Netflix released a new AJAX-based (Wikipedia: AJAX) feature for adding movies to your queue. Now when you click on the "Add" button, the entire screen is darkened and you see a clock:
A rather large window opens with the selected movie and "Other Movies You Might Enjoy." The background is still darkened and this window will move independently of the background as you scroll (Internet Explorer only).
This new feature works on Internet Explorer and Firefox, but not on Safari.
What do you think of this new feature?
Thanks to Rodney, Eric & Ken for sending this in (with screenshots).
I'd say it's about time however after using it I think it's a bit clunky. It seemed very slow to use with Firefox 1.5.2. What I want to see added, in an "ajaxified" manner is queue resorting. I want to be able to resort my queue, drag and drop style.
Posted by: Kyle Heon | April 15, 2006 at 04:20 PM
Wee, I have my name mentioned! ;P
It does seem a bit slow, this can be attributed to the way the script is written.
what i would love to see (and i've requested this feature) is when clicking 'add' the icon turn immediately into "InQ" instead of a re-direct or popup. However, the popup is an improvement over the complete page re-direct at least now I will not lose place of where I was while browsing for movies. I suppose they could even have an option in the prefs that allows netflix to redirect/popup or simply change the icon, that would be nice for people who want to find what is recommended based on the selection, etc.
Posted by: Ken | April 15, 2006 at 05:57 PM
it's a a little sluggish. but still it is an improvment
Posted by: Super-Bat-Man | April 15, 2006 at 07:01 PM
It works fine with Mozilla 1.7 as well. Is it an improvement? The jury is still out.
Posted by: junebug1701 | April 15, 2006 at 08:01 PM
I'm getting rather alarmed by all these 'improvements'. In my opinion, the biggest advantage Netflix has always had over Blockbuster Online is a fast, sturdy and easy to use website. These tweaks just overcomplicate things. Even "Your $.02" requires Java now. Why? It should be just a simple form. The next thing you know Netflix.com will be nothing but wall-to-wall Flash animation.
Posted by: Manda | April 16, 2006 at 09:43 AM
This is not an improvement -- but with very simple change it could be. I think one of the reasons it's so slow, even on my fast machine, is the weight of all the recommendations on the floating pane. The change? Make viewing them optional. A popup the size of the blue 'Movie Added to Queue' box, like the extra movie info popups, are a perfect size. If we want to see further recommendations, add a button to toggle them.
At the very least, give us an account option to disable this addition.
Posted by: eric_hcr80 | April 16, 2006 at 04:46 PM
I dig it. I do agree with the above poster though, that I want drag and drop queue management
Posted by: sych0 | April 16, 2006 at 06:23 PM
I didn't really feel it was necessary. The fade-in animation and floating pane seem cheap to me and it took me a little out of context as far as my initial browsing was concerned. Usability is good though, as always with Netflix.
Posted by: myxmlfeed | April 16, 2006 at 11:45 PM
I like it too, but they need to give users options to make it smaller (such as keep similar movies but take out critics picks, etc.). Right now it is quite resource intensive even on a fairly quick laptop.
Also, Netflix - get off your butt and stop messing around with this and fix your Queue ASAP. I have nearly 500 movies in my queue and the loading time on a P4 3GHz with 1GB of ram is ridiculous. Design it to run faster and make the queue easier to manage by allowing drag and drop, etc.
Posted by: Toffer Peak | April 17, 2006 at 01:38 AM
"What do you think of this new feature?"
It's an annoyance. It's about as useful to me as is the usual advertisement pop ups that one gets (and tries to block) from all other sites on the internet.
Posted by: bmovies | April 17, 2006 at 01:31 PM
I just added my first movie since this started...all I see is a black screen with an spinning white clock that spins...spins...spins..
nothing else happens..ever...the DVD isn't added to the Q
Damn them!...why complicate something that worked?!?#?$
Posted by: peter | April 17, 2006 at 01:43 PM
Oh, forgot...I'm using IE w/ the latest updates...I bet this has something to do w/ me not allowing ActiveX or flash..both of which I have turned off to avoid irritating ads
Posted by: peter | April 17, 2006 at 01:46 PM
Runs OK on Firefox 1.5.0.2. But jerky scrolling on my older Pentium. It's irritating to play "catch the moving link" when it hasn't stopped scrolling yet.
Posted by: vatim99 | April 17, 2006 at 04:00 PM
The drag-and-drop queue thing was faster and far more useful. Any theories on why they got rid of it?
Posted by: Meg | April 18, 2006 at 12:16 PM
I noticed this new feature yesterday and do not care for it. I emailed their customer support complaining about it and asked that an option be added to disable it. Apparently netflix does not tell their support people about changes to their website. I started getting nonsense from support about having adware or a virus on my box. I did finally get them agree to forward my request to their technical support. I can only hope they were not just feeding me a line to make me go away.
Posted by: netflixuser | April 18, 2006 at 08:29 PM
C'mon Netflix, this is fancy web trickery for it's own sake. Keep the engineers from making these decisions.
You've been good about this.
I've had friends tell me it doesn't work on their FF. That means this crap needs to be revoked immediately.
Posted by: Aron | April 19, 2006 at 12:44 PM
Because of this sites hotlink to AJAX I'm pretty sure my problem is that I have ActiveX disabled.
This info was sure better then the ignorant answer I received from NF when I complained...they told me that their site works w/ all browsers & that I should check w/ browser support...
A perfect example of misguided High-tech thinking...
"Hey, we can write some code & add all this neat new stuff, SO LET's DO IT"...never mind that all the customers want & need is to push the "ADD to Q" button & get the DVD added to their Q
Peter
Posted by: peter | April 19, 2006 at 01:46 PM
I can't stand this feature.
Come on NetFlix, give us an option to turn this off.
Posted by: mo-ve-fan | May 15, 2006 at 04:58 PM
Has anybody figured out how to disable this "feature" in IE. This type of code either criples or crashes my browser on my widescreen 1920x1200 resolution laptop. I avoided this for a few months by running IE7, but now Netflix updated the site to support this feature in IE7.
It is nice that the customer service people basically have to say "too bad" if this crashes the browser, because they "know" that their code is solid.
I just want to go back to the "Other Movies You Might Enjoy" opening on a new page instead of this pop-up.
(I'm about 2 days away from cancelling my account because of this issue)
Posted by: kevincarbray | November 02, 2006 at 12:10 PM