me.

Thanks for your time.

by **Marbles_00** on Tue Mar 28, 2006 8:58 pm

Very cool indeed! To bad it doesn't support Canadian postal codes :cry:

. Even though the main movies.com supports them, but very limited (seemed to not show Ciniplex Odeon supertheaters in the area that are very close to my house).

David

*EDIT*I noticed that movietickets.com could be used instead of movies.com (website wise). That site seemed to allow both US and Canadian entries (have to select either the US or Canadian sites which change Imperial units to Metric units and Zip codes to postal codes). Tswhite, how difficult would it be to see if movietickets.com could be used?

*EDIT**EDIT* Not to leave anyone out, movietickets.com also supports the UK and the "Luck of the Irish" as well.

by **Vaporware** on Wed Mar 29, 2006 3:11 am

Okay. I checked it again. Yep the Tickets and Times for zip code 47906 has more movies listed then the In Theaters listing. One thing I found interesting was that the movie cover art for 'Failure to Launch" appeared to be in german so I thought that it was not being processed but it was. That may or may not be a bug.

Actually the only one that did not show up was 'Curious George'. 'Stay Alive' was there so I was just blind

and 'Failure to Launch' was in another language.

To bad you can not sort
http://movie-times.movies.go.com/moviet ... 6&movieId=

Still a useful plugin that I think will be used.

Thanks,
Tom

by **tswhite70** on Wed Mar 29, 2006 3:50 pm

Vaporware - When the script gets coverart it just downloads the first one available from impawards.com, in the case of "Failure to Launch" the first cover happens to be in German, I get the same cover. You can use the impawards.com spider to switch the cover, it can be found at: http://www.xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=25108#25108

Once you switch the cover, it will stay - subsequent runs of the script will not replace it.

I looked at the search pages some more yesterday and I can switch the script around to use the 'movietimes' page instead of 'flickfinder' as it's initial source. Turns out I was missing quite a few movies for my zip code using 'flickfinder' too. I'll should have time to get an update out next week.

Marbles_00 - Canadian post codes have a space in them right? like "V16 KB9" or something. This poses a problem for Xscript since it only allows 2 variables, but when I make the changes for the above I'll add code to allow you to specify something like "V16~KB9" for the zip and I'll parse that out in the script, won't be difficult to do.

MovieTickets.com, seems pretty cool... I like the idea that it supports US, Canada, UK, and the Irish. After the update above I'll see if I can switch over to MovieTickets as my source - thanks for the idea!

tsw

by **scottw** on Wed Mar 29, 2006 4:51 pm

I looked at the search pages some more yesterday and I can switch the script around to use the 'movietimes' page instead of 'flickfinder' as it's initial source. Turns out I was missing quite a few movies for my zip code using 'flickfinder' too. I'll should have time to get an update out next week.

This sounds like a good idea, it is quite annoying not to get all of the movies but the majority were there.

Again awesome work.

by **Marbles_00** on Wed Mar 29, 2006 5:41 pm

tswhite,

When it comes to postal codes, technically, yes there should be a space in between, but it doesn't really matter usually. I noticed that the url from movies.com would return with the following:
'http://movie-times.movies.go.com/movietimes/theaters?zip=l9b2m5&movieId='
taking the space out of the postal code, even if the data entered had a space.

Thanks for accommodating, I really like this, especially when the kids get a little older and want to go to the movies, we don't get the local paper, so this is an excellent viable option.

David

by **tswhite70** on Fri Mar 31, 2006 5:27 am

I had a chance to work on the script and switch it over to using movietimes pages on movies.com instead of flickfinder. I also added some code for IMAX movies (if you have a IMAX theater near you) to pull info from http://www.bigmoviezone.com. Should also work for Canadian postal codes now, try entering the postal code without the space or with a "~" instead of the space (ie V16~B9J). Let me know if you find any glaring bugs. Next on the script will be to covert it over to using movietickets.com instead of movies.com. Should be ready in the next couple of weeks depending on work/family.

v1.1 03/30/2006
Steven’s Simplicity Default skin files & script:
http://home.houston.rr.com/rswhite/inth ... eaters.zip
(No changes were made to the skin files, so if you already have them you can just download the script.)

InTheaters_GetMovies script only:
http://home.houston.rr.com/rswhite/inth ... movies.zip

tsw

by **Marbles_00** on Fri Mar 31, 2006 1:57 pm

Thanks for the update, Canadian postal codes seem to work (well for me). I used '~' in the event setup. The only problem, and this is a fault with movies.com, not your plugin, is that it is only reporting 1 movie theater...which I know is not as close two other theaters to my house (both within a 5 min. drive to my house). Hopefully when you get a chance, you can try and see if movietickets.com will work as it seems to offer a wider variety.

Great script, I really like it and I can see a great future for it.

Thanks.

David