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Friday, February 24, 2006

Showtimes script for Singapore Cinemas

This is a perl script to grab movie schedules and info for use with the Showtimes application for Palm OS. This has been modified to handle the new Yahoo! Movies layout.

Download the latest sgyahoo perl script now.

Installation

You may follow the install instructions for Showtimes found here.

Configuration

Use the following URLs for this script when setting up Showtimes in Hotsync Manager:

Today's info - http://sg.movies.yahoo.com/showtimes
Tomorrow - http://sg.movies.yahoo.com/showtimes?d=1
The day after - http://sg.movies.yahoo.com/showtimes?d=2

Use all 3 urls for all three days' data.

Movie Info & Plots

This has been enabled by default. To disable plots, open sgyahoo.pm with notepad or any ASCII text editor and change "my $mplot = 0"; to "my $mplot = 1"; then save the file (ignore all quotes). Note that plots will take a longer time to complete.

Open getdata.cfg in Showtimes folder and check that the line "EXTRAMOVIEINFO 1" is present. If its "EXTRAMOVIEINFO 0", change to 1. (Ignore all quotes)

Copy errors after running getdata.exe

The Showtimes hotsync conduit may have problems with latest versions of the Palm Hotsync Manager in Palm Desktop. The common issue is failure to copy to the install folder. In such a case, you will need to perform it manually or follow the directions found here.

You will need to disable the showtimes conduit from within hotsync manager (note to check the default box) and do the following changes to the getdata.cfg:

1. Change "flipreg 1" to "flipreg 0"
2. Change "DESTDIR" following the instructions there, ie. "DESTDIR c:\palm\[your username]\install"
3. Use your Windows task scheduler or startup batch to autorun the program.

6 comments:

Visible, Invisible said...

Wow... You mean showtime is still running??!?!? Does it work with Treo650... That's like a throwback from years pass...

Roy said...

Of course it works. Its a Palm app afterall. The conduit may have some problems working with the latest Palm desktop though, you may need to do the transfer manually.

Anonymous said...

After I sync, it is unable to copy the .pdb files into the palm. I have to manually copy it over into my palm. And there's a another thing, it stop sync-ing after the first time i've installed it. Any idea?thanks

Roy said...

If you have to do it manually then its the conduit problem mentioned above. You will need to disable the showtimes conduit from Hotsync manager as well.

It is best to run getdata.exe manually or initiate it via Windows task scheduler or startup batch. Read the above regarding "Copy problem".

Anonymous said...

I have never used the Showtimes, but what is the syncing used? JSync? If so there is a way to work around it for as I have read in the readme for the Currency app

Roy said...

Sync as in hotsync the data to your palm. You may manually perform the data download by running getdata.exe then copy the generated pdb files over to your Palm.

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