I think you need to remove the R. That means Resource which is a file that comes from the resource folder. Try just thumb=URL
Only listing free movies at the moment. Will need to sort this user configuration stuff out
Are you converting the rating from the website into a string for use as the subtitle. You might want to consider using the “userRating” parameter, e.g. “userRating=N” (where N is a number between 0 and 10. This will display a number of stars below the subtitle and be more consistent with other plugins? Looking good though. Very impressed with the amount you’ve managed to do in such a short space of time!
Start page with all genres + search at the top:
The search performs a query with the Voddler api
If no results are found a text box pops up instead. Paid movies show up in the results.
Gave the userRating thing a go but didn't get it to work. Is there any documentation about it? Sounds really nice
Left to do before "1.0":
Create user config screen for username, password and free / paid filter
Polish movie startup sequence. Can hopefully feel a lot smoother
Make paid movies accessible / startable
Better rating display
Regarding the userRating, at a guess it might be because you are assigning the property to a string? If this is the case, it wont actually work properly and therefore would need to be converted, (where t[‘rating’] is a string, e.g.
<br />
dirItem = Function(<br />
DirectoryItem(<br />
InstantMenu,<br />
t['title'],<br />
subtitle=t['production_year'],<br />
summary=full_summary,<br />
thumb=t['boxart'],<br />
art=t['hero_art'],<br />
duration=t['duration'],<br />
userRating = float(t['rating']),<br />
infoLabel=infoLabel,<br />
),<br />
url="%s" % t['id']<br />
)<br />
dir.Append(dirItem)<br />
Things are starting to look good. I have polished the login sequence a bit, ratings, added separate Movies, TV Shows and Documentaries sections. I have also added a preference dialog for username and password. I am however unable to access them in my site config :(
The DefaultPrefs.json:
[<br />
{<br />
"id":"username",<br />
"type":"text",<br />
"label":"E-mail",<br />
"default":"",<br />
},<br />
<br />
{<br />
"id":"password",<br />
"type":"text",<br />
"option":"hidden",<br />
"label":"Password",<br />
"default":"",<br />
}<br />
]
It looks good in the preference dialogue and it's saving the values between sessions.
Site config:
<br />
<state name="try-to-login"><br />
<event><br />
<condition><br />
<frameLoaded /><br />
</condition><br />
<action><br />
<run script="document.getElementsByName('email')[0].value='${username}';document.getElementsByName('password')[0].value='${password}';document.getElementsByClassName('button_submit')[0].click();" /><br />
<pause time="3000" /><br />
<goto state="check-for-auth-again" /><br />
</action><br />
</event><br />
</state>
Do I need to do something more in order to use ${username} and ${password} ?
Hi,
I’m a Voddler employee and as you (hopefully) already know, we love this initiative.
That sounds great!
We are working on adapting our other APIs to (authentication, playback) to better suite Plex. Most of them are adapted for clients that also do playback on their own, such as our mobile clients. The missing link is being able to use an API user session to launch our web flash player. Currently, as you have noted, you need a web session to launch it.
I have a question: if we were to adapt it, what would be the best way to go about it? I.e, what should be the API return for a play request? A URL to a stand alone page with the embedded player all ready to go or the URL to the swf player along with the required flash vars?
Thanks for the great work. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to contact us!
Regards,
Johan
Hey monsharen,
I’m actually away on holiday at the moment and have no laptop and very limited Internet access. Off the top my head, it should be as simple as you suggested. However, I believe that the initial parameters at the top of your site configuration need to match the python/info file of your plugin, otherwise it won’t work. You should check the example I sent you and see if you can work out if there is an issue there.
@nollbit - that’s great you guys want to support plex officially. It will definitely help make it an awesome (and stable) plugin. I’ve written a few plugins myself but never been asked what’s the best API. I think one of you two should PM Sander1 and get him involved in this discussion. He’s one of the main plugin developers and has much more visibility of what’s to come with Plex. I don’t want to give advice on what’s best for now and then things change. I would speak to him myself, but probably won’t be able to get a hold of him till next week.
Exciting times!!!
Ian
Almost fell of my chair seeing nollbit had taken the time to find this thread, so exciting times indeed! Glad to see we have your support!
@nollbit: This being my first plugin for Plex (as in very limited overall knowledge of the platform) I might not be the best person to ask regarding adaptations. A basic first step could be the stand alone page since that’s a proven way to go about it for Plex (unless you can provide live streams of course). Feels a little “hack”-y though and while Plex support this fine I don’t know about other platforms (such as Boxee and MediaPlatform). How did you solve it in the Iphone app? No flash support there as far as I know, right? Anyway, what about returning available format options like this:
{formats: {voddlerWeb: http://thestandardurl, strippedWeb: http://url-to-stripped-flash-page, swf: url-flash-swf, strm: http://file.strm, whateverotherformat: …}}
that way you could add new ones over time (or add it as a parameter in the request. probably better)
@IanDBird: No worries! Been playing around with the parameters without much success this weekend so I added some other fluff while looking for the solution.
It’s now possible to set sort order (rating, added, popularity) and filter the lists to only show free movies or both free and rentals. At the moment this is set in the preferences but I am thinking of adding one more level to the menus instead since I think that is somewhat the standard in Plex. We’ll see how it feels during testing
Hello again,
Well, the iPhone app has a separate player and a completely separate DRM which probably wont work in Plex anyway. Using our web flash player is easier since the stream is encrypted and the player handles all of the authentication and authorization for you if you use it. It also allows us to update the player without you having to update the Plex plugin.
I'll se about adding the standalone player to our APIs, it shouldn't be much of a problem.
I have sent you a PM with contact information. It would be great it we could keep in touch regarding the APIs and if you have any questions.
Regards,
Johan
Any luck with accessing the preferences? The thing I was trying to remember the other day was the identifier tag within the Site Config, e.g.
<br />
<site site="http://www.blinkbox.com/"<br />
plugin="http://www.blinkbox.com/flash/*"<br />
initialState="playing"<br />
version="1.0"<br />
identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.blinkbox"><br />
...<br />
I believe the identifier needs to match a string property within your Info.plist, e.g.
<br />
<plist version="1.0"><br />
<dict><br />
<key>CFBundleDevelopmentRegion</key><br />
<string>English</string><br />
<key>CFBundleExecutable</key><br />
<string>Hello</string><br />
<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key><br />
<string>com.plexapp.plugins.blinkbox</string><br />
...<br />
If this is correct, you should be able to access your preferences within the XML with ${id} where id is the same identifier in the Prefs.json file (e.g. ${username}). Let me know if this isn't working and I can ask around for some other suggestions.
I haven’t had time to look at it for a while but that was it! Thanks for spotting it.
The login works every time now as well (it seems) though I know Voddler is planning on providing a better method later on.
Many movies have trailers so I’m thinking of adding a new menu step where you either choose to watch/confirm purchase and watch a movie, watch the trailer, and maaaaaaybe even add the movie to your favourite/watch list (that is already stored on your profile and accessable through the api).
But first I should probably map the fast forward/backward commands in “play” mode.
Sorry, I don’t mean to spoil these things… I can shut up if you like? 
Out of curiosity, I’m guessing voddler won’t allow you to fast forward during a trailer? If so, does their player expose any mechanism to determine if the player is currently an ad? You might not want to let the user attempt to do this, if not supported by the player. Otherwise maybe a suggestion to the voddler API…
I actually tried contacting a UK based VOD service (blinkbox) to see if they would give me access to their API. As yet, I’ve heard nothing! Its a shame as I’d love to have something working similar to voddler over here in the uk. I’ve got something kinda working without their help but it could be so much better!!!
Please, don’t shut up. You’re the reason things flow as they should around here!
The trailers I am referring to are regular movie trailers (retrieved via their api), so the user could either choose to watch the trailer (if unsure about the movie) or watch the movie basically. If you start a movie there is a set of (usually) three short commercials. These cannot be skipped or fast forwarded as they don’t have any controls for this (pause, stop, forward etc).
Keep hunting blinkbox as I am sure they just have not realized the potential in these plugins yet!
Latest update:
* Credentials can now be edited in the preferences.
* I have disabled premium movies (I have referred to them as "rent" and "paid" earlier) due to not being able to display the terms and conditions that apply for the purchase within Plex, plus not being able to choose among the payment options. In discussion with Voddler about this.
* Background art! Displayed for movies that come bundled with it
* Added the plugin to the unofficial plugins list on the wiki
Have you done anything regarding disabling some view types which are not suitable for your plugin? In Plex for OSX, if you press right and select the different types. It might be worth giving it a play and consider. Also, what about getting this stuff up in GitHub. If you want it in the store eventually, it’ll need to be up there. I can then have a look over the code and maybe make further suggestions, etc.
Hey, how you getting on with this? All working? 
Rough weekend (beer) coupled with free Voddler movies :rolleyes:
Mapped forward/backward today but need some additional testing (seem to be working fine). Voddler also provided me with an icon and background image that follows the guidelines so using those now.
Next up on the todo:
- Add preference setting for “start over” or “resume from” if movie have previously been started
Then:
- Clean up movie synopsis (sometimes contain html characters)
- Fix max size of list (currently set to 200)
- Add menu step for “Watch movie” and “Watch trailer”
- Sound level adjustment (don’t know if necessary really)
And that’s it on my fix list! Hopefully I’ll have time to finish it off this week
Regarding disabling views all that I have tried work fairly well so I don’t know if I will disable any. You think it might cause any issues?
Hey,
Don’t know if you’ve seen this but Plex has just released some update developer documentation. One section which might interest you is about the new type of services which can be implemented by/for a plugin:
http://dev.plexapp.com/docs/channels/services/index.html
Once you’ve got your plugin up and running, and released you might want to consider if you want to support any of these…
Ian
Interesting stuff! At first glance the search service shouldn’t be too much work since I already have functional search in the plugin. Will have to read up on the other two in order to fully understand what they do (at work atm).
Cheers
This is just wonderful! Can’t wait to get to test this.
