I used to prefer Salami’s Movie Organiser for filling in the blanks.  It was easy to use and lightweight.  The problem is it’s no longer in development and, while I’ve tried some of the other meta data tools they’re all a bit over- the-top or come with a cost.  All I wanted was covers and backdrops, I’m not bothered about meta data (funnily enough I know about the movies I put on my HTPC, I bought them).

So, with a couple of days off I knocked up my own little app to retrieve a list of movie or TV folders and then do a look-up on themoviedb.org or thetvdb.com so I could grab the relevant images.

As I found it useful I thought I would release it could benefit anyone else.

Screenshots

Looking up a movie:

Looking up a TV show:

Installation

So far only tested on Windows 7 32- and 64-bit, so no guarantees on anything else.  It requires .Net Framework 3.5 or higher.

Just download the file (link below), unzip and run setup.exe.

Download

You can download it here, just save it, unzip the contents to a folder and run the setup.exe file.

Instructions

These instructions can also be found in the Readme.txt file in the download.

Once you have installed the application:

1. Once the application has loaded, simply click the browse button to select a folder which has folders for each of your movies or TV shows under it.
2. Once you have located it, make sure the correct type is selected (Movies or TV) and then click Process.
3. The box on the left should now display a list of movies/TV shows, simply click on an title and it will automatically search themoviedb.org (if Movies was selected) or thetvdb.com (if TV was selected) websites and return the results. It will also load the current cover and backdrop images from the folder if any are found. Titles with no cover image will have an asterisk appended to the name.
4. Navigate to the main movies/show page if necessary (where multiple results are returned) and locate the image you wish to use as either the cover or backdrop image (note: right-click and select Back if you need to return to a previous page).
5. Once you have found the image, right-click and select the appropriate option and the image will be saved automatically and named appropriately and the previews at the bottom of the app will be updated accordingly. Note that on thetvdb.com the full size images are not linked to/visible from the preview images, you have to click the image to reveal some options and then right-click on the ‘View Full Size’ link that appears and select the appropriate option to download the larger size as the cover/backdrop (not really needed for covers).
6. Simply close the app when done.

I could (and do) backup locally, but there are plenty of online backup services that give me some off site piece of mind (what happens if someone steals all my computer gear or the house burns down?).  Text files are small and there are plenty of services who offer free options so you don’t even have to splash any cash.  My preference, for the moment at least, is Dropbox.

It’s the nicest of the implementations I’ve seen, it can sync to multiple computers (so you can work on more than one machine and have local backups on those machines too) and it even offers version history.

Now, I’m somewhat paranoid when it comes to my files and data, I don’t like trusting it to other people as I’ve written before.  That doesn’t mean I can’t put files online, it just means I need them to be secure.  Just because whichever company says it’s safe, scout’s honour, doesn’t mean it is.  So I encrypt my files before I load them.

Needless to say, this could get pretty tedious, so I wrote a small batch file to do it for me, but it only handled one file and needed to be triggered manually (using AutoHotKey and a key combination).  A couple of weeks ago I did some digging and found an application that would monitor the folder I save my work into and then trigger the script, passing the file to encrypt and upload.  The new approach consists of three parts:

1. AxCrypt to encrypt the files
2. Directory Monitor to watch the folder and trigger the batch file
3. A batch file to take the file passed by Directory Monitor and run AxCrypt

Directory Monitor watches a designated folder (or folders) and I’ve set mine to trigger when any file is added, renamed or updated.  This calls the batch script and passes the file that has changed, the batch file then calls AxCrypt which encrypts the file and drops it into the local Dropbox folder and the Dropbox client uploads the file.

The reason for using AxCrypt is that it works on the command line and allows you to create self-extracting files which just need a password to open, so you don’t have to worry about installing AxCrypt to open them on other machines or in the future.

Set it up

If you’d like something like this for yourself, here’s how to set it up:

1. Sign up for Dropbox and download their client

Head on over to the Dropbox site and download their software, it will ask if you want to create an account or use an existing one.

2. Download and install AxCrypt

Go to the AxCrypt site, download and install.  Make a note of where you install it to, you’ll need it later (e.g. C:\program files\axantum\axcrypt)

3. Download and install Directory Monitor

Download Directory Monitor and install it.

4. Download and modify the batch file

Grab a copy of my batch file here, save it somewhere you’ll remember where it is and then open the file in a text editor (like Notepad) and update the following values:

• Change ‘YourPasswordHere’ on line five to whatever password you want to use on the encrypted files (you’ll need this to open them in the future).  E.g. mysupersecretpassword123
• If you installed AxCrypt to somewhere other than C:\program files\axantum\axcrypt update line six to path the AxCrypt.exe file is located.
• Change ‘LocalDropboxFolder’ on live seven to the location of the Dropbox folder (or the folder inside your Dropbox folder) to save the encrypted files (typically this is inside your My Documents/Documents folder. E.g. C:\Users\You\Documents\My Dropbox\Documents\Writing

It should end up something like this:

So with that done, we just need to set up Directory Monitor to watch the folder(s) and trigger the script.

Select Add from the Directories menu in Directory Monitor and pick the folder you want to watch using the browse (ellipses) button.  Deleted files are obviously hard to encrypt, so untick that option.  You can do subdirectories as well on Directory Monitor, tick or untick as you wish.

Next find the box to select the script you want to execute on a change and select the batch file (remember where you saved it?).

Under File, select Options and I’d suggest ticking ‘Start minimized’ and ‘Do no show update notifications’ and unticking balloon tips, tool tips, you could also untick the option to check for updates.  Hit Save once you’re done and that’s it.  Give it a test!

The only other thing to do is to add it to your startup folder so it launches whenever you turn on the machine. To do that, find the application on your start menu and then right-click the folder it is in and select open, copy the file called “Directory Monitor” (the application launcher) and if you go up a level (use the Up button in explorer or click on Programs in the address bar in later versions of Windows) and in the Programs folder you should find a Startup folder, open it and paste a copy of the file into it. This should now run when Windows starts.

I fell back on using the More Fields plugin.

In WordPress 3 though, came the option for Custom Post Types. So, earlier in the week I rolled up my sleeves and, with the help of come excellent tutorials (mainly this one by Justin Tadlock), wrote a custom post type specifically for Book Reviews.

This basically adds fields for:

• Author
• Whether you recommend it
• Book cover (optional)
• Link to a site where people can buy the book (optional)
• Link to a site where people can buy your copy (optional)

Screenshot:

You can find an example of the usage on my review site.

Installation instructions and what-not are included in a readme.txt file inside the zip.

If you have existing reviews you would like to convert to the book_review post type I can recommend the Convert Post Types plugin, although note you may be missing custom field data.

Download the files here

That’s not to say it’s perfect, especially where text files are concerned.  Some of the features available in screenplay mode just aren’t there, and some simple tools are missing (global word count across all of your files – I use a separate file per chapter – for instance).

So, I rolled up my sleeves and put together a little app.  Originally I was going to do it as an extension, but after leafing though the docs for a while and making no progress I went back to good ol’ WinForms.

I haven’t done much testing but it seems to work OK on Vista 64-bit, Windows 7 32-bit and XP 32-bit.

Features

The app comes with three features:

1. Global Word Count – this will extract all of the documents (text or screenplay at least) and perform a word count, then display the total.
2. Export Selected Docs – this will display a list of the text documents (and screenplays) in your project and allow you to select which ones to convert to plain text, merge and save as a single file.
3. Export to Final Draft – this is designed for screenplays and will export it to Final Draft 8’s .fdx XML format.  It will only bring over the screenplay, not characters or notes or anything else, but it will preserve the formatting.

Installation

To use the application, just download the zip file below, extract all the files to the same folder and double-click the CeltxTools.exe file.  No need to install.

The application uses the .Net framework and is best used with .Net Framework 3.5.

Usage

Once you have started the application:

• Click the Select File button to browse for your Celtx file.
• Once you have selected it, pick what task you would like to perform:
• • Do a Global Word Count: this will display the total words of any text documents in the gap below the button.
  • Export Selected Docs: this will display a pop-up window with a list of the text documents in your project, check those you want to export and it will merge them and export them to a text file and save it in the same directory as the original Celtx file, but with a .txt extension.
  • Export to Final Draft: this will convert the screenplay part of your project to FD8’s format and save it in the same directory as the original Celtx file, but with a .fdx extension.

Release History

• 0.9 – 4/5/2010 – Initial release.
• 0.91 – 22/5/2010 – Added ability to do word count on selected files.

Download

Get Celtx Tools here

It worked for me so I thought I would make it available for everyone else should it prove useful.

DOWNLOAD
(Note: this only works with v1.2.5)

DOWNLOAD for Zenphoto v1.2.6

DOWNLOAD

Note that the official development of the SRG Clean Archives has been taken up over here, and their version works with 2.3 as well (apparently). I had a plugin that worked and couldn’t be bothered downloading another version and modifying it when a couple of hacks to the code was all it took to get the one I’m happy with up and working.

DOWNLOAD

DOWNLOAD

This plugin will take whatever is in a file you designate and put it wherever you insert the more tag in your article. You can see an example of this, using Amazon’s advertising code, at A Screen Near You, just look at any of the (longer) articles and you see the block appearing in the middle of the text.

Installation instructions are included in the zip file.

DOWNLOAD IT

Please note that I have only tested this on version 2.1, so I’m not sure what backwards compatibility is like.

Update: Very slight modification made, version increased to 1.2

DOWNLOAD

If you are using WordPress 2.0 then you should use version 1.1 of this plugin, version 1.2 appears to be incompatible. You can download version 1.1 here.