Friday 5 June 2009

Flix available!

The first public version of Flix is now available!

Flix is a Cinema Listings application for Windows Mobile, and works in the UK.

Download from here.

Flix has been designed to be simple to use, and some screenshots are shown below.

--Instructions--
-The first time you run Flix, you will be taken to the config screen.
-Enter either your postcode or town in the location box.
-Where Am I will use GPS to find your postcode.
-Tick posters if you want posters to be downloaded with movie info.
-Tap the Update icon to go online and get listings/movie info
-Movies will list all movies in the database.
-Cinemas will show all movie theaters in the database.

-On either Cinemas or Movies page, clicking the "clock" icon will go to showtimes.
-On Cinemas page, the Phone icon will call the cinema
-The Map icon will load Google Maps to the Cinema location

--Things to note--
You need MS .NET Compact Framework 3.5 for Flix.
Yahoo Movies (which Flix gets data from) can be a bit flaky. I might change provider later, but for now you might find that postcodes don't return any results, and towns provide odd results (if you see Leicester, York, Norwich and Annan, it seems to be a catch-all for Yahoo not having your town, so try another!) If you have trouble, check on the yahoo site here to see what results you get... it /should/ match Flix!

I'd recommend an unlimited data plan or WiFi for the updates. Updates may take some time if you only have GPRS (several minutes)

Finally, if you find Flix useful, please








- it will motivate me to do more on Flix! Add Image







12 comments:

  1. Hey Mate,
    Thanks for the app. I am in west of ireland and it works for one out of two of our major cinemas here. Sent ya a little donation for your effort.
    Regards
    Konrad Walsh

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  2. Really usefull: I hate browsing cinema's pages from my mobile...

    Few remarks:
    - In my omnia, at Grenoble (France), whilst it download all the movies and cinemas, it doesn't get movies' info (even if I had checked the option).
    - It would be a very useful option to allow cinema selection via a check list (in my case I'm not interested in all cinemas at Grenoble), and that would save transferences and time :)
    - Finally, if you could add a cinema/film list before entering in detail it could be more finger friendly.

    Anyway, really good as I've said :)

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  3. This is fantastic! I really like this and have waited for such an app.

    But there are some little bugs:
    - In Germany the apps are not stored in "Program Files" but in "Programme". So the link to Google Maps does not work.
    - Your app does not seem to interpret German umlauts like in "Köln" correctly
    - I would like to choose the distance of found cinemas around my location. I am living in a small village with several citys around, but all in 12+km distance. When I choose my postcode I only get two small cinemas. I have to manually choose one city after the other to get all cinemas around me.
    - When I touch a time or a title of a movie the text disappears, but nothing else happens.
    - After I choose a theater with no movie data the program stops with an error:
    Flix.exe ObjectDisposedException bei Microsoft.AGL.Common.MISC.HandleAr(PAL_ERROR ar)
    bei System.Windows.Forms.Control.get_Visible()
    bei System.Windows.Forms.Form.ShowDialog()
    bei Flix.frmTheatres._tInfo_TheatreClick(Object sender, TheatreClickedArgs e)
    bei TheatreInfoControl.TheatreInfoControl.ShowShowtimes()
    bei TheatreInfoControl.TheatreInfoControl.picShowTimes_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
    bei System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
    bei System.Windows.Forms.Control.WnProc(WM wm, Int32 wParam, Int32 lParam)
    bei System.Windows.Forms.Control._InternalWnProc(WM wm, Int32 wParam, Int32 lParam)
    bei Microsoft.AGL.Forms.EVL.EnterModalDialog(IntPtr hwnModal)
    bei System.Windows.Forms.Form.ShowDialog()
    bei Flix.frmMain.pbTheatre_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
    bei System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
    bei System.Windows.Forms.Control.WnProc(WM wm, Int32 wParam, Int32 lParam)
    bei System.Windows.Forms.Control._InternalWnProc(WM wm, Int32 wParam, Int32 lParam)
    bei Microsoft.AGL.Forms.EVL.EnterMainLoop(IntPtr hwnMain)
    bei System.Windows.Forms.Application.Run(Form fm)
    bei Flix.Program.Main()

    And I have some nice feature ideas for the future: :-)

    - Show me the cinemas near a contacts address
    - Show me the contacts near a cinema
    - Send an email/SMS/MMS of the cinena/movie to a contact with an invitation

    Regards
    Thomas

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  4. on my xda diamond it don't run: every time after selecting my position (country and city) the app crashes with an "unexpected error". (already tried to reinstall .net 3.5) but still get that problem =(

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  5. I got WM 6.5 today and could make the settings bow - but with the first update I get the same error than Thomas

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  6. Thanks for all the comments. The latest version should address some of the points made here.

    Thomas - I like some of your ideas for contacts and so on, I will try and put these in to a future release. The error with no listings crashing should now be gone. Nothing should happen when you touch a showtime for now, but the text shouldn't vanish - I think this is the "highlighted" colour being white, can fix in a new release.

    Thanks for trying Flix!

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  7. Thank you for several reasons.

    Firstly, it just makes looking up what's on a lot easier than Empire and Odeon's websites.

    Secondly, it found a local cinema that shows independent and foreign films (I had been travelling 1 hour into London to see these).

    Finally, although downloads are going to be expensive while I'm in France on holiday (£1.25 per mb with Three rather than my usual unlimitied for free), it is probably cheaper for me to use this app than to drive into the cities, find parking, find the tourist office, find a coffee while waiting for the film...

    A few ideas...
    - I'd also like to be able to specify how far I'm prepared to travel or how many cinemas to download.
    - Like a previous poster, I'd also be interested in being able to select which cinemas/films to download in detail.
    - I normally use my TYTN II in landscape mode and Flix doesn't seem to like this.
    - I'd like to be able to click the film name in the cinema mode and be transfered to the film's description.
    - I'd also like to be able to select which information about a film I'd like downloaded. E.g. country, PG/15/18, director, writer, release date.

    Right, I'm off to donate.

    Thank you again

    Lindsay

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  8. This is a really useful program, and could grow into one of the must-have apps!

    I'm just wondering, where does it store the film data - is it in main memory or on the storage card.

    I'd ideally like the option of saving this on the storage card to save program memory...

    Cheers

    Neil

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  9. Hi Neil,

    Currently the data is stored in the same folder as the program itself. I've not tried installing it to the Storage Card to see if it works, but if it does, then the data would also go there.
    I might look at an option to specify the location in the next release though.

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  10. James,

    Great app. Are you planning any further development?

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  11. Has anyone else reported a problem with huge elongated text on a HTC HD2? I occasionally get it on both film and cinema listing pages in Flix.

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  12. I have installed Flix on my Samsung Omnia Pro. I live in Germany and the app works fine in small cities with low number of cinemas (like Bad Homburg or Gießen). However, if I input my home city (which is Frankfurt) Flix would first download all data. But then a error message apperas when I want to look the details for cinemas or movies. The same happens if I choose other bigger cities like Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Wiesbaden or Munich. SO it seems it cannot handle bigger data files.

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