Can anyone help with...

[jsimpson]

I frequent the site episodecalendar.com for all of my tv shows. They just released an iPhone app and a desktop application but the desktop app is lacking in my opinion.

I was wondering if anyone could make a simple skin that just tells you what shows are upcoming? I don't know how to do it but it seems simple enough.

[MerlinTheRed]

The intention of these forums isn't to "do it for you" but to help you do it yourself.

That being said, I briefly looked at the html code of this site: http://episodecalendar.com/public and it looks easy enough to parse with a WebParser measure. You should be able to create a skin relatively easy. We will also gladly help you with it if you run into any problems.

You should note that WebParser can't parse sites you have to log into because it can't handle cookies. The only exception is if you can log in by putting your username and password into the url (which isn't very secure, I think, because it often means you're sending your login data through an unencrypted connection). That means you will probably only be able to parse the guest version of the site.

If we are going to help you it would be helpful if you told us what level of expertise you have with Rainmeter. Otherwise we'll be throwing stuff at you that you don't understand or you'll get bored because we tell you stuff you already knew. Also you should tell us what kind of functionality you would like to incorporate into the skin so we can tell you if and how that is (or could be) possible.

[jsimpson]

I didn't mean to come off that way. That wasn't my intention.

My level of coding for Rainmeter is nil, but I do edit stuff to my liking often, so I shouldn't be lost...maybe?

[Mellin]

I found a way to use the WebParser plugin on pages with cookies. If this would be somehow useful, please use it. I found a way ... I wrote a program in C #:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.IO;

namespace BiowareDownload
{
static class Program
{
/// <summary>
/// The main entry point for the application.
/// </summary>
[STAThread]
static int Main()
{
string ErrorPath = @"C:\Errors.txt";

Application.EnableVisualStyles();
Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);

string SavePath = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("USERPROFILE") + @"\Documents\Rainmeter\Skins\Mass Effect 3 PL\Galaxy at War\"; //*


try
{
if (!Directory.Exists(SavePath)) Directory.CreateDirectory(SavePath);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
File.WriteAllText(ErrorPath, ex.Message);
return -1;
}

SavePath = SavePath + "Mass Effect 3 N7 HQ Main.txt"; //*


WebBrowser MyBrowser = new WebBrowser();
try
{
MyBrowser.Navigate("http://social.bioware.com/n7hq"); //**

while ((MyBrowser.Document == null) || MyBrowser.IsBusy)
{
Application.DoEvents();
}

if (File.Exists(SavePath)) File.Delete(SavePath);
File.WriteAllText(SavePath, MyBrowser.DocumentText);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
File.WriteAllText(ErrorPath, ex.Message);
MyBrowser.Dispose();
return -1;
}

MyBrowser.Dispose();

return 0;
//Application.Run(new Form1());
}
}
}

This program downloading page source file from http://social.bioware.com/n7hq * and saves it to a text file \ Documents \ Rainmeter \ Skins \ Mass Effect 3 EN \ Galaxy at War \ Mass Effect 3 N7 main.txt HQ **, which you can extract information with WebParser plugin. You just need to add the regular firing of the program to your skins and you're done! It works for me.