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You are here: MacNN Forums > Our Archives > General Archives > Delicious Monster > Australian Lookup Support in DL

 
Australian Lookup Support in DL
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wgill
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Dec 2007
Status: Offline
Dec 20, 2007, 06:27 AM
 
Hi,

I would like to know if DL2 will have Australian lookup support. There is a huge fan base for Delicious Library in Australia, however, us Aussies find it tedious and annoying to constantly look up Amazons information for when we manual scan.

There are a couple of programs out there for the mac that are similar to Delicious Library that "DO" support us Australian bar coding and information, however, we would like to "SEE" Delicious incorporate this into DL2... please ;-)

cheers
wil
     
Delicious Monster
Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Jun 2006
Status: Offline
Dec 20, 2007, 10:39 AM
 
The short answer is: no, but

That is to say: no, but we have added the extensibility necessary for some enterprising Aussie to add support, much as Morbus Iff is doing for comics.
     
agentsarah6
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Perpetual Beta
Status: Offline
Dec 28, 2007, 02:08 AM
 
I'm with wgill. I haven't bought a version of DL yet but, mucking about with a demo version, I must say hearing "lookup failed" all the time can get very annoying. In fact lack of support for Australian/New Zealand barcodes is one of the reasons why I haven't bought a copy of DL yet. I've resorted to using DVDManager for all of my DVDs and Facebook's Visual Bookshelf for all of my books. That shouldn't have to be so.

As I see it...If I can't use the "ease of use" features within the application that others are able to use straight out of the box, without a guarantee that someone will come up with a plug-in allow me to use those features for my locality, then why should I bother A$45 for this?
     
Delicious Monster
Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Jun 2006
Status: Offline
Dec 28, 2007, 05:16 PM
 
You're right. If you're from Australia, and you're looking for a way to catalog your DVDs, there's no reason to buy Delicious Library. For books and such, which are not happened by regional barcodes, Delicious Library and Australia get along just fine. For DVDs, though? Nope.

At least, until some Australian web guy wants to hack up a plugin. Why has that not happened yet? Do Australians not know how to code?

(I'm just kidding, but seriously, some Aussie scripter out there should contact me.)
     
agentsarah6
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Dec 31, 2007, 08:31 PM
 
I'd love to help with something like that but, alas, I'm not a programmer. I think another problem that would be encountered would be with finding a suitable database of Australian barcodes. I don't know what online store you could use as there is, to my knowledge, no central UPC database for Australian products.
     
rahook
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Join Date: Jan 2008
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Jan 13, 2008, 11:25 PM
 
Originally Posted by Delicious Monster View Post
At least, until some Australian web guy wants to hack up a plugin. Why has that not happened yet? Do Australians not know how to code?

(I'm just kidding, but seriously, some Aussie scripter out there should contact me.)
Contacted...
     
CaptainHaddock
Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Nagoya, Japan • 日本 名古屋市
Status: Offline
Jan 14, 2008, 01:41 AM
 
Maybe there'll be an Australian Amazon by the time DL2 is out.
     
agentsarah6
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Jan 15, 2008, 08:59 PM
 
Originally Posted by CaptainHaddock View Post
Maybe there'll be an Australian Amazon by the time DL2 is out.
I seriously doubt that. I'd love there to be an Australian Amazon, as there should be, but I daresay we'll be waiting a long time for that. We've already waited years for it.
     
MDNZ
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Join Date: Mar 2008
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Mar 25, 2008, 11:41 PM
 
rahook is this still on your radar? Should we expect support for R4 lookups when DL2 is released?
     
pingudownunder
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Join Date: Mar 2008
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Mar 27, 2008, 10:06 AM
 
Originally Posted by agentsarah6 View Post
I'd love to help with something like that but, alas, I'm not a programmer. I think another problem that would be encountered would be with finding a suitable database of Australian barcodes. I don't know what online store you could use as there is, to my knowledge, no central UPC database for Australian products.
My current workaround is to Google the UPC code (right-click/search with Google) and then cut-and-paste the title from the results into the Amazon search. Not pretty (or accurate) but good enough for now.

Not sure of A&R/Dymocks/Fishpond provide lookup services?
     
micheal david
Baninated
Join Date: Apr 2008
Status: Offline
Apr 24, 2008, 05:32 AM
 
Alas, I'm not a programmer. But I'd love to help with something like that but, I think another problem that would be encountered would be with finding a suitable database.
     
MDNZ
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Join Date: Mar 2008
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May 24, 2008, 04:30 PM
 
Originally Posted by rahook View Post
Contacted...
@rahook - have you had any success developing an Australian lookup plugin?
     
wgill  (op)
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Dec 2007
Status: Offline
May 27, 2008, 02:22 AM
 
Hey guys, any news on Australian lookup, can somebody help us to script this if all possible?

cheers
     
toonz
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Join Date: May 2008
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May 27, 2008, 08:31 PM
 
I wish I could help! But I'm not a coder... its on my list of this I want to learn.
     
ajmas
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Join Date: Nov 2006
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May 27, 2008, 09:13 PM
 
If such a plugin was to be made for Australia, what data sources could be used? For example do you have something that is equivalent to Amazon?

Additionally if there is an sample script that could be used as a launching board for development that would be handy.
     
magicRob
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Join Date: May 2008
Status: Offline
May 29, 2008, 01:28 AM
 
The big, crippling issue is data. Although it seems like Price Crawler does have a bunch of information, including the barcode!.

PriceCrawler� (DVD Plaza)

I was trying to find out how to get at the DVD Profiler online database, but as far as I can tell it all comes back from their servers encoded in some propriety binary format. I'm tempted to create and host a DVD equivalent for CDDB / FreeDB.

If DVD Profiler could use the iSight to scan the barcode, it would be a winner. I'm running XP in VMWare anyway, may as well use it for something other than work related applications

UPDATE: I think I have a datasource. We'll see what I can get from it
     
magicRob
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Join Date: May 2008
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May 29, 2008, 03:19 AM
 
JBHifi has barcode searching. I've written something to pull some basic info from their website, but it can be changed to pull a lot more.

Here's an example link which returns some XML

Cloverfield (2 Dvd)
     
wgill  (op)
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Join Date: Dec 2007
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May 29, 2008, 08:07 AM
 
This certainly looks promising - .. Alot of Aussies waiting for it ;-)

Let us know how you go mate, and I'm sure you will have a lot of testers

cheers
     
rahook
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May 31, 2008, 12:38 AM
 
Originally Posted by MDNZ View Post
@rahook - have you had any success developing an Australian lookup plugin?
waiting for info from dl :-(
     
magicRob
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Join Date: May 2008
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Jun 2, 2008, 09:04 PM
 
Just an update. Will have a hack ready that should be working be the end of today! Just about to start testing at the moment...
     
magicRob
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Join Date: May 2008
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Jun 3, 2008, 12:00 AM
 
I have a semi working solution

Things scan and look up correctly, but when you add a new item, everything in the library is replaced with that.

So for example, starting with an empty library, I add cloverfield. It adds correctly. Then I add a second DVD, for example Garden State. That adds correctly, but now Cloverfield is also Garden State. Strange. As I continue adding, everything changes to whatever the last DVD added was.

Anyone have any ideas?
     
magicRob
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Join Date: May 2008
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Jun 3, 2008, 06:43 PM
 
Actually that semi working solution is a working solution, but DL uses the ASIN (amazon's internal unique product identifier) to index things, and probably link back to the amazon product page. That is what's causing this duplication. I'll try to find a work around for it today, but I'm away for the long weekend so the earliest something may be available will be Wednesday next week.

If I release a working version, does someone want to donate towards buying me DL2?
( Last edited by magicRob; Jun 3, 2008 at 08:19 PM. )
     
wgill  (op)
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Jun 5, 2008, 03:06 AM
 
i WOUld put in for it
     
maestroec
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Jun 2008
Status: Offline
Jun 20, 2008, 04:25 AM
 
*bump*

How's this going?

I would most certainly put in for you to purchase DL2 should a working solution (one that gets supported/updated that is!!) be released.

It's practically the only thing stopping me from buying DL2 myself!
     
Colinmo
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Dec 2008
Status: Offline
Dec 26, 2008, 08:33 PM
 
The guys from DM have said they want to put Australian support - maybe you can send the partial to them to get it officially inducted?

And we're happy to buy you DL2.
     
magicRob
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Join Date: May 2008
Status: Offline
Dec 28, 2008, 02:43 AM
 
To be honest, I'm over it.

The DM guys know that AU/NZ is a tiny market, and that there probably isn't any ROI for the effort required. I contacted them ages ago, but never got a response. That sums it up for me
     
FineWine
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: May 2008
Status: Offline
Jan 14, 2009, 01:53 PM
 
I tried DL but for the same reasons of the lack of AU & NZ lookup for DVD I dropped it. I then tried out DVDpedia and discovered they do have AU lookup using JB HiFi and EsyVideo. Never had any problem finding DVD's except sometime there is no cover art or it is wrong.

I now also use Bookpedia for my 700 odd books.

Cheers
     
d510r9
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Mar 2009
Status: Offline
Mar 19, 2009, 09:26 AM
 
I just downloaded and started to scan...first item a Mario Rubik cube I bought in Tokyo...ping! Added to library. Next...bunch of books...ping ping ping! This thing is AWESOME!!!!

And then I got o my Xbox360 games...chug chug chug. Checking France...checking UK....Huh? Oh right, I'll just set the country to Australia...and NOOOOOO! There is no Australia. Hit this forum and am gutted to find no Australian support. I just manually added a few things looking them up in Amazon but half the stuff is automatically found to be some weird unrelated item and you can't override it.

The day you guys give Aussie support I'll buy on the spot. Absolutely love the product.
     
 
   
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