2009-10-26, 03:40
Hey Azido,
Well, I'm a bit reluctant to do any more work on this scraper until my existing changes have been added to SVN (*if* they're ever going to be added to the SVN.. it's been over 3 weeks since I submitted the patch. I'm wondering if I've already added in more options than the dev team would prefer). But i'm also reluctant to work on features for a specific mod of a specific skin, when htbackdrops is already a fairly competent resource for general fanart; they have almost 4000 backdrops now. What is it about showmix that requires skin-specific fanart/thumbs?
Aside from that, your site would need (or should have) some tweaks before it would be scraper-friendly; artist thumbs and fanart are handled separately in XBMC so your search should have the option of returning results from one or the other. You really should consider having some sort of basic API as well; scraping HTML is somewhat sketchy, as slight changes in the design of the website can often easily break the scraper.
If/when my other changes get added to the SVN, I'll consider making you a scraper that you could at least offer as a download on your site; I doubt those options would make it into the official XBMC SVN.
azido Wrote:as you modified an existing scraper with good results, any chances you can do me a favor and use some of your time to add the functionality to look up for artist thumbs on my site?
Well, I'm a bit reluctant to do any more work on this scraper until my existing changes have been added to SVN (*if* they're ever going to be added to the SVN.. it's been over 3 weeks since I submitted the patch. I'm wondering if I've already added in more options than the dev team would prefer). But i'm also reluctant to work on features for a specific mod of a specific skin, when htbackdrops is already a fairly competent resource for general fanart; they have almost 4000 backdrops now. What is it about showmix that requires skin-specific fanart/thumbs?
Aside from that, your site would need (or should have) some tweaks before it would be scraper-friendly; artist thumbs and fanart are handled separately in XBMC so your search should have the option of returning results from one or the other. You really should consider having some sort of basic API as well; scraping HTML is somewhat sketchy, as slight changes in the design of the website can often easily break the scraper.
If/when my other changes get added to the SVN, I'll consider making you a scraper that you could at least offer as a download on your site; I doubt those options would make it into the official XBMC SVN.
