Title sort algoritm customization
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Maarten
Script's Author
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Version 1.9 of the script changes the default title sort algorithm but allows you to customize it, or revert it to the 1.7 behavior. (Version 1.8 had a bug.) Thanks to Scott Sawyer for suggesting this change. When sorting titles (book titles, movie titles, etc), usually so called articles that appear at the start of the title (a, an, the, etc) are ignored. Up to version 1.7, the title sort did not adhere to this; movie titles were sorted "as is", meaning all movies starting with "the" for example were grouped together. Version 1.9 fixes this, so for example the titles "Alien" and "The Alien Saga" will now be located near each other. I wrote up some instructions on how to change the algorithm at the end of the main page: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/35183 The default set of articles is "A ", "AN ", "THE ", "EL ", "LA ", "LE ", "IL ", "L'". As you can see it includes English, French, Italian and Spanish. I might have missed some, or maybe you will find that some of them should be removed. If so, please let me know by commenting here. At least by following the instructions, you'll be able to fix your issue immediately yourself without having to wait for me to release a new version of the script. P.S. Scott, I am unable to add sorting by HD/Blu-ray formats at this time as I don't have that type of account. I've put your suggestion on my TODO list though for future reference. |
Scott Sawyer
User
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Maarten, you're just too cool. I just tried out v1.9, and it appears to be exactly what I was hoping for, as far as ignoring "The", "An" and "A". Kick ass cool of you to do this so quickly! I don't have the $1 blu-ray add-on account either, but I do have the Roku Netflix player, so I am able to see "HD" as a genre under the "Watch Instantly" tab. Let me know if there is anything from my queue that I can email you that might allow you to create a sort on HD and/or blu-ray, without you having to have those two type of accounts. I just got my Roku last week, and HD did not show up as a genre until after I activated the Roku box. I'm not even sure if HD is a visible criteria that you cold code to, as it is sort of 'invisible' in my Instant queue - i.e. I cant tell in my Instant queue on netflix.com which titles are SD and which are HD. (Although on my TV, I can see an HD tag on the screen thru Roku.) I sure wich Netflix would add this visiblity to their site, but I digress. Also, even though I dont have a blu-ray player, I'd be willing to add blu-ray to my account, if there is something I could email you that would allow you to code a blu-ray/non-blu-ray sort for those folks who would benefit from it. Anyway, I'm not trying to ask that you do any additional work, but if there is anything that I could email you just let me know. Thanks again for the The/A/An change! I'm going to go play with it now to look for anything quirky that you might like to know about. -Scott |
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Maarten
Script's Author
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Hi Scott, No problem! :) If there is some way you can capture the page source (the HTML source) of the page you see on your Roku player and send that to me, that would probably allow me to add the sort options you requested. Do understand that unless you edit the source, I will see what movies you have in your queue, and what your username/real name is. If that's ok with you, please send the source to me at [email deleted]. Just make sure there is at least one HD/Blu-Ray/regular title in the queue so that I can tell the difference. BTW, we can start with the HD/non-HD sort first, and then see about the Blu-Ray upgrade later, but I'll leave that decision up to you. Thanks in advance for your help, Scott! |
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Scott Sawyer
User
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Maarten, I dont have any idea how to capture the source page on the Roku. If you (or anyone out there) can tell me how to do that, I'd be happy to do it. I thought you had some folks send you other source pages, so I assumed this would be the same? Just let me know how to capture it, and I'll give it a go. Oh, and I REALLY love the A/AN/THE change that you added yesterday! Its most excellent! |
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Maarten
Script's Author
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Hmmm... on second thought, since the Roku player makes the queue visible on a TV, there's not really the concept of an HTML source as there is with a Web browser. I tried to find an image of the Roku queue; is this one accurate: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadgethd.com/media... ? The image also has an HD indicator. Is that the one you are talking about? Do you see the sort buttons on the Roku queue at all, or do you sort in the Web browser and then view the new queue order on Roku? |
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Scott Sawyer
User
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yes, that image is accurate, and the queue sorter changes that you made in v1.9 flow through to the Roku. We dont have the ability to manipulate the sort from the Roku box, only from the Netflix webpage queue, so that's why your Queue Sorter is so outstanding - it has really cleaned-up my onscreen browsing of my Netflix Watch Instantly queue. So, my uninformed thoughts are that much like we can't see the length of titles in our queue, perhaps we just cant see the HD indicator, but I'm thinking that its gotta be somewhere, particularly since Netflix passes the indicator through to Roku (and Xbox, LG and Samsung on their players) as in the Engadget HD image you attached. |
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Maarten
Script's Author
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Thanks for clarifying that. Yes, I could add it exactly like the length sorting, but it will be as slow as that. I was able to go to the details page for some movies and saw Blu-Ray as an available format, so I can add support for that type of sorting. I didn't see any HD indicators though. Can you pass me the link to a movie that is shown as HD on Roku? Then I'll inspect the source for that movie's details page to see if it contains any sign of "HD-ness". |
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Scott Sawyer
User
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here's an HD title in my Watch Instantly queue: http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/2_Days_in_Paris/... here's the same title I just pulled up via a search: http://www.netflix.com/Movie/2_Days_in_Paris/70... Not sure you'll be able to find the HD tag/hook on HD titles, as the site requires you active a "Watch Instantly" device (Roku, etc) before it will even show HD as a Watch Instantly genre, but it appears that you like challenges! thanks for working on this! |
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Maarten
Script's Author
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Thanks, Scott! Yeah, I don't see any mention of HD anywhere on that movie page. I did some more image searches and found this one: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadgethd.com/media... . It shows the queue with a (for me) new "Format" column. In this shot it only shows Blu-Ray, but I've seen other shots with HD-DVD. Do you see that column in your queue? If so, then I'd like you to send me the page source of your queue by email (View menu -> Page Source option). Or, to avoid including your name and the entire queue, you can select a portion of the page too. Click down on the text "List Order", and while keeping the mouse button down, move the mouse down to select all text up to the end of the second movie title in the queue. Then release all mouse buttons and right-click and select "View Selection Source". Then select everything in the editor that comes up and send me just that. (Hope that makes sense.) If you don't see a "Format" column in your queue, could you see if you see an HD indication anywhere on the movie page you mentioned above? If so, please send me the source of that page (which does include your account name). I'm really hoping you see the "Format" column in the queue, as sorting by values that are visible in the queue is the fastest way of sorting. Having to go to each individual movie page to get the info is slowest. Let me know; thanks! |
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Scott Sawyer
User
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Maarten, No, I don't have an HD column in my queue. Just to be clear, the "HD" I'm speaking of isn't "HD-DVD" (or Blu-ray) which is for physical mailed discs. The HD I'm referring to is for Watch Instantly. At any rate, I don't have a column for HD, just these:
I cant find anywhere on the netflix site that lists whether a movie is HD, except that if I pick HD as a Watch Instantly Genre I get all the titles that are HD, but they dont show in my queue as HD, or state that they are HD in their description. Thanks for looking into this, but I'm not sure what I could send you that'd help. -Scott |
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Maarten
Script's Author
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OK, then the only thing I could add is the sort by Blu-ray format. (I'd generalize it to "Sort by Format" so that it could pick up HD or other formats in the future.) It would work at the same speed as sorting by length. I'll add that to my to-do list. Thanks for all the input! |
Maarten
Script's Author
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Sort by format is available now in version 2.0. |
