STV Import: MovieTimes Movie Listings Import v0.57 Beta

[Humanzee]

Has anyone been able to get this to work yet other than the author? It seems like is should be working but its just not finding the data files in the list screens.

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

Has anyone been able to get this to work yet other than the author? It seems like is should be working but its just not finding the data files in the list screens.

I have not had luck with this yet, either. Same problem that others are seeing: 1) I set up the locations ok, 2) use the .exe to populate the movie data directories, but 3) I get the "No movies found" and "No theaters found" messages trying to view the data.

Could this be related to java version? I am running 1.4.2_09.

[aperry]

The JAR file was created with version 1.4.2_11 of Java, so that shouldn't be causing you any problems.

Regarding the trailers question that was asked, my current plan is to probably have it use SageTVPlayer.exe from the placeshifter package. Narflex suggested that to me, and since it is basically MPlayer, that may be the way to go. The main problem I can see would be in the .MOV codecs. There is one available for MPlayer which I would assume would work with SageTVPlayer, but I have not had time to look at it in depth. My main concern right now is to try and get what we have more stable.


Regarding the problem some are having in not seeing the lists of movies or theaters, I'll take a look at the STVi tonight and see if I can figure out a reason they wouldn't be showing. I'm sure there is just something that's not getting initialized correctly. Not sure why it would work for some and not others though.

I'll report back tonight once I've got more info and/or a new version.

[jlabrue]

I have got it to work by removing the theater with the ampersand. It does have some Beta issues (ampersand, maintaning files) that I'm sure he will fix but after removing the ampersand, I was able to download information and view it in Sage. It's getting there.

[Humanzee]

There are no "&" signs in any of the theaters for our area, however, I didn't check if there were any names of movies with the "&"

[aperry]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

There are no "&" signs in any of the theaters for our area, however, I didn't check if there were any names of movies with the "&"

That's a good idea, you might check to see if there are any standalone ampersand characters in the moviedata.xml file (default location is C:\MovieTimes\Media\moviedata.xml). If there are, just change them to "&".

That being said, I still think that the problem stems back to me just not initializing some variable somewhere. It probably didn't show up for me because my system has been used to develop it, and perhaps it already had the "magic" value already set. I don't think it will be hard to track this down, I'll post tonight with whatever I find (including hopefully a new version).

On the ampersand front, I have contacted the MTSA author, and he said he'll get me a fix soon.

[Humanzee]

aperry,
How hard would it be to add a search function to this plug in? I.e. There are some folks here in the forum that are looking to find info and art for their imported video library content. If you could search for a film by name then you could maybe dump an xml file and cover art into a seperate destination folder. You might talk to stanger89 to integrate your tools with his IVL (improved video library) and Neilm for the IMDB plugin and DwarF's Netflix plugin. It would make for a nice integrated Movie, and Video Services suite of tools.

Of course you'd probably want to get all your plug-in's kinks worked out first.

[geogecko]

What are the odds that this would work, or could be worked out to work with SageMC?

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by aperry

That's a good idea, you might check to see if there are any standalone ampersand characters in the moviedata.xml file

No "&" in the moviedata.xml or .xsd files

[tcarlus]

I see the problem. You must remove any xml special characters from the files. So < > " and ' as well as &. Not sure how do do this probably download sed for DOS and run it in a batch file after mtsa.exe on the files to replace these strings. Anybody better ideas?

[aperry]

Now updated.
Okay, I have uploaded a new version of the MovieTimes plugin. This update includes:

1. I think the Movie and Theater list stuff should work now.

I would recommend starting with your original SageTV3.xml file again, so go into the Detailed Setup area and load it. Next, exit SageTV completely (this is necessary to reset bad MovieTimes variables currently in use). Download and extract the files like before, load up SageTV with the default SageTV3, and import the STVi. Then, once you get your menu item created and then go into MovieTimes, the movie list and theater list should start working (you shouldn't need to reselect the config file).

2. Updated MTSA program, fixes the ampersand problem in the theaters list.

For any theaters you have already downloaded, if you had the ampersand problem, and have not modified the original locations.xml file, then according to the MTSA author, if you do a theater reload, it will fix any ampersands that are in there wrong.

Otherwise, if you don't mind setting up your active theaters and priorities again, then in the locations config screen, delete all locations in the lower portion, and create a new set of locations. Then, do the (Re)Load Theaters step, and set your active theaters and priorities again.

If you'd rather keep the theaters you already set up, and you deleted the ampersand to try and get it working, go ahead and add it back in, but use "&amp;" instead of "&". No need to reload theaters in this scenario.


Let me know if you run into any other problems. Hopefully, this one will be relatively stable so I can look at other things that need tending to.

[aperry]

Originally Posted by tcarlus

I see the problem. You must remove any xml special characters from the files. So < > " and ' as well as &. Not sure how do do this probably download sed for DOS and run it in a batch file after mtsa.exe on the files to replace these strings. Anybody better ideas?

No, don't go this route, the movie data file should be okay. Download the latest version and get it installed. Your movie and theater lists should start working with no changes to your movie data file.

The necessary characters seem to be properly escaped in the movie data file.

Regarding the XML character escaping, what you state is somewhat true, but the characters don't necessarily need to be escaped. The ampersand (&) always needs to be escaped, except when it starts an entity (like &auml; for instance). The less-than symbol (<) only needs to be escaped if it is not the start of an element. The greater-than symbol (>), double-quote ("), and single-quote (') only need to be escaped inside of actual elements or attributes in the elements.

So, here is a properly escaped set of text from an XML document:

<name surname='O&apos;Reilly'>Jack &amp; Diane O'Reilly (1900 &lt; 1905) and (1000 > 40), no need to "escape double-quotes" here.</name>

You may already be aware of this, but I just wanted to make this clear to anyone not "up to speed" on XML and its markup.

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by tcarlus

You must remove any xml special characters from the files.

Well I'll be. I removed ' and ( ) and restarted sage. I don't know which are special characters but seems to load now , at least till the next MTSA update.

Well At least now that we know what the problem is hopefully we can find a solution.

Aperry,
I also noticed that when you are selecting your local theaters from the list, it only lets you highlight them in red by hitting the enter key, not with a mouse click.

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by aperry

Okay, I have uploaded a new version of the MovieTimes plugin.

I tried the new download, but still no luck. I am not sure if I grabbed the correct version, though. I downloaded a file named "aperry-movietimes-stv-import-v051-beta.zip", but all the files it contains appear to have the same timestamps and sizes as the previous version I downloaded (everything is dated 5/7/2006, and for example, the mtsa.exe is still dated 4/19/2006). Have I grabbed the correct file?

Thanks,

Brian

[Opus4]

When updating a file in the downloads section, be sure to update only a single field at a time, or the updated file doesn't seem to get used. That tip is here in the sticky for: SageTV Downloads: share your customizations.

- Andy

[aperry]

Originally Posted by Opus4

When updating a file in the downloads section, be sure to update only a single field at a time, or the updated file doesn't seem to get used. That tip is here in the sticky for: SageTV Downloads: share your customizations.

Hmmm. Well, sorry about that folks. Obviously, I did try to update both the description there and the file itself. I'll get the correct version of the file uploaded this evening when I get home. In the meantime, I changed the description on the page to reflect it is the original version.

[aperry]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

Well I'll be. I removed ' and ( ) and restarted sage. I don't know which are special characters but seems to load now , at least till the next MTSA update.

I want to reiterate that this is not a fix, despite that it seems to load for you. As far as I have been able to figure out, the movie data file is okay, it was only the theater list that got messed up with the whole ampersand thing.

See my posted reply to tcarlus.

Again, glad to hear it is loading for you, but if the "it" you are referring to is the movie data file, then it's just a coincidence, and is probably due to something else.

[aperry]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

I also noticed that when you are selecting your local theaters from the list, it only lets you highlight them in red by hitting the enter key, not with a mouse click.

So, is the general consensus from folks that they want it to toggle active/inactive when you click on a theater with the mouse? It should be pretty easy to implement if that is what everybody wants. I could probably even sneak that into what I upload tonight, if that is the way we go.

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by aperry

So, is the general consensus from folks that they want it to toggle active/inactive when you click on a theater with the mouse? It should be pretty easy to implement if that is what everybody wants. I could probably even sneak that into what I upload tonight, if that is the way we go.

I don't know that you need a consensus, this is your baby. I just expected it to turn red when I was clicking on it, then I realized that there was no way to select it with only the mouse, so I figured it was a bug. Can you do a double mouse click?

[aperry]

I have gotten version 0.51 beta uploaded. The MTSA program should handle the XML correctly. If you run into any problems, let me know and I'll get it looked into.

Notes:

1. The Theaters config screen (to set priorities and active theaters) now works with a mouse. If you click on a theater, it will toggle the active/inactive. If you click over on the right side, you can reprioritize theaters.

2. If you have already loaded this import before, be sure not to overwrite your existing config.xml and locations.xml file. Otherwise, you'll have to run the configuration stuff again (unless you want to start over with a new set of theaters to make sure everything is okay), and re-set up your theaters.

The notes back up in post 31 covers some other notes regarding this update.

Let me know if you find any other issues.

And thanks again to all that have helped out in getting the bugs worked out so far.