Scala, Java, Unix, MacOS tutorials (page 190)

Note: I originally wrote this article in 2012.

For a long time I’ve thought the Netflix UI/UX sucks. Their designers don’t seem to understand how I want to use their service, they just seem interested in promoting their “You might like this tv show or movie” algorithm. I keep thinking about buying their stock (which just tanked again to $60), but then the thought comes into my mind, “They’re enamored with their algorithm and architecture, but they don’t understand UX or social.”

After thinking this again last night, I thought about the simple question, “What would Netflix look like if Facebook owned them?” In less than five minutes I came up with the following ideas.

If Facebook owned Netflix

1) Friends make suggestions: First, friends could make movie and tv series suggestions. The Netflix “You might like this” algorithm is okay, but what I’d rather see is suggestions from friends and family who know me.

2) Similar people: I’ve been using Netflix for about two years now, and it would be interesting to see other people who have similar tastes to mine. Again, I could get suggestions from these people, so maybe we have a “Suggestion list from similar users.” I could “follow” these people like I follow people on Twitter. I know I’m getting suggestions from these people already from the Netflix algorithm, but I have no idea who they are.

3) Movie annotations: I’d like to see movie and tv show annotations from my friends, like AMC does with their movies, but from my friends. Imagine my nieces writing, “Uncle Al, make sure you watch X in the next scene,” or friends who really know a lot about movies making notes about how a scene is related to a scene from another movie, or by the same director, etc.

4) Promo clips: Let me make promo clips of movies I like so I can share those with friends. I already do this on Facebook, but I have to copy the movie with one app, then edit the clips down to what I like with iMovie. That’s okay for me, but make this easy so others can do it. (Movie directors and producers: This will help more people see your movie.)

5) My favorites: Let me make a list of my favorite movies and tv series, and share those with other people. I might not recommend that people watch Rashomon or Wild Strawberries, but they would be on this list, where other people could discover them.

6) Movies that inspired directors/producers: Let me see a list of movies that inspired directors and producers of tv shows. I love the old tv show, Northern Exposure, and if the creators of this series told me what inspired them, I’d certainly watch those shows. (And oh by the way, they could tell me about their music inspirations, too.)

More ideas, more tie-in

As you can see, there isn’t anything magic here — I came up with these ideas in less than five minutes — but I think they’re good ideas. Imagine what a group of people could come up with if they spent time on this? Just look at YouTube and IMDB, and you’ll quickly get many more ideas about what people want to do with video, and know about video.

Besides making for a better experience, they also help tie me into the Netflix service. Right now, I have about ten episodes of Supernatural left to watch on Netflix, and then I’m out of there, unless they have some other content I want to watch. But if they had these social tie-ins, I’d think twice before leaving.

Fix the obvious UX problems

Besides making Netflix a better social website, how about adding in the obvious features:

1. Let me control the bandwidth/quality. Hulu and YouTube already do this. If people have to pay for “excess bandwidth,” this is huge. Also, remember this setting after I make it.
2. Remember my closed caption setting. I tend to watch a lot of foreign movies and tv series, so I always have CC on, but I have to manually set it ... every single time.
3. Let me see what I want to see more easily. The “Big wall of icons” UI is dumb. It’s an interesting idea for exploring, but when you're bouncing back and forth between watching a few tv series, it’s horrible.
4. From a financial perspective, make it easy for me to buy a DVD of the current movie, or buy MP3s of the music featured in the current movie or tv episode.

Summary

Basically Netflix has created an on-demand tv station, and if there’s nothing interesting to watch, you just change the channel. But if they had some social aspects to their service, a) it would be a much more interesting concept, and b) I'd think more than twice before leaving.

I’ve mentioned this before, but if you’re interested in learning Lisp/Scheme programming, the makers of gimphelp.org have a nice collection of plugins for Gimp 2.8 that you can download, and they’re all written in Scheme. (Well, a variation of Scheme.)

Here’s the body of a Gimp plugin file named FU_contrast_auto-contrast.scm:

(define (FU-auto-contrast
        img
        drawable
        merge-flag)

    (gimp-image-undo-group-start img)
    (if (not (= RGB (car (gimp-image-base-type img))))
             (gimp-image-convert-rgb img))   

   ; Create a new layer
   (define value-layer (car (gimp-layer-copy drawable 0)))

   ; Give it a name
   (gimp-item-set-name value-layer "Contrast Adjustment Layer")

   ; Add the new layer to the image
   (gimp-image-insert-layer img value-layer 0 0)

   ; Set opacity to 100%
   (gimp-layer-set-opacity value-layer 100)

   ; Set the layer mode to Value
   (gimp-layer-set-mode value-layer 14)

   ; Adjust contrast
   (gimp-levels-stretch value-layer)

   ; Merge down, if required
   (if (equal? merge-flag TRUE)
       (gimp-image-merge-down img value-layer 1 )
       ()
   )
   (gimp-image-undo-group-end img)
   (gimp-displays-flush)   
)
(script-fu-register "FU-auto-contrast"
    "<Image>/Script-Fu/Contrast/Auto Contrast"
    "Automatically adjust contrast of drawable"
    "Mark Lowry"
    "Mark Lowry"
    "2006"
    "*"
    SF-IMAGE    "Image"         0
    SF-DRAWABLE "Current Layer" 0
    SF-TOGGLE   "Merge Layers?" FALSE
)

If you’re at least a little comfortable with Lisp/Scheme — and also Gimp — that code is relatively easy to understand. For instance, the define function creates a variable named value-layer, and then other Gimp functions like gimp-item-set-name and gimp-image-insert-layer modify value-layer.

At the end of the code, the script-fu-register shows how to register a plugin so that Gimp will find it and display it in the Gimp menu system.

Observations

A few observations come to mind:

1) Like other languages that don’t show their types, you can’t tell value-layer’s type from looking at the code, though you can assume that it’s something like Layer.

2) For some reason Lisp makes it more clear than other languages that you can’t tell what the function parameters are. They’re based on the positions in the list, and seeing "Mark Lowry" in there twice makes you wonder why it’s there twice. The only way to know what the parameters are is (a) guessing by what’s in each field, and (b) looking at the script-fu-register documentation. (This is true in other programming languages, but it really stands out here, possibly because of the formatting.)

Gimp Script-Fu function examples

If you are looking for Gimp Script-Fu function examples (as I was), the Gimp function examples used in this code are:

• gimp-image-undo-group-start
• gimp-image-convert-rgb
• gimp-layer-copy
• gimp-item-set-name
• gimp-image-insert-layer
• gimp-layer-set-opacity
• gimp-layer-set-mode
• gimp-levels-stretch
• gimp-image-merge-down
• gimp-image-undo-group-end
• gimp-displays-flush
• script-fu-register

The complete source code

Here’s the complete source code for this plugin, including the initial comments and license:

; FU_contrast_auto-contrast.scm
; version 2.9 [gimphelp.org]
; last modified/tested by Paul Sherman
; 02/15/2014 on GIMP-2.8.10
;
; 02/15/2014 - convert to RGB if needed
;==============================================================
;
; Installation:
; This script should be placed in the user or system-wide script folder.
;
;    Windows Vista/7/8)
;    C:\Program Files\GIMP 2\share\gimp\2.0\scripts
;    or
;    C:\Users\YOUR-NAME\.gimp-2.8\scripts
;    
;    Windows XP
;    C:\Program Files\GIMP 2\share\gimp\2.0\scripts
;    or
;    C:\Documents and Settings\yourname\.gimp-2.8\scripts   
;    
;    Linux
;    /home/yourname/.gimp-2.8/scripts  
;    or
;    Linux system-wide
;    /usr/share/gimp/2.0/scripts
;
;==============================================================
;
; LICENSE
;
;    This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
;    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
;    the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
;    (at your option) any later version.
;
;    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
;    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
;    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
;    GNU General Public License for more details.
;
;    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
;    along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
;
;==============================================================
; Original information
;
; Automatically adjusts contrast of the current
; drawable by duplicating the layer, setting the
; new layer to Value blend mode, then running
; Auto Levels on the Value layer.
;==============================================================

(define (FU-auto-contrast
        img
        drawable
        merge-flag
    )
    (gimp-image-undo-group-start img)
    (if (not (= RGB (car (gimp-image-base-type img))))
             (gimp-image-convert-rgb img))   

   ; Create a new layer
   (define value-layer (car (gimp-layer-copy drawable 0)))

   ; Give it a name
   (gimp-item-set-name value-layer "Contrast Adjustment Layer")

   ; Add the new layer to the image
   (gimp-image-insert-layer img value-layer 0 0)

   ; Set opacity to 100%
   (gimp-layer-set-opacity value-layer 100)

   ; Set the layer mode to Value
   (gimp-layer-set-mode value-layer 14)

   ; Adjust contrast
   (gimp-levels-stretch value-layer)

   ; Merge down, if required
   (if (equal? merge-flag TRUE)
       (gimp-image-merge-down img value-layer 1 )
       ()
   )
   (gimp-image-undo-group-end img)
   (gimp-displays-flush)   
)
(script-fu-register "FU-auto-contrast"
    "<Image>/Script-Fu/Contrast/Auto Contrast"
    "Automatically adjust contrast of drawable"
    "Mark Lowry"
    "Mark Lowry"
    "2006"
    "*"
    SF-IMAGE     "Image"         0
    SF-DRAWABLE "Current Layer" 0
    SF-TOGGLE     "Merge Layers?" FALSE
)