[Original Thread] "My NetFlix" Plugin with Watch Now Support (2 Viewers)

[ChopperCharles]

Re: [plugin] "My NetFlix" Plugin with Watch Now Support

hey look, sorry if I stepped on toes. But, this plugin is not intuitive to use. All i want to be able to do is search for a movie and play it. Right now I have to close mediaportal and access netflix via Chrome.

Also, I don't have a remote, I have a wireless keyboard and mouse. I shouldn't need another degree to figure out how to get a movie to play. I have the fresh out of the box media portal install, with whatever skin it comes with. in widescreen mode.

Charles.

 

[jmvaughn]

Re: [plugin] "My NetFlix" Plugin with Watch Now Support

Just installed the new NetFlix plugin on a test machine, to try out the new BleazleWide skins. I thought I'd share some thoughts, suggestions, and minor bugs.

First off, thank you very much, WileE, for doing all those skin adaptations. I've been fiddling with the NetFlix files for BleazleWide skin a bit (more on that below), and I've quickly come to realize that it's a very time-consuming process. All those skins must have taken you forever!

Second, I'd like to say that the direction you're taking with the user interface is EXACTLY what I was hoping you'd do. It is cleaner, simpler, and better looking. It is really turning into a fantastic plugin.

Some bugs I've found:

• In Large and Small Icon view, pressing select plays movie instead of showing details (the "Show details" box is checked in config).
• Film title in upper right corner does not always show when first entering plugin. When cursor is moved, title shows up.
• Problem installing Bleazlewide using standard install. When I copied over files manually from the Zip file, it worked fine.
• Wrong movie details appear for sub-account when on detail screen. Details are for the movie for the main account in the same position in the queue. Fan art and movie title are correct, however.
• Extra comma at end of lists (e.g., actors list, genre list). Very minor, obviously. Maybe this is how it comes from Netflix servers?
• In Rental history, quite a few movies are listed twice.
• When sub-account selected, and DVD Queue selected (to update list), Rental History, Recommendations, At Home, and Ratings is still showing results for main account.

I have a feeling some of the issues concerning the sub-account stuff may be due to limitations with the Netflix API, but I thought I'd mention them just in case.

I also have a couple of suggestions:

• Play Button prominently on the details screen, which is selected by default when opening details. This is a WAF feature, to make it perfectly obvious that pressing select at this point starts the movie.
• Larger font for movie title in upper right. Couldn't figure out how to do this in the XML's .
• Let user edit the name of the plugin on the main menu (e.g. Netflix -> My Netflix, or whatever).

These may only make sense for the BleazleWide skin, or not, I don't use any others so I'm not sure it's relevant to anyone else.

I also have a couple files I've modified, in case Wile E or anyone else is interested. I've modified the main list view and the details view to eliminate scrolling (man, I hate scrolling, lol). I also created the XML file the BleazleWide skin needs in order to show the green highlight bar in the menu. The files are attached below, as well as some screenshots showing what they look like in action.

Thanks again, Wile E, for all your hard work. Hope my input is helpful.

 

[WileECoyote]

Re: [plugin] "My NetFlix" Plugin with Watch Now Support

Hey Jmvaughn,
Thank you for the feedback, I appreciate you taking the time to check out the new version.

Some bugs I've found:

• 1. In Large and Small Icon view, pressing select plays movie instead of showing details (the "Show details" box is checked in config).
• 2. Film title in upper right corner does not always show when first entering plugin. When cursor is moved, title shows up.
• 3. Problem installing Bleazlewide using standard install. When I copied over files manually from the Zip file, it worked fine.
• 4. Wrong movie details appear for sub-account when on detail screen. Details are for the movie for the main account in the same position in the queue. Fan art and movie title are correct, however.
• 5. Extra comma at end of lists (e.g., actors list, genre list). Very minor, obviously. Maybe this is how it comes from Netflix servers?
• 6. In Rental history, quite a few movies are listed twice.
• 7. When sub-account selected, and DVD Queue selected (to update list), Rental History, Recommendations, At Home, and Ratings is still showing results for main account.

I have a feeling some of the issues concerning the sub-account stuff may be due to limitations with the Netflix API, but I thought I'd mention them just in case.

1. I have already fixed this, (my daughter caught it this morning ) it will be in the next version.
2. I use the skin default from the common.window.xml for the titles. Moving Pictures has the same issue so I think it may be a root MP bug.
3. I will look into the installation issues. Winterescape also pointed out some installation issues today as well.
4. Hmmm. I will create a sub-account and test this out, and fix the issue.
5. I can trim the last character off the lines, no biggie.
6. This information comes directly from NetFlix, but I will look to make sure its not a My Netflix issue.
7. Same as #4, I will create a sub-account and check it out.

I also have a couple of suggestions:

• 1. Play Button prominently on the details screen, which is selected by default when opening details. This is a WAF feature, to make it perfectly obvious that pressing select at this point starts the movie.
• 2. Larger font for movie title in upper right. Couldn't figure out how to do this in the XML's .
• 3. Let user edit the name of the plugin on the main menu (e.g. Netflix -> My Netflix, or whatever).

1. When on the details page, the select button should play the movie. If not I will make sure it works that way
2. Again, I use the common.windows.xml include to post the title information, so you could change that in the common.windows.xml file.
3. This is a touchy one . I would like to be able to do this, but Netflix is real touchy on how they want applications that use their API to display thier name. I did remove the 'My' from the name of the plugin as quite a few people asked for it, due to it saying "My My Netflix" on the home menu. I dont want to push it too much farther though, they assign a key for developers (that is embedded in the application) and if we break licensing agreements they can revoke the key and then the app will die.

Thanks again for the feedback! Most of your bugs & suggestions are fine tuning, but appreciated all the same. The biggest issues are the sub-account bugs & installation issues. I want to be sure these are fixed before the final 1.1 release.
Wile E.

EDIT: Also, thanks for the skin files! I will replace my versions with yours.

EDIT 2: Removed....

 

[WileECoyote]

Re: [plugin] "My NetFlix" Plugin with Watch Now Support

It seems the installer is broken and not working with all skins correctly. Deel, Jmvaughn and winterescape have reported issues and I am working to figure out the issue and will get a new version as soon as I can identify the issue.

Deel has been working diligently on the 4:3 version of the Blue3 skin, I will include those files when he gets them completed. Thanks Deel! You and Jmvaughn are making my life a lot easier with the skin mods!!!

 

[winterescape]

Re: [plugin] "My NetFlix" Plugin with Watch Now Support

So I am a little confused on the skin support, would you not only include the skin files for the skins that are included with MP and push the skin support off to the folks that are creating the other skins? Looking @ online videos he has this statement in his first post
“Current Supported Skins:
· Blue3 (included in the mpi)
· Blue3Wide (included in the mpi)
· XFace (included in the mpi)
· StreamedMP (0.9.601+) (skinfiles already installed with the skin)
· PureVisionHD (2.3+) (skinfiles already installed with the skin)
· Black Glass (1.0+) (skinfiles already installed with the skin)
· Indigo (3.1+) (skinfiles already installed with the skin)
· Monochrome (3.1+) (skinfiles already installed with the skin)
· Black & White 1080 (1.3+) (skinfiles already installed with the skin)
· XFactor (r396+) (skinfiles already installed with the skin)“

It just feels like you are going to get into installation order dependencies with files being overwritten if the netflix plugin is installed on top of an updated skin.

It is perfectly fine to tell me I do not know what I am talking about, just trying to make less work for you…

 

[tonyscha]

Re: [plugin] "My NetFlix" Plugin with Watch Now Support

WileECoyote, I would like to say Thank you!

I have one question, and one possible bug report.

Possible Bug: I have MP 1.0.2, and it didnt install the skin for Indigo, even though its selected. I am not sure which version of Indigo I am using, I went ahead and just installed the Monochrome, and copied it over, so I got it to work.

Question: I added 3 users for sub-users for the Instant Queue, I am the default, which I can add shows too. But I am unable to add any Instant view shows to the other Instant Queue users.

I am sorry I didn't read through the many, many pages of comments to see if I understand how this works.

 

[winterescape]

Re: [plugin] "My NetFlix" Plugin with Watch Now Support

Question: I added 3 users for sub-users for the Instant Queue, I am the default, which I can add shows too. But I am unable to add any Instant view shows to the other Instant Queue users.

Unless it has changed this is a netflix limitation, I would like this feature also but you cant have separate instant user queues
only DVD queues...

 

[WileECoyote]

Re: [plugin] "My NetFlix" Plugin with Watch Now Support

So I am a little confused on the skin support, would you not only include the skin files for the skins that are included with MP and push the skin support off to the folks that are creating the other skins? Looking @ online videos he has this statement in his first post


It just feels like you are going to get into installation order dependencies with files being overwritten if the netflix plugin is installed on top of an updated skin.

Hey Winterescape,
As much as I would like to do this, the only issue is when I make major upgrades (like 1.1) I have to submit the files to the skin folks, and if they dont have a new release for a month or so it will break the functionality of the plugin (i.e. syncing issues.) The other issue I run into is this is such a proprietary plugin, the skinners either dont have access to Netflix (they are outside the US) to create the skin files, or they just plain have no interest in support.

I do agree that once a major release is final, I could then submit the files to the skinners for distrubution. But do I then remove the skin files from the install package immediately? Should I create a permanet zip file for skin files only, and only include the plugin dll files in the install package? Ideas?

As you know any ideas are welcome

WileECoyote, I would like to say Thank you!

I have one question, and one possible bug report.

Possible Bug: I have MP 1.0.2, and it didnt install the skin for Indigo, even though its selected. I am not sure which version of Indigo I am using, I went ahead and just installed the Monochrome, and copied it over, so I got it to work.

Question: I added 3 users for sub-users for the Instant Queue, I am the default, which I can add shows too. But I am unable to add any Instant view shows to the other Instant Queue users.

I am sorry I didn't read through the many, many pages of comments to see if I understand how this works.

Hey Tonyscha,
Yea, at this time there are no skin files for Indigo. This is a limitation of the installer, it sees what skins you have installed and then assumes there are attached skin files (which in this case there were not.) How did the ones work from the Monochrome skin?

Winterescape is correct on the sub-account issue. Netflix will ONLY allow instant watch movies on the main account, so you cant add them to sub-accounts. Sooooo, I created the sub-account system in the plugin to allow you to do this manually. On the Users tab of the configuration you can add users for the Instant accounts. For instance, on the Authorize tab in the config you have a main account called Tony, and a sub account in called Trisha. Flip to the Users tab in the config and you can add Tony and Trisha to the list (be sure to select a default) and then you can add Instant watch movies to either account in the GUI. Does that make sense?

Thanks for the feedback!!!
Wile E.

Unless it has changed this is a netflix limitation, I would like this feature also but you cant have separate instant user queues
only DVD queues...

Just to clarify, you know you can create seperate Instant watch users in the My NetFlix plugin?

 

[tonyscha]

Re: [plugin] "My NetFlix" Plugin with Watch Now Support

I was able to create separate user accounts.

Tony
Tony1
Tony2

When I want to add something to tony1 or tony2, it will sometimes add the item, and other times it wont. However I can always add it to the default tony. After its added to tony, I can move it.

Well Indigo is based off Monochrome and I just assumed it would work. It seems to look fine, but I dont know what the base is suppose to look like, I will have to load blue3 sometime and check it out.

 

[WileECoyote]

Re: [plugin] "My NetFlix" Plugin with Watch Now Support

I was able to create separate user accounts.

Tony
Tony1
Tony2

When I want to add something to tony1 or tony2, it will sometimes add the item, and other times it wont. However I can always add it to the default tony. After its added to tony, I can move it.

Well Indigo is based off Monochrome and I just assumed it would work. It seems to look fine, but I dont know what the base is suppose to look like, I will have to load blue3 sometime and check it out.

Hmmm, Okay this seems like a bug. I will check it out and see if I can pinpoint the issue.

Thanks!