Automating the next-episode button in Netflix

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6 of January2012

I’ve long since been frustrated by the inability to queue Netflix episodes. A few weeks ago came the final straw: My 2yr old woke up at 3am and refused to go back to bed. The kid requested Shaun the Sheep, which happens to be 20 minutes long.

So I can either stay up with the kid, or go to bed and risk getting woken up every 20 minutes to fulfill my duty as the next-episode-button-pushing-man. I’ve been going with option 2, which is no way to live (or sleep).

So I’d had it, from 3-5am, with my kid on my lap, I resolved to find some sort of solution. Certainly SOMEBODY has written an app to solve my problem. Turns our there was only 1 could find, and it was Windows only, so it wasn’t a viable option for our iMac in the loft.

My solution:

I found a neat program called Sikuli (Open Source and written by MIT students) which handles GUI automation. I wrote a python script for it, which now looks for the “next episode” button and clicks it (for as many times as I specify). Works like a charm.

Here is the project on Github:
Autoplay-net

Here is the source of the script:

#setThrowException(False)

#function exit the script
def exitScript(event):
    popup("You've managed to close Autoplay. Script will abort.")

    #kill the program (this is native python)
    import sys
    sys.exit()

#how often has next button been pressed?
counter = 0

#prompt user with input
numEpisodes = input("How many more episodes should this run for? \nexample: 4     |     Press Ctrl + F1 to cancel.")
#default success message that will play after script ends successfully
popMessage = "Done auto-playing episodes!\n" + str(counter) + " played."

#select a region
region = Screen().selectRegion("Where should the mouse-pointer go after autoplaying?")

#take a screenshot, then click that one
#scrnShot = Screen(0).capture("take a screenshot")

#add key listener. Listen for this key combo to exit the script.
Env.addHotkey(Key.F1, KeyModifier.ALT+KeyModifier.CTRL, exitScript)

#loop through looking for the next for the # of times specified by user through input above
for x in range(int(numEpisodes)):
    #look for the button every 5 seconds (easier on CPU)
    while not ("PlayNextEpis.png"):
        wait(5)

    #Check for button existence (for 1 hr)
    if exists("PlayNextEpis.png", 60 * 60 ):
        click(exists("PlayNextEpis.png")) #(first click for focus)
        wait(2) #wait for load
        click(exists("PlayNextEpis.png")) #click again if still there (since we now certainly have focus)

        #increment the counter to show how many were played
        counter += 1
        #update play count here for how many episodes have played
        popMessage = "Done auto-playing episodes!\n" + str(counter) + " episodes auto-played."

        try:
            #move moouse to rest after clicking next episode. This was user selected earlier.
            mouseMove(region.getTopLeft()) #move to place selected
            #popup("found")

        except:
            #upon failure to find a valid region specified, pop this up, before terminating the script.
            popMessage = "Region selected earlier was invalid. So mouse move didn't work.\n" + str(counter) + " episodes autoplayed."
            #pass # we miss it
            #pass is just a placeholder.

    else:
        popMessage = "Auto-play aborted! Next button wasn't found for 1 hour. \n"
        break #terminate the loop

#popup before script ends with success or failure message.
popup(popMessage)

Enjoy. Bear in mind I’m a total Python newb. If you have any improvements / suggestions please let me know.