English > Feature Suggestions

Have child windows not lock main screen

<< < (2/2)

rick.ca:

--- Quote from: nostra on July 27, 2009, 09:04:59 pm ---Of course it is possible to make PVD act like this...
--- End quote ---

You beat me to it. That's what I get for being so long-winded. ::)

I hope you will consider my summary of the current situation at the end of this post.


--- Quote from: pencilhead on July 27, 2009, 01:57:11 am ---Program queries a movie (for example "taken"). There are 10 different movies called "taken" and I can't remember what the movie is. The thumbnail dialogue displays 10 different posters for "Taken" and I can't remember which one is mine.
--- End quote ---


--- Quote from: pencilhead on July 27, 2009, 02:32:18 pm ---Posters are being found with 100% accuracy.  I would like the ability to select the movie from the main database while the poster selection dialogue box is open. So I can make an informed choice about which poster to choose when there is confusion.
--- End quote ---

Please consider there might be good reason why I don't understand your issue. Your first statement/example clearly implies the plugin has found posters for 10 different movies. You dismissed my suggestion this could be fixed by an improved plugin, and now make the assumption "posters are being found with 100% accuracy." The only way I can reconcile these two statements is to assume the scenario you are attempting to describe is there are 10 different movies called "Taken" in your database. The poster plugin correctly matches posters to each version, but you don't know which version it is referring to when asked to choose a poster. If you were shown the movie panel you would know which version the poster was for, and that would have a bearing on your judgement as to which poster is most appropriate.

At this point, I wouldn't dare suggest this scenario is a fair representation of your issue, but just taking it as a hypothesis, I would consider the following in judging the necessity for any changes to the program:


* The situation where there are multiple movies of the same name in the database and posters are being added at the same time and the user is unable to distinguish them based on the information presented by the plugin is rare.


* A good poster, by it's nature, will invoke the memory of any movie the user is familiar with. So in many cases, the question of which movie is being processed is answered by the poster thumbnails themselves.


* Not having sufficient information to judge which poster to choose, the user still has the option to select all likely candidates, and decide based on the downloaded posters.


* Even if the user has all the information about the movie available, they are still not in a position to accurately judge the quality of posters. This can only be done by examining the downloaded poster. This implies two things. First, it may be prudent to download multiple posters, even if one seems most appropriate. Second, if one is as concerned about quality as is suggested by a need to have all available information to make a choice of thumbnail, they are very likely going to be compelled to review the quality of all the downloaded posters in any case.
My conclusion (and it's just my opinion!) is that the suggested feature only warrants consideration if:


* It can be implemented easily, without compromising the speed of the plugin or the integrity of the database;


* It's unlikely to impede or confuse users who are happy to use the plugins in the manner for which they were designed;


* It's implementation will not feed the notion a perfect poster selection should be possible or desirable for the plugin as it is currently designed.
I don't understand the technical challenges or limitations, but the proposal might be more feasible if it only involved displaying the information panel for the movie being processed, rather than the plugin running in "non-modal mode."

Whatever might be done in this area, fixing and improving the existing functions of the plugins should be the immediate priority. That includes:


* Fixing the the IMDb plugin so it once again downloads posters.


* If possible, making the Amazon plugins near-100% accurate by using the advanced search page as mentioned here.


* If possible, avoiding the Google ban problem with the IMPAwards plugin as mentioned here.


* Enabling all poster plugins to choose and download the first available poster in Silent Mode. Even better would be the ability to specify the number of posters to download (the first 2 or 3 would be more practical than "all").
With everything functioning in the manner originally intended, opinions about what other changes are be necessary might change.

patch:

--- Quote from: nostra on July 27, 2009, 09:04:59 pm ---Of course it is possible to make PVD act like this, but considering the fact that I do not really understand why Title, Original title and Year (which are shown in the selection dialog) are not enough for proper movie selection and that implementation of it will indeed need more than trivial coding, this new behavoir will not be implemented any time soon. Sorry  :-\

--- End quote ---

I will have to check, but for me the year is often not available when being asked to choose poster during scan folder. Will see if a can characterise when.

In the scan folder screen, adding the ability to open containing folder would help me (sometimes I need to look at files near the movie file such as nfo file, poster or watch start of movie) to be sure which imdb record I would like to link it to.

pencilhead:
Hi,
It seems that we are still not understanding each other.

A picture is worth  a thousand words so here goes....

1.
I manually enter movie titles, import / whatever to have a list of movies.
I then highlight all movies in left hand pane and import information from IMDB. (all good so far)
(see pic1)

2.
After movie information has been downloaded (With no posters).
All movies in left hand side are again selected and import posters from amazon (or any other source) is run
(see pic2)

3. Plugin runs and finds posters.
User selects the poster they want to import and plugin moves onto the next movie in the list.
(see pic3)

4. Plugin selects a movie and displays poster selection. The user (me) can't remember what the movie is about. (the information already exists as it has already been imported in step1 (imdb import phase)). If I could access the movie from main screen, I could look at the cast, movie description etc and make an informed decision about which poster to choose.
I want to be able to select the movie from the main screen while the select poster dialogue is open.
(see pic4)
(see pic4)


Off course it is nostra's perogative to do this or not as he see fit. It is his program after all, but the issue needs to be understood, which I don't believe it has up until now.

An alternative solution would be to have the main screen update to match each search.

Regards
PH

[attachment deleted by admin]

nostra:
The issue does not seem important enough to me to start thinking of the best solution for the problem or implement smth. When there is a good stable and full featured version 1 I could take some time for problems like this, but it is a long way to go before this happens...


--- Quote ---# If possible, making the Amazon plugins near-100% accurate by using the advanced search page as mentioned here.

# If possible, avoiding the Google ban problem with the IMPAwards plugin as mentioned here.

# Enabling all poster plugins to choose and download the first available poster in Silent Mode. Even better would be the ability to specify the number of posters to download (the first 2 or 3 would be more practical than "all").
--- End quote ---

I'll check what can be done to improve the plugin system in future.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page