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Showtimes v0.5-pre-1.5 A freeware movie showtime database for the Palm Connected Organizer For the latest version of this document, please visit the Showtimes website.

Pre-Release Items Here is a "snapshot" of version 0.5, a work-in-progress: Windows - Windows (conduit version) - Mac - Unix 26-Feb-2000 So much for quality control. I goofed making getdata.exe in that last batch, the problem has been corrected. If you don't want to download again and don't use the discoveromaha site, you can delete omaha.pm to correct the problem yourself. 25-Feb-2000 Yet another auyahoo.pm fix, this time it gets a real version upgrade. pre-1.5 includes support for http://www.greaterunion.com.au/, another Australian destination. Thanks to Byron Ellacott for the module. Sample URLs are in getdata.cfg. Also, I managed to not mention earlier that Michael Wittman has contributed a module to parse www.landmarktheaters.com, an "Art House" theatre chain in the US. Thanks Michael! 24-Feb-2000 I'm uploaded newer pre-1.4 files with a one-line fix in the auyahoo.pm file, to correct for a slight change in their HTML. Thanks to Rod Whitby for the patch. Be aware that au.yahoo has rearranged some of their site, so check your URLs, it is possible that they have become invalid (404) URLs. 12-Feb-2000 I've got a version of the script that runs on MacOS now! Thanks to Terrence Y Chay, Alex Harper, and Mark Chance for your help and advice. 20-Jan-2000 Added a conduit version to the above choices. The conduit still hasn't been updated to relect the new options in v0.5, but at least the setup.exe program has been updated to install it properly. It also installs showtimes.prc when you install now (hurray), and automatically restarts the hotsync manager. If you already have the conduit installed, use the setup program to remove the current conduit, and then install again. You may have to edit the getdata.cfg once it installs to add the 'EXTRAMOVIEINFO 1' and 'QUERYIMDB 1' options, if you want plot summaries. You'll find getdata.cfg in C:\Palm\(Your Profile)\Showtimes. 17-Jan-2000 My efforts to make the new script run on MacOS have continued to be in vain. I'm unfamiliar with MacOS and do not have access to a Mac, so fixing the problems have been difficult. I need someone who has experience with MacPerl to help work out the kinks. If you are that person or know someone who could help, please contact me. At this point, I'm unclear on how to assemble filenames, and am getting odd errors opening files where I ought not to. Uploaded pre-1.3, I fixed a bug with the -f option, it should do as advertised now (although there isn't much use for it at the moment, with IMDb support on hiatus). Also, please note I have added a new link to the navigation bar above for submitting bugs and suggestions. Time for me to get organized! I get tons of mail and it is very difficult to keep track of everything, so please use this new bug tracking system as your primary method of contacting me. Thanks! Downloading the above? Read this page. All of it. Websites/Locations supported in this pre-release: allocine.fr France au.movies.yahoo.com Australia www.greaterunion.com.au Australia www.edicom.ch Switzerland www.knoxnews.com Knoxville, TN www.landmarktheaters.com USA barcelona.lanetro.com Barcelona, Spain www.movies-online.com.sg Singapore www.discoveromaha.com Omaha, NE cinema.scoot.co.uk United Kingdom movies.yahoo.com USA IMDb plot downloading is currently not working. Despite the fact that I obtained permission to use IMDb's data, they have blocked getdata from entering their site. I am currently trying to find out why. For now, you should probably change QUERYIMDB to 0 in your getdata.cfg file. Note to Canada users: I received an email on 10-Jan-2000 from Tribute.ca asking me to remove support for their site from Showtimes and have complied with their request. These mini-instructions assume you are familiar with using the released version of Showtimes. Real instructions should follow soon. Unpack the right file for your computer somewhere on your harddrive. It helps to remember where you put the files. Edit getdata.cfg with your favorite text editor. Windows users, if you don't have a favorite text editor, use Notepad. Scroll down and find the large selection of URL lines. Most of them begin with an '#' and means that line is disabled. There are three lines for yahoo (USA) that are not disabled. Unless you live in the USA, you need to put a '#' on the beginning of those lines. Find the URL lines relevent to your geographical location, and use the ones there as a guideline for making your own URL lines. Persons in the US will want to find the three "movies.yahoo.com" lines, and change the zip code (92656) to their own zip code. Below the URL section, two new options, EXTRAMOVIEINFO and QUERYIMDB reside. These are both turned on by default, because they are followed by a 1. To turn them off, change the 1 to a 0. EXTRAMOVIEINFO indicates your desire to retrieve extra movie info for movies, and QUERYIMDB indicates your desire to allow the script to contact IMDB, the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com), to obtain said extra movie info. At this time, the extra movie info consists solely of plot summaries. Mac and Unix users must find the DESTDIR line and put in a path as discussed in the getdata.cfg file. Save getdata.cfg and then run getdata. Windows users, this means running getdata.exe. Everyone else should run getdata.pl with perl. Install the new showtimes.prc along with the data created from the previous step. Querying IMDB can take a long time, especially the first time through. Plot summaries are cached on your computer, so subsequent getdata calls will only fetch plots that have not yet been retrieved. Also, only new plots are copied onto your Palm when they are first retrieved, so it is important to always install the pdb files generated by getdata onto your Palm each time you run getdata. This is done to save on hotsync time. If you are in a situation where you schedule getdata to run automatically, and cannot guarantee that you will always sync in between calls to getdata, you have the option of running: getdata -f This will force all of the plot summaries to be copied to your Palm, making for a longer hotsync time (not download time), but guaranteeing that you will have all the available plot summaries on your Palm.

J Robert Ray showtimes@jrray.org Submit bugs and suggestions Wed Mar 13 04:38:14 PST 2002