Personal Video Database

Thanks nostra!!

Unfortunately i can't test it right now because i switched to linux and until now i was unable to get PVD to run in wine

Thanks for the explanation of how the scripts/plugins are actually used - helps a lot when thinking about where to fill what data.
I will try to add a few "extension points" to the script so people can easily change the script behaviour (especially which data is put in where).

Now on to the other questions i found in your post: 

I'm not sure there's any disadvantages to a script vs. a plugin.

You can make broader use of the programming language in a plugin.
e.g. the TMDb plugin probably uses some kind of xml parser.
If i were to write a plugin for TMDb i would actually add a JSON parsing unit (e.g. http://sourceforge.net/projects/is-webstart/) and switch to the 3.0 API of TMDb.
This should improve performance and most likely there are some nice new features in the 3.0 API.

Does the API offer a way to select the default poster, or one classified by the same language as the user language?

Unfortunately all you get is a list of images grouped into posters and backdrops. Each image is available in 6 sizes and just has an id, width and height.
It is possible to search by language but most often there are more than 20 posters just in english (the plugin actually only downloads the english ones i think).

Quote

Another issue i had is preventing PVD from downloading the webpage URL which i don't care about because i only use the API.

The URL doesn't hurt, and can be used to get to the website, should the need arise. For me, that's usually to see what other posters are available.

No thats ok but the problem is that after returning the search results and the right movie is selected (automatically or by the user), PVD starts downloading (!) the URL i added to the selected result which of course is the webpage and not the api page of the movie (damn i suck at explaining stuff in english ^^).
I then receive the html content of this page in the ParsePage function which i have no use for - in this case i just make a redirection to the movies api page.
No big issue just a bit of overhead

I can not find any solution for it Status, I tried with this part code,

The script uses the API - see here: http://api.themoviedb.org/2.1/
It looks like the status is just not transmitted but i think theres not much usefull information in it anyway.
A release date in the future usually indicates "not released"

aka data only one alternative address out there on the web site is usually a number of alternative titles.

The aka title filled at the moment is the english alternative name - whereas the aka on the homepage are the translated names.

In Cast data not transmit data only for players, but also as Crew information for art, camera, etc.

This is a bit difficult. PVD supports the following person types: actor, director, writer, composer, producer
TMDb groups the crew into departments and jobs.
Departments are (the ones i found): Actors, Directing, Writing, Sound, Production, Art, Camera, Editing, Costume+Make-Up, Crew
The list of jobs is pretty large - i don't really want to deal with them
What the script does atm is putting the department actors into actor, directing into director, writing into writer, sound into composer (this is already an ugly match) and production into producer (not perfect because production contains stuff like casting etc).
The other departments aren't handled at all - i could add them to a custom field if you like.

It doesn't seem possible to add configuration options on scripts, is it?

No only plugins are configurable

Also i read in the script that "//note that loading more than one poster is broken in PVD 1.0.2.3 Beta". Is it still the case? (most probably yes, as 1.0.2.3 is actually the latest available version)

Have a look at this: http://www.videodb.info/forum_en/index.php/topic,3229.0.html
I haven't found another way to download multiple posters in a script

Also (as you may have noticed from the source) adding more than one url doesn't seem to work - neither on 0.9.9.21 nor on 1.0.2.3
Another issue i had is preventing PVD from downloading the webpage URL which i don't care about because i only use the API.

Well it's much easier to follow changes and track issues than in a forum.
Keeping changelogs in the source code is something i really dislike.

Ok i must admit i normaly work on larger scale projects and i'm actually a fulltime developer but for me there's no downside of this. I don't see how more than two people can work on anything without a VCS (it's already hard for two to work in parallel).

Setting up a project on any of the hosting sites is a matter of seconds.

I would like to publish the new scripts to the automatic update system but before i can do that i need some more testers.
So it would be really helpful if everyone could download the scripts from my last two posts and give me some feedback.

Thanks guys!!


btw if anyone needs a PVD script feel free to drop me a PM

Oh wait you don't have to go back to 0.9.9.21.
Find attached a version which only downloads the front cover (so there's no need for AddImageURL).

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Just tried the movie in PVD 0.9.9.21 and 1.0.2.3
The posters (front & back) work in 0.9 and as you said won't load in 1.0

I don't have a clue why this is broken in the new version, so maybe one of the devs could help me out.

This is the affected piece of code (line 148 in my script):
//Poster (Front & Back)
  PosterURL := HTMLValue(HTML, 0, 0, '<div id="Boxcover"><a href="', '"');
  BackPosterURL := StringReplace(PosterURL, 'h.jpg', 'bh.jpg', False, True, False);
  if (PosterURL <> '') and (BackPosterURL <> PosterURL) then
  begin
    LogMessage('poster: '+ PosterURL +', back: '+ BackPosterURL);
    AddImageURL(0, PosterURL);
    AddImageURL(0, BackPosterURL);
  end else
    LogMessage('poster not found');

The log output shows that AddImageURL is in fact called:
poster: http://cdn3c.adultempire.org/products/49/1609649h.jpg, back: http://cdn3c.adultempire.org/products/49/1609649bh.jpg

i converted my script to pascal style (according to http://edn.embarcadero.com/article/10280 and the other scripts) so others can pick this up.

furthermore i extended the script so everything available on ADE should now be parsed.
the following fields are handled: title, studio, year, poster (front and back), tagline, description, actors, directors, producers, genre, features, mpaa, rating, release date, duration

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