MoviesOnCable.com

MoviesOnCable.com Help Facility

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MoviesOnCable.com Quick Start Guide

Overview
MoviesOnCable.com is not a simple web page. It functions more like a program you would install on your PC than your average web page. Just as any program you’d buy to install on your PC has instructions to help you through, MoviesOnCable.com has a number of “How-To” pages to help you get the most out of the site. This Quick Start Guide is intended to get you started on the right foot. As with anything else the more you use it the more you’ll get out of it, but you have to start somewhere.

We’ll see:
- The Help system
- Preferences
- Screen customization
- Rating the Movies
- Filtering

The MoviesOnCable.com Help System
Part of the challenge of building a website that thinks it’s a program on your PC is helping you, the user, figure out what exactly you’re looking at. This is where the help system comes into play. Every page has a button in the upper right hand corner that says “Help”. This button will take you to a section-by-section break down of whatever page you’re currently looking at. Further, each section of the screen has a little question mark icon (like this

) in its upper right corner. These will take you to the exact place in the help system to explain that section.
Once you’re looking at a help screen you’ll see the Table of Contents on the left hand side of the screen. You can click on any topic for instant access to its help screen.

Preferences
Once you create a logon your first stop should be the Preferences screen. Here you can assign numbers to your channels, change your user details, and provide information about your web-enabled PVR (if you don’t know what that is, don’t worry. Think Tivo with a web page). Configuring these elements allows MoviesOnCable.com to tailor the information specifically for you.
If you’ve got friends that already use MoviesOnCable.com, this would also be a good time to set them up as “Friends”. Simply put their MoviesOnCable.com user and their first name in the “Add a Friend” section on the left side of the screen and they will be able to see certain movies you’re looking for and any movies in your library you’re willing to share (see How Friends Work for more details).

Screen Customization
As a MoviesOnCable.com subscriber, there are two types of screen customization: Skins and Content. MoviesOnCable.com has a number of “Skins” for you to choose from. These are simply alternate color schemes that you can select to make the site look how you like. To change skins just go to the Preferences screen and select a new one, then hit the Save Changes button and viola!
Customizing the content displayed on the main screen is the other way you can alter the site to suit your needs. Most of the sections on the screen have a small “plus” (

) or “minus” (

) icon in the upper right hand corner next to the help icon. Clicking on a “minus” will cause the section to be minimized into a single bar on the screen. Clicking on the “plus” icon will restore a minimized section to it’s regular size. In the future you will be able to add, remove, and organize the sections how ever you want, but for now it’s just plus and minus.

Rating the Movies
One of the things that sets us apart from other “TV listing” sites is that MoviesOnCable.com will remember how you feel about every single movie. Whether you’ve seen it, can’t wait to, or never want to let us know because once we know what you’ve seen we can help you find what you haven’t. In the Playing in the Next 24 Hours section of the main screen and in the Your Take section of the Movie Details screen, there are multi-colored ratings indicators (

). These are what you use to tell us if you liked a movie or not and if you want to see a movie or not. Refer to the Your Take help section for details on how they work.

Filtering
Any random person that stops by can filter movies by rating, decade, series, and length, but as a subscriber, once you get enough movies rated and tagged you can filter them out. This is when you’ll start to notice titles that you never would’ve seen before. Getting those extra movies out of your listings makes a HUGE difference and once we get enough opinions we can start recommending movies based on your tastes compared with those of other users.

Get Started!
So that’s the nickel tour! It’s by no means a complete guide to the site, but it should be enough to get you started. Check the top section in the Table of Contents for other practical guides to using MoviesOnCable.com. And by all means, if there’s anything you think should be added or if you have any questions at all, please drop me a line.
Scott

MoviesOnCable.com

Because stupid movies can be good too