IRL Cinema Guide - Midlet

h57xiucj2z946q

New project im currently working on...
Irish Cinema Guide applet for your MIDP 2.0 phone..

Consists of 2 parts:

1. A php parser on a remote server to parse out any un-necessary data from cinema listings from entertainment.ie based on given arguments.


2. A java midlet to call this php parser and display the results on the phone. the parser will only return plain text, therefore reducing data transer load, therefore reducing costs.


I hope to give out jar's to certain people soon to beta test.
Of course this midlet is free, but your network will impose some data transfer rates.


I have attached some screen shots of it working so far...

UPDATE, v0.1 BETA JAR:
JAD: http://damohere.freehostia.com/irlcg/IRLCinemaGuide.jad
JAR: http://damohere.freehostia.com/irlcg/IRLCinemaGuide.jar


Note- the Settings and About commands do nothing yet..

There are some current known issues. PLEASE READ FULLY BEFORE TESTING.

1. On a blackberry (OS v4.2.2.67). When the application launches, we are given an un-caught exception error: "Uncaught exception: Field added to a manager while it is already parented". Im clueless as to why the Blackberry is throwing this. Maybe someone who developed midlets for blackberry has an idea?
   
   
2. 3 Ireland. (HTTP Response: 302)
   This is a really weird problem. Here we go..
   Some people on 3 IRL mobile network won't be able to use this app due to the proxy splash/warning page 3 throws to you about accessing the internet and data costs etc.. when you open up the browser for the first time.
   This page is getting caught by the midlet on the phone. NOW THE REALLY WEIRD PART IS: My friend has a Sony Ericsson K800i on 3 IRL and experiences this problem. He keeps getting that 3 proxy page HOWEVER I have a Nokia N73 on 3 and the app works fine for me. I do not get this 3 splash page. Does anyone have any ideas how I can get around this for such phones as the Sony Ericsson's?
   Before you answer, here is what I have tried:
   Grabbed the "continue here" hyper link in the proxy splash page and load that, however you will be returned back to the same page again and again.
   Processed the "location" field in the header when you get the 302 responce that should redirect you to the "redirect to" url from the http header, still brings you back to 3's proxy page.
   Used cookies, and tried to pull across the page twice hoping that the 2nd time it'd pick up on what ever cookie maybe used to show that we already viewed the warning. Still get the proxy warning. Alghough there is no official cookie handling method in the HttpConnection class in J2ME, I tried RMS Http Connection (
   http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-04-2002/jw-0426-wireless.html?page=2)

Tried pulling the url directly from the way the 3 proxy builds it for the "continue here" links. Still no go. By the way, if any one is interested how these url's are made for whatever reason, here is how: Suppose you want to go to:

http://www.rte.ie/tv/index_rtetwo.html

3's proxy url will be like:
http://notify.three.co.uk/accepted-Interstitial?http/(host of site)/(base64 encode of full url to get)
so the site above would be:
http://notify.three.co.uk/accepted-Interstitial?http/www.rte.ie/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5ydGUuaWUvdHYvaW5kZXhfcnRldHdvLmh0bWw=
Sorta like PHProxy :-)

But at the end of the day, i dunno why my Nokia N73 doesn't experience this, but my friends Sony Ericsson K800i does. Maybe the Java VM on the Symbian OS on the Nokia N73 has build in cookie/sesssion handling?


[*]Meteor users will probably have to get ISP-APN enabled for their account


Damo.

Random

I'd love to try her/it out.

wba88

ill help test it aswell

subway

looks like a great idea.
may i suggest that you return the booking line number of the cinema with the listings if possible?

h57xiucj2z946q

subway wrote: »

looks like a great idea.
may i suggest that you return the booking line number of the cinema with the listings if possible?

as in the cinema phone number? that can be done.

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

pop.1280

I'd love to test this also

subway

Nylah Defeated Hair wrote: »

as in the cinema phone number? that can be done.

thats what i meant.
unless you are building in a referral system to allow people to book through their phones and make you some cash.

ive often been out on a saturday afternoon and decided to go to the cinema, first thing is buy a paper to check whats on, then call the cinema to check availabilty - no point heading all the way over to find its sold out.
if you can included a contact number with the listings it will save people having to ring 11850 to check the number.

h57xiucj2z946q

subway wrote: »

thats what i meant.
unless you are building in a referral system to allow people to book through their phones and make you some cash.

ive often been out on a saturday afternoon and decided to go to the cinema, first thing is buy a paper to check whats on, then call the cinema to check availabilty - no point heading all the way over to find its sold out.
if you can included a contact number with the listings it will save people having to ring 11850 to check the number.

Here you go.

subway

noce work

would love to test it out

h57xiucj2z946q

I'll post up beta jar's before I leave work today.

Sam Vimes

Nylah Defeated Hair wrote: »

[*]3 Ireland. (HTTP Response: 302)
This is a really weird problem. Here we go..
Some people on 3 IRL mobile network won't be able to use this app due to the proxy splash/warning page 3 throws to you about accessing the internet and data costs etc.. when you open up the browser for the first time.
This page is getting caught by the midlet on the phone. NOW THE REALLY WEIRD PART IS: My friend has a Sony Ericsson K800i on 3 IRL and experiences this problem. He keeps getting that 3 proxy page HOWEVER I have a Nokia N73 on 3 and the app works fine for me. I do not get this 3 splash page. Does anyone have any ideas how I can get around this for such phones as the Sony Ericsson's?

the answer is he has to call 3 and get them to update his account so he doesn't get that splash page anymore. java apps don't work properly with that setup. i used to have that but after three months of shouting at them they fixed it. the thing that seemed to finally work was telling them that java apps weren't working. a few hours later that splash screen was gone and java apps worked. until then i had just been saying the internet wasn't working and they kept fobbing me off


edit: just to show that it nothing to do with the phone itself, you'll notice that if you swap sims with him, the SE will start working anf the n73 will stop

h57xiucj2z946q

Thanks for that tip Commander Vimes. However if i use oper or the symbian os browser, I will then get that splash warning. Even if I use my phone as a modem, I'll get the warning in IE/firefox, but not through this midlet. It dont make sense.

h57xiucj2z946q

links to jar/jad now in first post.

h57xiucj2z946q

yes, i havent a timeout specifically coded in it yet. HttpConnection class for J2ME doesnt have a timeout method so I'll have to specifically interrupt the connection attempt after so many seconds, causing it to throw an exception.

I read on some thread before about Metor, think it was the AFT thread that meteor users need something like "ISP-APN" enabled on their account. Have you done this?

MiCr0

works perfectly on my k800 on vodafone
one thing - could you make the phone numbers linkable - ie
<go href="wtai://wp/mc;XXXXXXXXXX">

sharkman

Very Nice ! Works great on my K850i .

h57xiucj2z946q

MiCr0 wrote: »

works perfectly on my k800 on vodafone
one thing - could you make the phone numbers linkable - ie
<go href="wtai://wp/mc;XXXXXXXXXX">

Not sure if i can do that as what you are seeing is a Java MIDP form. It dont process html tags. "StringItem" is the object holding the text on the form. What I could try do is make a command to ring that number on the form, but it'd involve a bit of parsing on the midlet side of things.

h57xiucj2z946q

Guys, monitor bandwith usage/costs. the plain text sent back is about on averag 0.3-0.8kb. Along with the url request and packet verification, this might bulk up to 1-1.5kb.

Im not sure if WebServers to Mobile Java VM's over HTTP use compression/encoding like gzip,deflate in the same way your PC internet browser would when in a session with a web-server.

h57xiucj2z946q

MiCr0 wrote: »

works perfectly on my k800 on vodafone
one thing - could you make the phone numbers linkable - ie
<go href="wtai://wp/mc;XXXXXXXXXX">

I have it now that when you list as cinema and there is a number available for it, you can call it by selecting the "Call" command"

Im having trouble restoring the midlet after the call on my N73, it stays in a minimised state until you manually maximise it.

JAR: http://damohere.freehostia.com/irlcg/IRLCinemaGuide.jar
JAD: http://damohere.freehostia.com/irlcg/IRLCinemaGuide.jad

wheresmybeaver

This works great on my Sony Ericsson T650i on O2 billpay. I'm a bit suspicious about the way that the T650 reports data usage in the Data Counter option, but using this app seems to amount to just under 3Kb, which is pretty good. Thanks, this is a great alternative to O2's suggestion of a €1.50 / month subscription to entertainment.ie

h57xiucj2z946q

cheers

steveland?

Hey man, happy to test it out. Sounds like a great app and avoids me having to find the cinema times on RTE all the time.

Downloaded it there but am getting a HTTP 302 response on a Sony Ericsson K610i, 3Pay on 3 Ireland.

I don't get the splash screen on any other app like GMail or Opera Mini so don't think this is the issue.

Have you come across this 302 error before where the splash screen isn't the issue?

Cheers

h57xiucj2z946q

steveland? wrote: »

Hey man, happy to test it out. Sounds like a great app and avoids me having to find the cinema times on RTE all the time.

Downloaded it there but am getting a HTTP 302 response on a Sony Ericsson K610i, 3Pay on 3 Ireland.

I don't get the splash screen on any other app like GMail or Opera Mini so don't think this is the issue.

Have you come across this 302 error before where the splash screen isn't the issue?

Cheers

The 302 responce will only happen when you get the HTTP TEMP MOVED response which is what the webserver that 3's proxy is throwing you. I have made some comments regarding this in my firstpost. I dont experience this on my Nokia N73 on 3 but my friend who has a Sony Ericsson K800i on 3 does. Commander Vimes made a comment about it.

h57xiucj2z946q

A friend confirmed it is working on:

Sony Ericsson K850i
Meteor PAYG




http://damohere.freehostia.com

pop.1280

Thanks for the great application - how does it work?

h57xiucj2z946q

the midlet contacts a php script i made which parses out un-necessary data from the appropiate page from entertainment.ie

h57xiucj2z946q

Sam Vimes wrote: »

the answer is he has to call 3 and get them to update his account so he doesn't get that splash page anymore. java apps don't work properly with that setup. i used to have that but after three months of shouting at them they fixed it. the thing that seemed to finally work was telling them that java apps weren't working. a few hours later that splash screen was gone and java apps worked. until then i had just been saying the internet wasn't working and they kept fobbing me off


edit: just to show that it nothing to do with the phone itself, you'll notice that if you swap sims with him, the SE will start working anf the n73 will stop

I tried this, I put my sim card into my friends Sony Ericsson K800i, he still could not get the proper listings and got the 3 splash screen.

I put his sim card into my Nokia N73, listing the cinema results worked as normal. This concludes now that its not specific to the to the users account. I have a feeling that its the way the JVM on the Sony Ericsson phones handle sessions.. granted if 3 didnt have the stupid proxy splash screen, we would never have this problem.

Sam Vimes

Nylah Defeated Hair wrote: »

I tried this, I put my sim card into my friends Sony Ericsson K800i, he still could not get the proper listings and got the 3 splash screen.

I put his sim card into my Nokia N73, listing the cinema results worked as normal. This concludes now that its not specific to the to the users account. I have a feeling that its the way the JVM on the Sony Ericsson phones handle sessions.. granted if 3 didnt have the stupid proxy splash screen, we would never have this problem.

when i posted that i didn't realise that you normally get the splash page. you're right, it must be the way SE handles the data.
I'm writing a J2ME app at the moment and i just tested the internet connection code with my 3 sim in a k800i (not 3 branded) and it worked. the code i used is:

Connection connection = Connector.open ("http://google.com");
StreamConnection streamConnection = (StreamConnection)connection;
InputStream in = streamConnection.openInputStream();
StringBuffer buf = new StringBuffer();
while (true) {
	i=in.read();
	if (i==-1) break;
	buf.append ((char) i);
}
in.close();
streamConnection.close();

is yours the same or is it doing something more complicated?

btw, i never get the splash page with my 3 account so the fact that it works in my phone doesn't mean all that much


and yes, if 3 didn't have the splash screen none of these problems would exist. remember you can always call them and try to get them to fix it if you think you have the patience. i got it fixed afer three months

h57xiucj2z946q

I used HttpConnection. I will give StreamConnection class a run tommrow
Its almost time to go home


Note: 3 dont show the proxy splash for certain domains, google.com been 1 I think.

...
...
HttpConnection httpConn = null;
	   	InputStream is = null;

	   	try {
	   		//establish the connection
	   		httpConn = (HttpConnection)Connector.open(sample);
	   		httpConn.setRequestMethod(HttpConnection.GET);
	   		httpConn.setRequestProperty("User-Agent","Profile/MIDP-2.0 Confirguration/CLDC-1.0");

	   		int respCode = httpConn.getResponseCode();

	   		if (respCode == HttpConnection.HTTP_OK) {

	   			StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
	   			is = httpConn.openDataInputStream();
	   			int chr;

	   			//grab the data char by char
	   			while ((chr = is.read()) != -1)
	   				sb.append((char) chr);			
				...
				...
			}


			else {
				//we did not get HTTP_OK (200) response, show alert,
				 //response we get
				//on some phones on 3 IRL you get 302 (HTTP_TEMP_MOVED)
				...
				...
			}

niallfullback

Nice work!! Working perfectly for me here on Vodafone PAYG. Costs 1 cent to use it twice.

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

crazy_spider

Great app.. Works great on my Nokia 5500 on meteor PAYG.
4cent per listing at peak and 1 cent for 2 listings off peak. Cheers.

h57xiucj2z946q

I just noticed a bug in the parser, it doesnt handle numbers beginning with 1520 ??? ??? e.g Dublin, Cineworld.
So in the midlet you didnt see the number, hence couldn't ring it. I'll fix this today.

If anyone spots any more .. let me know, thanks.

h57xiucj2z946q

New jar up.. fixes display issues you get on some phones after using the "Call" feature and returning to the app. e.g. Windows Mobile


http://damohere.freehostia.com

Thephantomsmask

Great app! Kudos to Damo

robinph

Nylah Defeated Hair wrote: »

New jar up.. fixes display issues you get on some phones after using the "Call" feature and returning to the app. e.g. Windows Mobile

http://damohere.freehostia.com

What is the version number supposed to be on the new one now?

The one I already have installed calls itself 0.11b.
The web page says that it is 0.11b.
The new .jar file once downloaded and about to be installed calls itself 0.01?

h57xiucj2z946q

I havent changed the jar version, it was only a 2 line change.
Just download the .jar from the hostj2me link and you'll have the latest jar.

hostj2me has dodgy version handling


I've updated the Manifest file so if you re-download it, you'll see v0.12
You can ignore what ever version the hostj2me page says, there is no way to incrememt that..

wba88

tested on vodafone n95 via wifi

working excellently and very fast thank you damo2k

h57xiucj2z946q

v0.13
http://www.hostj2me.com/appdetails.html?id=5429

Fixes display bug seen on some phones like Sony Ericsson W910i

Brianb8802

Really cool app just downlaoded it. Will come in very handy.

Just a bit of feedback, would be handy if you could save a few cinema listings. Just so you could check a few cinemas for times and not have to go back online while swapping between them.

Thanks again

flywheel

new version... new thread...
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055251870