Added a new movies feature that people have been asking for. When blogging about a movie or TV show from Micro.blog, it can now include a little movie poster on your blog post. There’s a preference under Movies → Settings on the web. Similar to what we have for books.
I enable straight away and it worked. And it did - but not consistently?
Click on the link to see what I mean … the URLs - working and not working are coming through micro blog and the https://www.themoviedb.org link
So, simplified, here’s how it works: Micro.blog scans the HTML of the page and injects posters whenever it spots a link to www.themoviedb.org. Posts without a poster just show a summary, with no link, so Micro.blog has no way of knowing it’s about a movie or TV show.
But if you click through to the full post, you’ll see a poster because the www.themoviedb.org link is there in the complete text.
Thanks Sven - good info. What you described is what I was expecting - but not seeing. And there really were so many not working that it felt more wrong than odd covers missing from the database.
When I posted this in parralel I set the blog on a rebuild. Just came back now - and all is at it should be.
Unsure if a rebuild was necessary - or simply time, but all is right now.
Where exactly is the image not showing—on the actual post page, or on other pages like the category listings? Micro.blog publishes in stages, prioritizing the new post first and then going back to update other parts of your blog.
I was watching the post page - let me do one now - and see what I find.
LATER:
John PHI⑊PIN - after the usual minute for the post to fully appear on the blog - it took about 4 minutes more watching the post on the post page - for the image to appear.
I then thought that maybe the post was ‘harder’ because I had 4 links on it - so i did it again - with a very simple post - More of a test Watched: … | John PHI⑊PIN - but no - about same delay.
I just looked over the source code for this feature, and if the poster is not available to Micro.blog, it will publish the post immediately, start downloading the poster in the background, and then update the post with the poster once it’s ready.
So post having no posters for a while is expected.
Yep, thanks @sod for the explanation. I’d like to make this faster in the future, maybe by preloading images for new release movies and TV shows. Also as more people use the feature and are watching the same movies, Micro.blog will naturally have more poster images ready to go.
Totally get - I think it is mainly about expectations. Being a pretty basic bear - when something doesn’t happen my default setting is that I have done something wrong. So off I go trying to fix it.
IF there was a warning that simply sets correct expectations - IMHO problem fixed - because I can stop trying to fix something that isn’t actually broken
It’s a little bit like Rory Sutherlands comment about faster trains between Paris and London: Here