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June 9, 2005

Netflix Queue Manager Updated Again

Category: Software, Netflix, Movies — badsegue @ 10:31 am

update

Another update! These changes are relatively minor, and build on top of some of the changes from the last release. Now that the Manager is integrated into the Netflix page (instead of on top of it) these changes attempt to make the integration more transparent and seamless.

  • Added the Update Queue button - now you can trigger an update from the Manager, instead of doing a Close and updating with the standard button. You still have to confirm the update though, and can see the regular Netflix page at that time.
  • Added a bug mode switcher - if you Close or Update Queue->Cancel, the Manager disappears and the regular queue page is returned. A floating, semi-transparent “bug” will appear on the page to switch back to the Manager.

These features aren’t that exciting by themselves, but used in conjunction with Greasemonkey or Turnabout can make the Manager integration more natural:

  • The Manager is invoked automatically when the Queue page is visited
  • The Update can be done from the Manager
  • When the page is reloaded after the Update the manager is re-invoked automatically
  • If you Close to get out of the Manager, you can switch back without reloading the page

The on-screen instructions have also been tweaked to explain Close vs. Update Queue.

upgrading

The updates do not require re-installation. You may need to clear the cache to get the updated script and style sheet to load. The bookmarklet and Greasemonkey scripts did not change.

screen shots

Here you can see the reworked buttons and instructions.:

Here we are after reversing the queue, then clicking Update Queue. We can see that the numbers were updated correctly:

If we cancel the Update Queue or had clicked Close we get the regular Netflix queue, with the bug added:

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5 Comments

  1. That’s a huge improvement. Very very cool.

    Comment by jer — June 9, 2005 @ 9:51 pm

  2. Oh, one problem, the ‘top’ button doesn’t seem to have any effect for me. the ‘bottom’ button does in fact move things to the bottom though.

    Comment by jer — June 9, 2005 @ 9:55 pm

  3. I didn’t have the issue with the “top” button, but I tweaked the script to avoid a potential problem with namespace collision. Jer reports that the fix seems to have worked, so if you were having the same problem do a cache reset and that should correct it.

    Comment by badsegue — June 14, 2005 @ 10:25 am

  4. I like the improvements, but I have one more suggestion. Is there any way you can have the genre show up on the queue manager? I like to mix up genres so I don’t get, say, 4 comedies one week and 4 dramas the next, so seeing the genres makes it easier for me to order my queue. Also, it would be nice there were some way to show when a movie hasn’t been released yet, so I can tell what will be skipped over.

    By the way, thanks a lot for your post in the Netflix Operations Discussion group!

    Comment by Sara — June 15, 2005 @ 11:52 pm

  5. Sara - I’ve toyed around with the extra information (genre, rating, availability). The reason I haven’t added it already is because I haven’t found a satisfactory way to put it on there and have everything formatted properly. I have a couple of options to try out, then I can get that extra info incorporated.

    Comment by badsegue — June 16, 2005 @ 2:25 am

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