PlayOn Scripts

Database Issues

2011-07-27T13:01:00.000-07:00

Today my host had some database issues and decided to shutdown access to their server. Fortunately I had a backup (from the 19th) and I was able to restore access fairly quickly. Unfortunately the site isn't 100% and will not be until my host fixes their database.

Sorry for this outage, all will be well soon.

[wiki] Upgraded wiki software

2011-07-04T10:27:00.001-07:00

Just a note to say I upgraded dokuwiki.

It took forever, none of the settings were saved, I nearly freaked out, but in the end I was able to get it back to normal.

[Forums] Huge upgrade incoming

2011-07-01T21:02:00.000-07:00

Keep an eye on the forums this weekend, I'm doing some coding...

[Contest] June Winners!

2011-07-01T07:12:00.000-07:00

This month's contest has ended. Congratulations to sptuck, Most Popular Script Overall, adg707, Most Active Developer, and microzoa, Most Popular Script: Television. Everyone did an awesome job!

Be sure to keep an eye on this month's contest!

Today I am adding ip banning...

2011-06-07T06:54:00.000-07:00

With almost 9000 users I can say that a vast vast vast majority of them are good citizens but recently a few people have decided that they have a problem with a free site offering free content. I guess I've been spoiled because for a year and a half the thought never crossed my mind to create a banning system.

Recently I implemented a 'posting ban' because some users do not understand what to post where. Leaving negative reviews because you can't get a script to work is not appropriate. It's been made obtrusively clear, if we have a problem, that we should click the 'Get Support' links, not to leave a negative review.

At the same time I added 'account bans', this was mainly added as a barrier to bad accounts. Such as imitating a PlayOn Admin.

So this morning I will be adding IP banning because some people can't control themselves. I'd rather spend the time on new features but it is what it is.

Experiments, Contests, and Lists. Oh My!

2011-05-22T06:46:00.000-07:00

Sometime this weekend Lists will be enabled for all users, the system seems stable and I'd like to get some broader feedback. Expect it soooooon.

The Monthly Contest will begin on 6/1/2011 and continue until 7/1/2011. Thanks to donations I was able to secure some funding for a couple months worth of contests. And, of course, the free PlayOn Premium upgrade being supplied by MediaMall! At the end of the contest winners will be contacted to supply an email address to accept the winnings via PayPal.

I've put up a new section on the forums asking for ideas for the website, I've been working on a good one which should also be put up sometime this weekend (more on this when it's released). Post your ideas for the website, no matter how crazy, and if it's possible, I'll try to get it done.

[Website] Server I/O Error

2011-05-16T21:11:00.000-07:00

Tonight I discovered that there was a server error which resulted in many of the scripts hosted here being overwritten with a blank script or just the image data.

Developers please reupload your scripts as soon as you can. If you would like to bulk upload your scripts please ZIP them up and email them to mopenstein@gmail.com with the subject "bulk upload" and I'll see to it that your scripts get added as soon as possible.

I'd also like to apologize for not being diligent in backing up these files. I make daily backups of our database but not the physical files stored on the server. I honestly never thought this could happen and I assure you that I'll be making daily backups of the physical files as well from here on out.

Once again, I'm sorry, and thanks for everything.

[Website] Lists and Contests

2011-05-16T10:53:00.000-07:00

Lists

Today I finished preliminary code on a new section of the website that will allow us to create and share our own lists of our favorite scripts. On every (non-adult) script page we'll see a little plus image that will let us save a script to a list that we name and create. When released anyone will be able view the created lists but in this testing phase only Gold Members can create new lists.

Over the next few days I plan on polishing the experience a little bit and hopefully get some feedback from you guys after it goes live.

Contests

Also today I got some good news concerning the upcoming scripting contests: MediaMall has agreed to give out some free premium subscriptions to contest winners. I'm not totally sure on the exact details but I do know that you'll be able to gift them to friends or family if you are currently a premium subscriber.

The first contest will definitely begin on June 1 with a cash prize and hopefully I'll work out the details with MediaMall about the free upgrades by then as well.

[Developers] New landing page when updating scripts

2011-05-12T04:52:00.000-07:00

I realize sometimes after updating a script the website loading times can be quite awhile. I can't really do anything about the load times but I can make the wait time more bearable by giving you guys some idea of what's going on, so I did. If your script has a lot of subscribers and might take awhile to finish completing, you'll get a little message informing you that it might take a little bit of time. I think this will be better than just staring at the loading image in our browsers.

[Gold] Templates

2011-05-04T19:48:00.001-07:00

I'm toying with the idea of changing the site design but I'm worried that my design ability is lacking. Gold Members (from their profile page) can choose how they want the site displayed.

[Website] PHP5 headaches

2011-04-30T19:16:00.000-07:00

Upgraded the website to php5 last night and it's highlighted a some of my more sloppier code. Please let me know if you find any more, and sorry for any inconvenience.

[Website] Scheduled downtime

2011-04-27T14:27:00.000-07:00

I plan on bringing the website down tonight to make some security upgrades. I've tried to make the site as secure as possible and, while there isn't currently any security issues, I'd like to make sure in case there ever is a breach that all your information is properly protected. It really isn't that big of deal since the website doesn't store a whole lot of personal information but the recent PlayStation Network issues have brought it close to home.

After everything is said and done all of us will be required to re-login to the website as our cookies will no longer be valid.

[Developers] Mark your scripts for the New API

2011-04-22T12:38:00.000-07:00

Added a little box for developers to mark their scripts as "PlayOn Premium" This will sure help alleviate the inevitable confusion.

The Forums get (Gr)avatars

2011-04-20T09:43:00.000-07:00

I just remembered about Gravatar, which seems like a great idea. So great that all users now have Gravatar Avatar. It's really easy to sign up and get you avatar showing. Just make sure you use the same email address you did when signing up with PlayOnScripts.com

Introducing: Bounties

2011-04-19T03:36:00.000-07:00

Bounties are an idea I had thought of early on after developing the scripts plugin, but have just now gotten around to developing. Basically a user can submit a website that they want to see a script for with a dollar figure attached and developers can then choose to take up the task of developing the script.

PlayOnScripts will be the intermediate, the script will be uploaded to playonscripts.com, reviewed, and, if confirmed working, payment will be collected from the bounty poster. The developer will then be given the go ahead to add the script to the site and the bounty will be transferred. I plan on collecting a small fee for these transactions to compensate for handling and completing the bounties, and also for development.

I thinking around 10%, so if the bounty is 10$, PlayOnScripts would likely take 1$ (before any fees associated the credit card processing are deducted by Google Checkout) Also bounty posters are expected to use Google Checkout as the only way to pay a bounty, the developer, however, can choose between PayPal or Google Checkout.

It's a loose Beta application right now, so bugs might be discovered.

I got this section working a little early and decided to put it up as a beta

Busy at work...

2011-04-17T19:09:00.000-07:00

My fingers have been hurriedly typing up a new section of the site which could help get some new content out there. And that's all I'm going to say until it's finished, which should be some time this week, or, possibly, next week.

Download Keys revisted

2011-04-16T19:58:00.000-07:00

I've finally implemented the new procedure for downloading scripts that require a key that I outlined here.

Basically before downloading scripts that require a key, user's will be prompted to login or register for an account. Once logged their username will be appended to the Google Checkout purchase description. If you ever receive a charge back you'll be able to provide me with a name so I can investigate further.

Site Updates

2011-04-13T19:24:00.000-07:00

Did some more work on the site, finally adding some things that were needed for a while now.

Developers can remove their Scripts

2011-04-13T06:39:00.000-07:00

I coded a small little update that lets script developers delete their unwanted scripts.

Problems with Auto Updaters resolved

2011-01-26T19:10:00.000-08:00

I was able to upgrade my hosting and resolve auto updating scripts for now, everything should be back to normal.

Script Developers and Automatically updating scripts

2011-01-19T15:47:00.001-08:00

I've recently received a notice concerning a large amount of requests coming into the website. I've narrowed it down to scripts that perform automatic updates. The server is being hammered and it needs to be better managed.

As it stands most scripts are requesting the script's page and then, if an update is available, downloading the newest version. Which is great for the end user but if every single time the script is ran it makes these requests it adds up quick.

I'm going to have to find away to block auto updaters until I can work out a solution, I'm thinking of a developer key which can limit the amount of requests made to the server, if it get's excessive.

In the meantime I encourage script developers to update their scripts, disabling any auto update functions until I can get a system in place to manage the requests.

I hope you all understand, sorry about the inconvenience.

Download Keys

2011-01-18T04:46:00.000-08:00

Recently some people have been purchasing scripts and then issuing charge backs. To combat this any script that requires a download key will require that the user be logged in, if they're not, they'll be prompted to login or register. To make the purchaser identifiable I'll probably append their user login name to the google checkout item description. That way if you do receive a charge back you'll be able to search for that purchase number and via the description provide me with a name so I can block them from the site.

Site goes Mobile

2011-01-06T07:51:00.001-08:00

I did a little tinkering and if you visit the site from your mobile browser you should see a more mobile friendly site. I've only been able to test with a PSP that I have laying around but it makes a big difference on the smaller resolution. The design is changed very little and the content is 100% in tact.

Let me know if you have issues from your mobile device

Subscriptions

2011-01-05T07:08:00.000-08:00

The Subscriptions page has had a significant design overhaul and upgrade. Besides being more pleasing to the eyes, it's also more functional.

Also did some behind the scenes work on the subs and found a bug, that has probably been affecting users for quite some time but was never brought to my attention, so if you've ever had problems adding subscriptions give it another go it may be fixed now.

Coding night!

2011-01-04T21:27:00.001-08:00

Tonight I decided to sit down and do some back end maintenance and upgrade some code.

A lot of the back end is boring but a big chunk of what I worked on will allow me to work on the site without my tinkering resulting in odd errors for those unlucky to stumble upon whatever page I'm working on. Now we'll just get a simple message stating that the page is being worked on at the moment.

Messages too have been beefed up. We can now reply to messages that are in our inbox. This won't affect most users since most messages are sent between developers and to/from admins but when I enable sending messages between users it'll come in handy. I'm still debating on whether this will be a Gold feature only simply because it's more database intensive and will require quite a bit more code.

Speaking of Gold Members, they're seeing a new smaller version of the home page now. The updated page has a new simple javascript based portal widget displaying most of the content that currently takes up a lot of space on the main page. I wrote it myself after searching for something similar but I only turned up overly complex examples that would end up being a pain in the butt to implement and maintain, so I created one from scratch. I'll look for some feedback at a later date for opinions (if anyone actually cares that is).

Gold Membership for new Developers

2011-01-04T11:15:00.000-08:00

In order to encourage new developers out there I'm offering up free Gold Memberships.

To be eligible for the upgrade users must add 3 or more free non-adult scripts!

If you've done the work and deserve the upgrade make a post on the forums.

Forum Upgrade

2010-12-17T12:01:00.000-08:00

I've set my eye on improving the forums, expect them to be quirky for the next couple days.

Adult Scripts

2010-12-15T15:05:00.000-08:00

A new Adult category has been created on the site. To view this category you must be logged in and also have to confirm that are an adult.

There is a demand for adult scripts, and as history as shown, most people are willing to pay to access adult material, so it's a good opportunity for developers to earn some cash and it grants access to these sites.

To be honest I'm not super keen on having an Adult category and if it becomes even an ounce of trouble it'll be gone.

Personal Scripting

2010-12-09T09:48:00.000-08:00

XBMC has finally resolved whatever issues that was affecting the menu switches on my machine, and I can finally get back to updating my scripts

PlayOn More

2010-11-12T09:03:00.000-08:00

Let's see, first things first, we can now recover our login information if we forget it! Goto the login page, click the Forgot Info link, and enter your email address. I can't believe it's taken me this long to implement this!

Also coming soon PlayOnScripts will become PlayOnMore. Now that the site has Plugins and Scripts, I think it's time to reflect that with a name change. I'm not sure when I'll make the official switch over but when I do decide it will be seamless so nothing gets lost or interrupted.

Meanwhile PlayOnMore.com already points to the site and, after you login, will be cross compatible with PlayOnScripts.com, meaning everything you do at one site is reflected at the other as well.

Also developers need not to worry about their hardcoded urls in the scripts, it will be all good, I promise.

Domain Renewel

2010-11-06T17:53:00.000-07:00

Domain expired, didn't know it, friend bought it for me as a gift last year. Got in touch with him and he renewed it, let the DNS catch up for it to go back to normal.

Recommendations

2010-10-15T10:45:00.001-07:00

Gold Members now can get some recommendations based on their own subscriptions. I wouldn't compare the results to, say, the NetFlix Recommendation Engine, but it should help expose us to some scripts and plugins we may not have known existed.

It's a pretty simple "algorithm" (for the lack of a better term) that compares your subscriptions to other people who also subscribed to the same scripts and plugins. From there it compares those users' scripts and plugins to each other and, based on a percentage, returns any of them that are ranked highly.

I decided to limit this to Gold Members because it's rather database intensive.

Website issues

2010-10-14T15:27:00.000-07:00

Not sure if anyone else is experiencing these issues but I'm having trouble accessing the website at the moment.

Going to see if I can contact some folks.

Database Errors

2010-10-03T17:59:00.000-07:00

Today I came home to find out that a database error was injecting itself into download scripts and plugins, it was my error. When I began converting the site to allow plugins and scripts, without separating the two, I had to go through the code and remove the redundant code. Today I found a bit of code I didn't clean up and removed it. Turns out it was kind of essential.

My apologies to everyone but all is well.

Script Manager Numbers

2010-10-02T20:28:00.000-07:00

Less than a month ago I re-released the Script Manager script under the new title Manage Scripts. It's the first script on the site to be available for a fee, I did this for a couple reasons. The first reason is to just test the waters, it only costs $1.29 (and not $.99 because google takes a flat $.30 per transaction), I've always been curious if people would pay for PlayOn Plugins/Scripts. The second is to give something extra to Gold Members, and it was originally only going to available to as a part of the upgrade. The total sales, added up, isn't amazing but about 30 people have decided it was worth it so far.

And, thanks to crawl9992, we have our first non script on the site, he added the TNT Plugin yesterday.

Free Gold upgrade for developers

2010-09-24T06:10:00.000-07:00

Developers with more than a couple scripts have had their account upgraded to Gold. It's not that big of deal but it's the right thing to do.

Going for the Gold

2010-09-22T20:37:00.000-07:00

I've enabled Gold Accounts for those of us who have some extra cash and wouldn't mind paying a little bit for some added convenience. I'm asking for $10.00 a year, which is $0.83 a month, not outrageous but let me know if it's too much.

The money from Gold members goes towards maintaining and improving the website. If, by some miracle, lots of people upgrade their accounts I plan on sharing some of the extra cash with developers. That being said, if you only have a few dollars to spare, I'd much rather people considering upgrading donate to a developer instead.

Scripts for Sale

2010-09-18T07:33:00.000-07:00

Developers now have the option of charging for their Scripts or Plugins. Developers can get more information here.

What's this mean for users? I don't suspect we'll see a lot of scripts for sale but I personally will be testing the waters with a new Script Manager script. I plan on charging $0.99 cents for the script, we'll see how it goes.

You got your Plugins in my Scripts!

2010-09-15T17:14:00.000-07:00

Even before I started writing one line of code for playonscripts.com I tried to keep in mind that one day I'd like to use the same software to host plugins. I must admit that I hoped to join forces with Onyx over at playonplugins.com and work out some revenue share type of deal but it never came to fruition.

Today I started to think about the differences of Scripts versus Plugins and to be honest, now that the scripts plugins in default, the only real contrast is where we save them on our hard drives. So I began the process of allowing plugin developers the ability to add their plugins with our scripts. The site will be smart enough to know the difference and react accordingly.

I don't know if the plugin developers will use the new additions but I'll do my best to get the word out.

Site Design

2010-09-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to 'soften' the design of the site, so don't be surprised if you notice some changes.

Landing Page and Subscription troubles

2010-09-12T07:11:00.001-07:00

I found some bugs in the subscription process that has been ironed out, it was something really simple and I can't believe I overlooked it.

Also in order to inform people about the subscriptions; from now on when we click the "Download" links on a script's page we'll get redirected to a landing page with some additional information. It'll also come in handy if I ever need to let the user know about something in the future.

And one last thing you may notice is that on the home page there is a little News section now which should also help to get the word out about new features.

Subscriptions

2010-09-10T07:23:00.001-07:00

It seems that I forgot to turn on subscriptions for everyone. It's been complete for months but I had it locked for not admins so I could test it and just forgot. Well it's open for everyone now, enjoy!

Everything is blue...

2010-09-09T19:19:00.000-07:00

it's true.

PlayOnPlugins.com - Down

2010-05-12T11:44:00.000-07:00

Saw this today at playonplugins.com:

.... Hacked, will be back up when i can fix it.

-Onyx

Bad news.

[Website] Subscriptions Coming Soon

2010-05-12T08:42:00.000-07:00

You'll notice a new icon next to your name if you're logged in . Clicking on it will take you to a blank (for the moment) subscription's page. Soon we'll be able to add a script to our subscriptions page and find out easily when the last time the scripts were updated.

New Developer's Script

2010-05-07T05:38:00.000-07:00

I've added an updated version of the Test Script (now named Developer Script). Check it out in the Dev Center

PlayOn Premium for Devs

2010-05-05T11:39:00.000-07:00

I had made the suggestion that current, active, developers should receive a free premium upgrade and I supplied our email addresses (with a little bit of data) to someone in charge.

And it was sort of confirmed, but I'm not really sure, that they will be taking my advice.

Even though Scripts are still the red headed step child, I supplied them with some actual Plugin devs email addresses too!

Where has the Log file gone?

2010-05-01T06:17:00.000-07:00

right here:

Each script now has it's own log in %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\MediaMall\[script].log

in windows XP I found it here C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\MediaMall

Win7 32bit it is located in C:\ProgramData\MediaMall\

[Website Update] Auto inclusion of images

2010-04-30T11:19:00.000-07:00

In preparation for the upcoming release of PlayOn with Scripts included by default, all Scripts being downloaded from now on will automatically be including the site icon image. There will be some documentation coming soon.

Take that Plugins!

2010-04-30T10:37:00.000-07:00

The Future

2010-04-28T19:45:00.000-07:00

I guess it was announced here that the Scripts Plugin will be rolled into PlayOn and be available by default to all users, which is good new for everyone.

Plugin development was frozen in late February and, to my knowledge, was integrated without any alteration. A couple other things were implemented as well (a better options dialog, and embedding images into scripts).

I'll still be distributing the plugin until the updated version of PlayOn is released, and of course will be maintaining the website.

[Website Update] Messages

2010-04-21T10:33:00.001-07:00

Over the next few days I'll be rolling out a messaging system for the site. It will automatically notify us when our scripts are reviewed, commented on in the official forum post, or updated (complimenting the new feature that lets multiple people maintain files and scripts). I might eventually open it up for direct user-to-user messages.

Website Update: Maintainers for files

2010-04-20T10:38:00.000-07:00

If you upload a file to the website (~~just files for the moment, Scripts will follow soon~~) you can now Update the file to allow others to update the file as well.

[ Updated ]
Scripts can now have multiple maintainers as well.

1 Million Downloads

2010-04-13T14:41:00.000-07:00

The site just reached the pretty significant milestone of 1,000,000 downloads. Thanks everybody!

Consider donating

2010-04-09T19:57:00.000-07:00

Over at PlayOn Scripts we now have over 120 scripts, which amounts to hours upon hours or content for you to enjoy. You know what it also amounts too? Hours upon hours of development and maintenance time provided by your friendly script writers.

This post is to let you guys know that the script writers are doing all this for free. I know some people don't care, which is fine, and I know some people don't have expendable income, I can relate, but if you really like a particular script take time to see if the developer has a Donation link posted with their scripts and send them a few bucks. It'll help keep these fine folks interested in maintaining the scripts, and they deserve it too.

Options Window

2010-04-04T21:05:00.000-07:00

Since the beginning when I first conceived of the idea for the Scripts Plugin I've been trying to come up with a way to give us the ability to let the users interact with the script from the PlayOn window. My first attempt just confused our users, and the second attempt is just a band aid.

But I've been working on a way to let us have options on par with "normal" plugins. This came to head with a good link provided by hotTamale (script developer extraordinaire) here. It goes into great detail dealing with accessing C# options from Lua.

I'm getting tired so to cut it short I'll just leave you with what the new options code will (probably) look like:

--[[Options
    --#code
    --load the assemblies
    luanet.load_assembly "System.Windows.Forms"
    luanet.load_assembly "System.Drawing"
    --assign the objects (#include controls can supplant this)
    Form = luanet.import_type "System.Windows.Forms.Form"
    Button = luanet.import_type "System.Windows.Forms.Button"
    TextBox = luanet.import_type "System.Windows.Forms.TextBox"
    Label = luanet.import_type "System.Windows.Forms.Label"
    Point = luanet.import_type "System.Drawing.Point"
    --create the objects
    frmDialog = Form()
    txtZip = TextBox()
    lblZip = Label()
    butClose = Button()
    butApply = Button()
    --controls
        lblZip.Text = "Zipcode: "
        lblZip.Location=Point(20,20)
        
        txtZip.Text = "90210"
        txtZip.Location=Point(50,20)
        txtZip.Width = 150
        
        butApply.Text = "Apply"
        butApply.Location=Point(250,180)
        --button click handler
        handler=butApply.MouseUp:Add(function(sender, data)
            --apply code here
            Log(txtZip.text)
            frmDialog:HideDialog()
        end)
        
        butClose.Text = "Close"
        butClose.Location=Point(280,180)
        --button click handler
        handler=butApply.MouseUp:Add(function(sender, data)
            --reset fields and hide window
            frmDialog:HideDialog()
        end)
    --form properties
    frmDialog.Text = "My Dialog Box"
    frmDialog.Width = 300;
    frmDialog.Height = 250;
    frmDialog.HelpButton = true
    frmDialog.MaximizeBox=false
    frmDialog.MinimizeBox=false
        
        --assign controls to our window
        frmDialog.Controls:Add(txtZip)
        frmDialog.Controls:Add(lblZip)
        frmDialog.Controls:Add(butClose)
        frmDialog.Controls:Add(butApply)
        
    frmDialog:ShowDialog()
EndOptions]]--

The future

2010-02-01T10:23:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to give a quick update about the plugin. Hopefully soon they'll be some big changes, all good, and nothing anyone has to worry about. I guess in the meantime I'll be tweaking some minor code and adding some stuff.

There won't be a whole lot of releases (if any) until the changes mentioned above are made. So don't think that I'm abandoning the project, just doing some internal stuff!

Version 1.0 and stats

2010-01-24T08:04:00.000-08:00

Version 1.0 is on hold until we can get our hands on the new way PlayOn is capturing the screen/audio. After we do a whole new world opens up for us.

We now have almost 100 scripts to choose from, between those scripts there have been nearly 400k downloads, and the top downloaded script is well above 10k downloads. I don't want to put down the plugins but... I think there may be 20 of them total? Go Scripts! :)

PlayOn - Hulu switches to screen capture

2010-01-14T09:53:00.000-08:00

It looks like MediaMall has switched it's Hulu streaming to the Screen Capture method they've used for Netflix.

As developers this probably means that the screen grab technology may finally be coming to us in the form of some API changes.

0.9.0.0

2010-01-02T21:56:00.000-08:00

I just released 0.9.0.0 I'm starting to get a little busy with other matters so I wanted to make sure this gets out. There may be a small update in the near future. The Debug Logger is currently broken and I'm trying to get it working. In the meantime: enjoy.

Import and Lua Classes

2009-12-28T20:29:00.000-08:00

New in 0.9.0.0, which will be released any day now, will include the new Import() function. Import() loads a script into the global space. I know what you're thinking: we already have LoadScript() and the "exec" prefix why on Earth do we need yet another way to load and execute scripts? Well I'll tell you why Jimmy: when you use LoadScript() or "exec" you change the internal script name into the script that was just loaded or executed. That's a good thing if you want to shift focus away from your script to another one but it's a bad thing if you do not. This is where Import() comes in, it does not change the internal script name so Get and SetScriptOption() behave as though your script made the call and not as the loaded script, which is a game changer. Adding Import() will also future proof us in the event that other such functions are added.

After adding this new function I went looking for some info on Lua Classes. Unfortunately I'm not the smartest bulb in tackle box and it all went straight over my head. But I did manage to come up with a simple Lua Class which can be seen by downloading libSearch. Hopefully others can find it useful as I'll be using it exclusively from now on when I add search.

Website forums

2009-12-25T04:06:00.000-08:00

As I wait for my daughter to wake up on this Christmas morn I decided to add the ability for us to edit our posts on the forums. Merry Christmas!!! ;)

Debug notifications and complete Alias list

2009-12-21T15:59:00.000-08:00

I've written a small console application that, if present in the plugins directory, will pop up and notify us that there was an error, and what the error contained. Probably useful for developers only and probably not that useful except that it'll save us time looking at the log. I added a function available from Lua to access the debug notifier DebuggerLog(string s);

Expect to find the application in the Dev Center once 0.9.0.0 comes out. Also speaking of the Dev Center I've updated the Lua Specific Functions file so it should be easier to browse, out with 0.9.0.0 as well.

Full List of Aliases

_guc() = GetURLCached()
_gu() = GetURL()
_gur() = GetURLxR()
_gux() = GetURLX()
_guxr() = GetURLXxR()
_sr() = str_replace()
_sp() = str_split()
_sf() = str_find()
_sfl() = str_findlast()
_se() = str_escape()
_su() = str_unescape()
_she() = str_html_encode()
_shd() = str_html_decode()
_sst() = str_strip_tags()
_sgb() = str_get_between()
_sgba() = str_get_between_a()
_st() = str_trim()
_vr() = VideoResource()
_vrx() = VideoResourceX()
_ar() = AudioResource()
_ir() = ImageResource()
_ct() = ConvertTime()
_vf() = VirtualFolder()
_dvf() = DynamicVirtualFolder()
_rx() = ResolveXML()
_srx() = SpecialResolveXML()
_v() = Version()
_l() = Log()
_dl() = DebuggerLog()
_sm() = ShowMsg()

What are PlayOn Scripts?

2009-12-20T19:39:00.000-08:00

PlayOn Scripts are plugins for the DLNA software PlayOn that add a large amount video content.

VideoResourceX

2009-12-18T08:13:00.000-08:00

Table structure:

local vrTable = {
               title = "Tile of Video",
               path = "URL, Local Path, or code",
               description = "Video Description",
               thumbnail = "URL to image",
               date = "11/22/2009 12:33:00 PM",
               duration = ConvertTime("1:00:00"),
               bitrate = 0,
               resolution = "1920x1080",
               genre = "Funny",
               rating = "G",
               index = 1;
}
VideoResourceX(vrTable);

All parameter's are optional and have a default value that will be supplied if any are missing. Mistyping the date will result in a error being logged but, if everything else is fine, it shouldn't cause the video to break.

Also I've added some short aliases for function names:

_l() = Log()

_vf() = VirtualFolder()
_dvf() = DynamicVirtualFolder()

_vr() = VideoResource()
_vrx() = VideoResourceX()
_ar() = AudioResource()
_ir() = ImageResource()

_ct() = ConvertTime()

_guc() = GetURLCached()
_gu() = GetURL()
_gux() = GetURLX()

Thoughts

2009-12-17T07:05:00.000-08:00

First up, the next update probably won't come out until after the holidays. I've gotten a request to expand VideoResource() and instead of stupidly trying to cram more xml into the description I'm just going to add a function called VideoResourceX() (which, by the way, I spent several agonizing hours thinking of the name). ~~It'll look like this:~~

~~VideoResourceX(string title, string path, string description, string thumbnail, string datetime, long duration, int bitrate, string resolution, string genre, string rating, int sortIndex)~~

The new function will accept a table containing the data it needs.

VideoResourceX(table data)

I'm also probably going to add a FormatRTMP() function seeing as we do format the rtmp string a lot in our scripts. Keep an eye on the Dev Center for explanations for the new code.

There has been some confusion with the Script Options window, so I'm going to rework that to make it less confusing.

Finally, we're coming up to a 1.0.0.0 release which will be a milestone release. Hopefully it will also represent a feature freeze, where no more features will be added. After the 1.0 release future version will come out a lot more slowly as I'll be mainly focusing on bug fixes and code tweaks. I don't want the plugin getting any bigger and to be honest I feel as if it is very mature in its current state. I'm seeing some amazing stuff coming out and I'm seriously impressed in both the creativity shown by script writers and that I was able to make something so versatile.

0.8.1.0

2009-12-13T19:18:00.001-08:00

A new release went out, hereto called the hottamale release. It was basically a code push to allow hottamale to release some of his hard work for everyone to enjoy. I am glad to do and everyone should check out what he's been doing, it's pretty amazing stuff.

Version 0.8.0.0

2009-12-04T06:11:00.000-08:00

Today's release is mainly a bug fix with code and performance improvements.

Notes:
Fixed a bug in deflate decompression
Fixed a bug where Lua errors weren't being reported
VideoRestartServer(); now uses the official video
Thanks to hottamale for his dilengence in getting GetURLX() to be as good as it is now, it's very powerful
GetURLX(); and GetURLXxR(); now accept a special header in the headerParse parameter: ExpectContinue<value>true|false

Get it now!

40k

2009-11-30T05:42:00.001-08:00

Yesterday we passed 40,000 downloads (this is the last download count update I promise :)

It still amazes me that so many people want and use these scripts. We now have 52 scripts, most containing dynamic content. When I first got cable as a child we had about the same amount of channels. Of course now we have 100's if not 1000's of channels available to us and hopefully those cable channels will put their content on line so we can borrow it.

30,000 Downloads, thanksgiving and ads

2009-11-26T05:29:00.000-08:00

First I'd like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

Second I'd like to point out that just 3 days ago we passed the 20k download mark. 10k downloads in 3 days is very impressive.

The last thing has to do with the Ads on the site. I'm not really making any amount of money on the ads, the revenue might pay for the hosting costs. If there is any cash left over I will try to send some giftcards out to the other Script Developers. Hopefully I'll receive a check before Christmas but it doesn't look good. We have far too many Firefox users coming to the site ;)

0.7.0.1

2009-11-24T10:43:00.000-08:00

Had to push a quick bug fix, if you downloaded 0.7.0.0 earlier today please update to 0.7.0.1 to have the AutoRun scripts work.

Get it Here.

Thanks

Setting the Date of a VideoResource()

2009-11-24T07:26:00.000-08:00

New in 0.7.0.0 is the ability to set the the date of a VideoResource. In retrospect this is something I should have included from day one but unfortunately I didn't see the potential. I want to thank hottamale from the site for requesting this and reminding me that it actually exists.

So in order to make this available and preserve backwards compatibility I had to come up with a work around and so I decided to add a special XML tag to the description to handle it (I'm claiming the <special> tag)


local dateXML = '<special date="1.0"><year>2009</year><month>11</month><day>11</day></special>';

VideoResource("test", "video.mp4", "This is before the special tag"..dateXML.."and this is after", "", 100000);

The plugin will extrapolate the Date information and remove the data from the description before it ever gets to the user's screen. Just keep in mind that the format is very strict and will attempt to catch and throw an error if malformed but if not properly set you could end up with ugly tags being sent to the user.

New Release

2009-11-24T05:38:00.000-08:00

I decided to push the release of version 0.7.0.0 up a couple days, get it right now!

The update log:

0.7.0.0
Developers may now force a video type to PlayOn by including the tag <special force="wmv"> (for Windows Media Video) and <special force="flv"> (for Flash Video) in the video's url.
If autorun.lua is present in the Scripts directory, default loading is bypassed and autorun.lua is executed
Extended Lua with LoadScript();
Extended Lua with GetURLXxR();
Fixed a bug with SetScriptOption();
Added GetScriptOptionX(); and SetScriptOptionX(); which allows access to other scripts options (or create custom sections)
VideoResource(); now excepts a date, accessed by some xml data in the description var.
Extended Lua with GetVideoPerformanceLevel();

20,000 Downloads

2009-11-23T21:02:00.001-08:00

We just destroyed 20k total downloads. I had no idea the Plugin, Scripts and site would effect so many people. Amazing stuff.

LoadScript() and PlayOn contacted me

2009-11-22T05:28:00.000-08:00

LoadScript
In my last post I recommended using the new LoadScript() function to load a script from our autorun scripts. I'd like to rescind that, I completely forgot about 'exec:'.

From our VirtualFolder() or VideoResource() calls we already have the ability to execute scripts within the Scripts\ directory. Something like:

VirtualFolder("Run Script", "exec:NBC.lua");

will work great in our autorun scripts.

I was going to remove LoadScript() altogether but I decided to leave it in, currently we could do something like:


local file = GetCurrentPath().."\\Scripts\\NBC.lua";
local contents = OpenFile(file);
RunScript(contents);

LoadScript() will make this easier


local file = GetCurrentPath().."\\Scripts\\NBC.lua";
LoadScript(file);

However, there is one caveat, LoadScript() and RunScript() will report itself to the plugin as though it is the executing script and not the executed script. What this means is that GetScriptOptions() and SetScriptOptions() will not work as expected. To have those functions behave properly they need to be ran with 'exec:' from within a VirtualFolder() or VideoResource() call.

edit: ignore the crossed off stuff, LoadScript() will properly identify itself as the correct script.

PlayOn Interaction
I just want to thanks the other script developers for making the plugin as awesome as it is. In fact it's impact is such that PlayOn has contacted me and asked me to make some specific changes which is cool :)

More autorun

2009-11-21T06:06:00.000-08:00

I just finished a autorun script that gets a list of scripts and their categories from PlayOnScripts.com and organizes the scripts on my server based on those categories. Pretty cool stuff.

On a side note I forgot to mention in the last post that nil LoadScript(string file) has been added so our autorun scripts can have the plugin load the script.

autorun.lua

2009-11-20T20:54:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking lately about how to manage the growing number of scripts within the Scripts Plugin. I thought I could allow the developers to tag their scripts with categories or maybe use the categories from PlayOnScripts.com, but they both seemed cumbersome to implement. So I decided to allow the user to decide how to organize their scripts using....wait for it....it's coming....a Script.

Version 0.7.0.0 of the Scripts Plugin will check for the existence of autorun.lua and, if it exists, will execute the Script, bypassing the normal start up routine of loading the script's names from the Scripts\ folder. It opens the door for some interesting ways to organize our Scripts.

I haven't had a chance to write my own organizer yet but I do have some ideas brewing.

Forcing Video Type

2009-11-19T18:07:00.000-08:00

In the next version of the Scripts Plugin, v0.7.0.0, I've added the ability to force the Scripts Plugin to send videos to PlayOn based on what you submit and not what the Scripts Plugin thinks it is.

How it works now
Originally the Scripts Plugin checked for a file extension, if it was WMV then the video was set to Windows Media, everything else would be Flash. This proved flawed as server side parameters break this set up. As an example http://www.url.com/video.wmv?hashcode=ff7fa02b would be interpreted as a Flash video when it is a WMV. So instead of checking file extensions I changed it to simply check for the existence of .wmv and if it exists then it will set it as Windows Media. Still flawed however when you consider a url like this: http://www.url.com/video.wmv.flv the plugin assumes it is a WMV file which is incorrect.

Solution
Enter the <special> tag. So far the tag only excepts one parameter "force". By appending a url we send, to ResolveXML() or to the plugin directly from a VideoResource(), with the new tag we can explicitly tell the plugin the type, regardless of file extension. Using the example above we could do: http://www.url.com/video.wmv.flv<special force="flv"> The Scripts Plugin will now tell PlayOn that the video is a flash video regardless of any other factors. We could even tell PlayOn that the video with a .flv extension is to be decoded as Windows Media: http://www.url.com/video.wmv.flv<special force="wmv">

Version 0.7.0.0 will be released a short time after Thanksgiving.

Coming Soon

2009-11-19T17:36:00.000-08:00

This will be where we can make announcements in the future