About this project

Team 01

  • Maxime Charron
  • Pascal Dumoulin
  • Antoine Lefrançois
  • Jean-Sébastien Roy
  • Martin Savoie
  • Having a problem with the API behind the app?

    Contact Maxime Charron at maxime.charron.4@ulaval.ca so he can get it back on if it's not already done!

    Functionnality implemented :

    New and improved API :

    Our API was designed using, of course, the one provided for the course. In addition to the functionnalities already available, we enhanced and added the following elements :

    • Automated calls to the YouTube API, providing the proper adress for the preview videos directly in the objects returned
      • To do so, we used an heuristic that makes the call to the Youtube search API with the title of the movie/tv show/episodes and adding "Trailer" to the end of it. It doesn't always get perfect results but it's good enough for this project.
    • Differents calls to TheMovieDatabase to flesh up the results including actor biography, similar movies, similar tv shows, youtube videos ID, popular movies, popular tv shows, actor pictures
    • Caching of TheMovieDatabase data using MongoDB to avoid busting the 40 calls per 10 seconds quota
      • To do so, we made a javascript crawler using the js-crawler Node library. The crawler is set to only make 35 calls per 10 seconds to ensure we do not burst the rate limiting imposed by TheMovieDatabase.
      • We used MongoDB with the WiredTiger storage engine to limit as much as possible the space used by all these movies and tvshows.
    • Integration of storage for movies and tv shows reviews
    • API monitoring using NewRelic informing us if any problems occur with the app, so that we can start it back!
    • Integration of Facebook and Google login API

    The source code for the API, if you are interested, is available [free of charge!] Just contact Maxime Charron to gain access to it.

    The API itself is hosted here : umovie-team01.herokuapp.com

    Hosting :

    We offer you the opportunity to test this app hosted instead of using localhost. Just go here!

    Movies review :

    Movies and tv shows reviews are possible by users. Live results/preview are displayed when typing a new review.

    Similar movies and tvshows suggestions :

    Extracted from TheMovieDatabase, a new array gives us the possibility to display similar movies and tvshows to the one selected.

    Search with autocomplete :

    In the main search bar, autocompletion of search items is provided. The autocompletion queries the iTunes API to get possible completions.

    Gravatar :

    If you email is associated wit a proper Gravatar image, it is displayed in the top menu once logged in. If you logged with Facebook or Google, it is instead your profile picture that is used.

    And much much more (eye candy!) :

    Many more features were included in this application :

    • Front page : Popular movies and tvShows according to TheMovieDatabase.
    • In the Movies and Tv-Shows pages, a "dashboard" for each genre is displayed, show a selection of movies or tvshows of that particular genre, and uses lazy loading when scrolling down.
    • The dashboards display lots of info, including a preview, for each item on hover (or click in cellphone mode).
    • A nice homemade logo redirects you to the home page.
    • Nice "custom" animation (available here thanks to Shea Lewis), and error message display (available here).