iPhone templates: your media to go
iPhone templates: your media to go
We just released two new templates for the iPhone. If you happen to be a lucky iPhone owner and have the time to give them a test and let us know your thoughts so that we might improve the templates and make more, we would appreciate it. Here is a sample DVD one you can point your iPhone at without having to export your own data.
Conor:
I'm a new iPhone owner and also new to DVDpedia and the "pedias".
Although I can direct the iPhone to your sample iPhone file on the Bruji website and it works extremely well on the iPhone, I cannot figure out how to get my own DVDpedia file (180 DVDs) onto the iPhone: I can't figure out how to get the generated folder and included files from my Macbook desktop into iTunes for syncing.
I have not yet purchased DVDpedia because I wanted to see how well it worked before buying. Is some transfer function in it blocked until purchase?
By the way, I use a Kanecal USB scanner for input and it works beautifully. Good work!
I'm a new iPhone owner and also new to DVDpedia and the "pedias".
Although I can direct the iPhone to your sample iPhone file on the Bruji website and it works extremely well on the iPhone, I cannot figure out how to get my own DVDpedia file (180 DVDs) onto the iPhone: I can't figure out how to get the generated folder and included files from my Macbook desktop into iTunes for syncing.
I have not yet purchased DVDpedia because I wanted to see how well it worked before buying. Is some transfer function in it blocked until purchase?
By the way, I use a Kanecal USB scanner for input and it works beautifully. Good work!
Hi Perkata,
Unfortunately Apple has blocked the development of third party applications for the iPhone or the syncing of any data that is not native to iTunes such as music, videos or photos via iTunes. Hopefully they will provide a means to do syncing in the future as the iPhone matures and we be very excited as well as many other Mac developers. In the meantime what Apple has suggested is that we use the Safari browser to extend the iPhone; it's not ideal but it's the only way.
This means that you will need a web server to place your DVDs online so that you can view them from the iPhone. If you have a .Mac account then DVDpedia makes this simple, after selecting the iPhone template in HTML export, change to the .Mac tab and export directly to .Mac. if you have your own web server then proceed with the HTML export and upload the exported folder to your web server. If you want to be sure your DVDs are private .Mac offers the ability to password protect a directory. (By default they will be kind of private in that nobody, but you, will know the URL to the DVDs; others would need to guess).
Nothing is blocked in the Demo version apart from the 10 DVD limit.
Unfortunately Apple has blocked the development of third party applications for the iPhone or the syncing of any data that is not native to iTunes such as music, videos or photos via iTunes. Hopefully they will provide a means to do syncing in the future as the iPhone matures and we be very excited as well as many other Mac developers. In the meantime what Apple has suggested is that we use the Safari browser to extend the iPhone; it's not ideal but it's the only way.
This means that you will need a web server to place your DVDs online so that you can view them from the iPhone. If you have a .Mac account then DVDpedia makes this simple, after selecting the iPhone template in HTML export, change to the .Mac tab and export directly to .Mac. if you have your own web server then proceed with the HTML export and upload the exported folder to your web server. If you want to be sure your DVDs are private .Mac offers the ability to password protect a directory. (By default they will be kind of private in that nobody, but you, will know the URL to the DVDs; others would need to guess).
Nothing is blocked in the Demo version apart from the 10 DVD limit.
Conor:
Thanks for the quick reply.
I have a workaround that works very well for me.
There is a small, freeware, utility for the Mac called Filemark Maker that allows pdfs, and a number of other common formats, to be physically placed on the iPhone, by dragging them to the Filemark Maker icon on the Mac machine. So far the utility has worked well for me on files that I've printed as pdfs from OS X's print utility. The file is local on the iPhone so you don't need an Internet connection to review it. Perhaps there is a way you can revamp the export html templates to take advantage of Filemark Maker.
For the DVDpedia file I used (180 entries), I got a nice 17-page pdf on the iPhone. It's simply an alphabetical list of the titles (i.e., links don't work), but that's all I need when I'm shopping (to prevent my buying duplicate stuff). The utility and the simple instructions can be found at:
http://www.insanelygreattees.com/news/?p=51
PS. I was not aware there is a 10-title limit on the unregistered versions of the pedias. Using a usb barcode scanner, I input and printed out (via the OS X print utlity) a 180 title DVDpedia library before I paid for any of the 3 pedias I bought. I don't recall seeing a popup.
Thanks for the quick reply.
I have a workaround that works very well for me.
There is a small, freeware, utility for the Mac called Filemark Maker that allows pdfs, and a number of other common formats, to be physically placed on the iPhone, by dragging them to the Filemark Maker icon on the Mac machine. So far the utility has worked well for me on files that I've printed as pdfs from OS X's print utility. The file is local on the iPhone so you don't need an Internet connection to review it. Perhaps there is a way you can revamp the export html templates to take advantage of Filemark Maker.
For the DVDpedia file I used (180 entries), I got a nice 17-page pdf on the iPhone. It's simply an alphabetical list of the titles (i.e., links don't work), but that's all I need when I'm shopping (to prevent my buying duplicate stuff). The utility and the simple instructions can be found at:
http://www.insanelygreattees.com/news/?p=51
PS. I was not aware there is a 10-title limit on the unregistered versions of the pedias. Using a usb barcode scanner, I input and printed out (via the OS X print utlity) a 180 title DVDpedia library before I paid for any of the 3 pedias I bought. I don't recall seeing a popup.
I had been reading about the discovery of having data URLs work on the iPhone (in a post that inspired Filemark Maker, the drag and drop of Filemark Maker is very Mac like.). I was worried there would be a limit to the size of the URL that can be loaded or the size of the URL that can be saved as a bookmark, but if they are reading entire PDF books then that does not seem to be a problem. It means all the HTML exports can be saved to the iPhone as well as PDF printouts from DVDpedia.
Similar utility to use directly from the web is: http://www.somewhere.com/url2iphone.html
We ignore the 10 DVD limit when entering books via Barcode or doing large imports so that through the demo potential customers can test the speed of our programs and the ease of use; this is especially important for those importing thousand of DVDs for testing. However you will find that you can't open the edit panel if you passed the 10 DVD limit and have not registered.
Similar utility to use directly from the web is: http://www.somewhere.com/url2iphone.html
We ignore the 10 DVD limit when entering books via Barcode or doing large imports so that through the demo potential customers can test the speed of our programs and the ease of use; this is especially important for those importing thousand of DVDs for testing. However you will find that you can't open the edit panel if you passed the 10 DVD limit and have not registered.
Conor:
In my experiment, the 17-page pdf works nicely on the iPhone for my purposes, but does not hyperlink, i.e., clicking on the entry in the list will not bring up more detail nor will clicking on the small album cover result in bringing up a larger one.
Unfortunately, in my experiments, dragging and dropping the html export from the pedias does not result in transferring the data to the iPhone. The bookmark appears on the iPhone but not the content, just a blank screen.
Perhaps there is something you can do on your end to enable the full functionality.
Even so, neat programs. I'm quite happy.
In my experiment, the 17-page pdf works nicely on the iPhone for my purposes, but does not hyperlink, i.e., clicking on the entry in the list will not bring up more detail nor will clicking on the small album cover result in bringing up a larger one.
Unfortunately, in my experiments, dragging and dropping the html export from the pedias does not result in transferring the data to the iPhone. The bookmark appears on the iPhone but not the content, just a blank screen.
Perhaps there is something you can do on your end to enable the full functionality.
Even so, neat programs. I'm quite happy.
Re: iPhone templates: your media to go
In general the iPhone HTML export works ok for me. What would be really cool for you Javascript/AJAX gurus is to add a search function that could be exported with it, so that when I upload it to my personal web site, included would be a search function.
I would pay for an upgrade for these features:
- Search built-in to the HTML export.
- Export with easy upload to a website (imbedded ftp).
- Auto-setup to export and upload on quit.
With around 1000 movies, search would be incredibly helpful. As you might imagine, without it, it's tough to get through and find the specific movie.
Any thoughts?
Greg
I would pay for an upgrade for these features:
- Search built-in to the HTML export.
- Export with easy upload to a website (imbedded ftp).
- Auto-setup to export and upload on quit.
With around 1000 movies, search would be incredibly helpful. As you might imagine, without it, it's tough to get through and find the specific movie.
Any thoughts?
Greg
Conor wrote:We just released two new templates for the iPhone. If you happen to be a lucky iPhone owner and have the time to give them a test and let us know your thoughts so that we might improve the templates and make more, we would appreciate it. Here is a sample DVD one you can point your iPhone at without having to export your own data.
Thank you for the suggestions, we are working our way towards being so smoothly integrated with online capabilities. An integrated search in an export is something we hope to have in some of the templates. I hope to find a good web coder that can build this for us, I am better with Cocoa than with PHP; but DVDpedia is certainly capable of exporting a template with a search feature.