Launched: IMDb+ Pack 📣

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:mega: Hey cinephiles (and reality TV junkies) - I’ve got an IMDb Pack ready for prime time

A few of the key features:

  • It’s more than just IMDb, pulling in outside data like:
    • Ratings (Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes)
    • Streaming providers (via JustWatch)
  • No API key needed - just install & go

If you’re interested in how it works, or would like to contribute, you can find the open-source code here (I know some others like @Mykola_Bilokonsky were playing with IMDb Packs as well - you’re welcome to keep your work separate if you prefer, but I would welcome any contributions of cool features you’ve developed!)

Right now it just supports Movies and TV Shows, but I’m planning to add People too (what else do you want to see? TV Seasons? TV Episodes? …)

I’d love to hear about how you’re using the Pack, and any dreams or ideas you have for improving it!

Happy IMDb-ing :clapper:

(Lastly, there’s a bit of a bill to foot for the API accounts that enable the no-hassle setup, so if you feel like chipping in for that, I think all of the moving-picture enthusiasts reading this thread would be grateful :wink:)

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Pretty good work @Nick_HE .
The way you buid your pack is an inspiration for my modest packs.

One question :
You say no API key is needed. But there is an authentication system in your pack, isn’t it?

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If you mean it’s prompting you for an API key when installing, something is wrong that I need to look into!

But Packs have two ways of authenticating with API endpoints:

  1. User authentication, which you may have encountered with other Packs that connect to your individual account (with, say, Slack or Jira or Gmail)
  2. Server authentication, where the Pack itself silently authenticates to the API with credentials configured by the Pack author, with the same credentials used for everyone. This ideal for Packs like IMDb+, but the challenge is most free API accounts are quite limited in their daily requests, so often Pack authors will do User authentication instead and ask each user to sign up for their own free API key.
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I’d love to see the MPAA certification (eg, R, PG-13) and/or Parental Guide ratings/comments (eg, Moderate, Severe) as a column. I know MPAA is US-only, so I can see why it’s not an obvious thing to add, and I don’t have a good universal solution that comes to mind. But just thought I’d leave that as feedback/request in case it lines up with anyone else’s feedback.

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I thought I had already included this haha. But yes, seems not to be working. I’ll look into this!

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@David_Knell content ratings added (includes MPAA for movies, and whatever the TV one is - e.g. TV-MA).

In the latest release I also added the ability to search by IMDb ID - so if you’re ever struggling to get it to find the right thing, you can always feed it the IMDb ID (tt1234567)

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Thank you for the ratings!! And for the ID!!

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@David_Knell added people for you now too :slight_smile:

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Content Ratings doesn’t seem to be loading any information.

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Nevermind. I just hadn’t refreshed the pack.

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Hi Nick, firstly congrats on this pack! I am an indie film maker that is is great! Hey is there any chance that the actors ranking is available and ability to pull in agency or agent or other data that we might use? Happy to discuss a contribution!

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That’s a cool idea @Mitch_Palmer, but unfortunately I don’t think the api providers I’m relying on provide that info.

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Hi @Nick_HE. Would it be possible to add Producers, Full Cast, Budget and Worldwide Gross as options, please?

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Hi @Nick_HE, is the pack currently working? I always get an error. It was working in the past, so I was wondering if there was a change in the IMDb API or something similar?

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Hi @Nick_HE, the pack is sometimes not working. Could the reason be that sometimes the API at https://tv-api.com is hitting the request limits?

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Yeah unfortunately Coda does not let me apportion quota to individual users, so someone with a very large table refreshing very often can ruin it for the rest of us by exhausting the daily API limit. I’m hoping they add the feature soon. I will also try to update the Pack to give a more informative error message explaining that it’s the quota that’s causing the request to fail.

I could make each user register for their own API keys, but it’s a way more in-depth process than most APIs so I think it would cause a lot of friction for people (especially since there are two different API providers involved).

I do make the code public so if you really want to dig in and use your own keys, you could create your own private instance of the Pack, and authenticate with your own keys. But I know that’s quite a cumbersome solution.