Yahoo! TV Listings Auto-setup

By Maarten — Last update Aug 22, 2010 — Installed 229 times.


Script Summary: v1.3: automatically sets up tv.yahoo.com listings for your area without needing to log in.

Version: 1.3

This script automatically sets up tv.yahoo.com listings for your area without needing to log in.
See the TV setup options section below for how to make this script work for you.

History:

  • 2010-08-21: v1.3: wait with clicking "Done" button until it's enabled.
  • 2010-07-31: v1.2: make delay between selecting options configurable.
  • 2010-07-24: v1.1: fix bugs.
  • 2010-07-24: v1.0: first basic version.

Known Issues (also see my to-do list):

  • Please make sure you've uninstalled any and all old version(s) of this script via Tools->Greasemonkey->Manage User Scripts...
    Select Yahoo! TV Listings Auto-setup and press the Uninstall button.
    Then, if you haven't already, install the latest version of this script.
  • Once on the listings page, clicking on Now, Primetime, or earlier/later buttons will trigger the script again and bring you back where you started. It should not do that.
  • There's no support yet for selecting your favorite channels.

Installation instructions:

  1. Install Greasemonkey: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748
  2. Restart Firefox.
  3. Load this page and click the Install button at the top.
  4. Greasemonkey will ask you to install the script. Choose Install.

Usage instructions:

  1. Go to http://tv.yahoo.com or http://tv.yahoo.com/listings.
  2. The script will automatically apply the default settings, or the configuration you set up per the instructions below.

TV setup options:

The default setup is for a random 90210 area so most likely you'd want to change it.

The following instructions work for Firefox. Unfortunately Chrome does not yet support user preferences, so if you use Chrome, you'll have to edit the script's source to make changes to the defaults. Firefox users, please read on.

To customize the settings, type "about:config" (without the quotes) in the browser address bar. (See http://kb.mozillazine.org/About:config for what this is all about.) You might get a "This might void your warranty!" warning page. This is an important warning because you do have to be careful here. Since these instructions will tell you exactly what to do, click the "I'll be careful, I promise!" button.

You should now see a list of all browser preferences. To only show the preferences for this script, enter "greasemonkey.scriptvals.http://userscripts.org/users/64961/Yahoo! TV Listings Auto-setup" (without the quotes) in the Filter box. You should now see just five rows. If you see no rows at all, make sure there are no double quotes around the filter value.

You can expand the name column by pointing at the bar (|) in between the first two column headers, holding the mouse button, moving the mouse to the right, and letting go of the mouse button.

To change a value, either double-click a row, or select the row and press the Enter key.

Change myZip to your zip.

Change myServiceTypeId to either cable, satellite, or ota (meaning antenna).

To change myServiceProviderId, you'll need to find the right ID of the radio button in the setup. Manually go to the setup page, make your selections but before pressing the Done button, use Firebug or another developer tool to get the ID of the radio button of your choice. Use that ID as the value for this preference.

Optionally, you can change the value of autoRedirectFromTvPage to decide if the script should automatically take you to the TV listings page if you enter tv.yahoo.com.

Optionally, you can change the value of runEvenWhenLoggedIn to decide if the script should run even if you're logged into Yahoo!. By default this is off to prevent the script from overriding whatever values you have associated with your login.

Optionally, you can change the value of optionSelectDelay, expressed in milliseconds, to experiment with the delay the script uses between selecting options. If you have a fast connection, you may want to reduce it. If you have a slow connection, or if you find the script does not complete the listings setup process (you are not returned to the listings page), you may want to increase it. (And if adding a bigger delay does not work, please report a bug.)

There's no need to save after making changes, just visit http://tv.yahoo.com again. If you're satisfied your changes work, close the "about:config" page.

Discuss this script