Getting started · Chapter 2
The TMDB token and online services.
Movies and series come from The Movie Database, TMDB for short: title, year, poster, seasons and episodes. Without an access of your own nexcrate cannot find a single title. For private use it costs nothing. This chapter gets the token, enters it and explains which other services on the internet nexcrate asks.
Getting the token
You need an account at TMDB. It is free, and you create it yourself. nexcrate sets nothing up for you there.
- Log in at TMDB
Log in at themoviedb.org. On the “Online services” page in nexcrate there are links for it, such as “Open the TMDB login”.
- Open the API settings
At TMDB you find “API” under “Settings”. nexcrate has a link for that too: “Open the API settings at TMDB”.
- Copy the right token
Copy the “API Read Access Token”, not the “API Key”. The token is the long one. It usually starts with
eyJ.
Entering the token
- Open the page
Open “Settings › Online services”. The section “TMDB” is at the very top, because movies and series do not work without it.
- Paste and save
Paste the token at “API Read Access Token” and choose “Test and save”. nexcrate asks TMDB whether it works and only then saves it, encrypted with the key in
secret.key. After that it says “Token saved” and when it was last checked.
If you pasted the short key by mistake, nexcrate says so: “This looks like the API Key. nexcrate needs the longer API Read Access Token.” You enter a new token in the same place. “Remove token” takes it out again. nexcrate then no longer searches for movies, but your library stays as it is.
Good to knowIf the token is missing, the page says “No token stored yet”, and nexcrate can neither find, nor add, nor refresh movies and series. Your library and your music are not affected.
The other services
The same page lists more services that nexcrate asks on the internet. None of them needs a key from you, and no file ever goes out. Each one can be switched off. The table shows what is missing then.
| Service | What for | Out of the box | Without it |
|---|---|---|---|
| TheXEM | Scene numbers for series and anime that releases count differently from TMDB | on (“Use TheXEM”) | nexcrate finds less for such series |
| MusicBrainz | Artists, albums, releases and their track lists | on | nexcrate finds no new artists, albums or releases; what is saved stays visible |
| Cover Art Archive | Album covers | on | Music covers stay blank; titles and state stay visible |
| AcoustID | Recognising files that neither tags nor number nor name match to a track | on (“Look up fingerprints”); nexcrate ships an application key of its own | you match such files by hand in the download |
| ListenBrainz | The lists of the most played albums under “Discover” | off | “Discover” shows nothing for music until you switch it on |
| Ratings | IMDb's ratings on the library and the title page | on (“Load IMDb's ratings once a day”) | no ratings; nexcrate never asks IMDb |
The details:
- AcoustID only gets a fingerprint that nexcrate works out from the file, never the file itself. If you would rather use a key of your own, for instance because many installations share the shipped one, enter the API key of your application at acoustid.org under “Own application key”. It is free.
- ListenBrainz is the open listening log of MusicBrainz. nexcrate only fetches the lists of the most played albums there, without a key and without giving away anything about your library.
- Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic are added when you enter a key of your own from omdbapi.com under “Ratings”. It is free for 1,000 requests a day. nexcrate keeps every answer for 30 days. Series have no such values there.
- GitHub is asked once a day whether there is a new version of nexcrate, and nexcrate sends nothing about itself with the question. You can switch it off on the page “About nexcrate” with “Look at GitHub once a day”. You reach the page through “About” in the footer.
- TRaSH Guides: the rules in your profiles come from the TRaSH Guides. On the page “About nexcrate”, “Check for a new state every day” makes nexcrate look at GitHub once a day. A new state is only adopted when you say so. The chapter Profiles describes it.
With the token nexcrate finds titles. What it should do with them depends on the versions, and you create those in the next chapter: Versions.