41
Feature Suggestions / Re: Counting number of movies in actor's filmography
« on: December 01, 2013, 06:45:22 pm »
Cool, thanks, nostra. I'd be happy if it just showed the total count in the "Actor" category, really. 
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42
Feature Suggestions / Re: Suggestion for View toolbar
« on: December 01, 2013, 06:42:23 pm »
Okay, but I think it would be more obvious to have it right next to the "group by" dropdown menu. Why have related buttons scattered all over the UI?
43
Support / Re: UI bug in 1.0.2.7
« on: November 14, 2013, 07:38:51 pm »
I agree, we should be able to adjust the position of the divider as much as necessary. The movies/people list shouldn't have a fixed maximum width.
44
Feature Suggestions / Suggestion for View toolbar
« on: November 14, 2013, 07:34:13 pm »
Hi,
The "View/Group By" tool needs a button next to it to QUICKLY set the grouping back to "None". It's really a pain to have to click the drop-down menu and scroll through it to get to the "None" option.
The program has "reset" buttons for most search/filtering tools, it should have one for "Group By".
Aimhere
The "View/Group By" tool needs a button next to it to QUICKLY set the grouping back to "None". It's really a pain to have to click the drop-down menu and scroll through it to get to the "None" option.
The program has "reset" buttons for most search/filtering tools, it should have one for "Group By".
Aimhere
45
Feature Suggestions / Counting number of movies in actor's filmography
« on: November 10, 2013, 04:43:28 pm »
Hi,
One thing I can't find anywhere in PVD is a quick, easy way to show a count of the number of movies listed in each actor's filmography. I'd like to see this added.
At the least, it should show the total number in each category (actor, director, etc.) of the filmography section. I see it already kind of does something like this for the "Awards" category (a record might say "Awards (1 Wins & 2 Nominations)" for a given person), but it could be applied to the other categories as well.
Ideally, it could be further broken down to show both the total number as well as certain other statistics: the number of movies with visible records plus the number with hidden records (the way I use PVD, I always import full filmographies from IMDB, so visible movies are movies I actually own, hidden ones are ones I don't own). So PVD could display, say, "Actor (100 movies, 25 visible, 75 hidden)" or something like that.
Sure, I could sit there and count the movies by hand, but why should I have to?
Aimhere
(P.S. - I know that the "Statistics" feature can show the number of movies in my database for each actor, but this only counts the number of visible movie records, not the actor's entire filmography. And besides, it takes an extra step... I'd like to see the count shown right in the People view.)
One thing I can't find anywhere in PVD is a quick, easy way to show a count of the number of movies listed in each actor's filmography. I'd like to see this added.
At the least, it should show the total number in each category (actor, director, etc.) of the filmography section. I see it already kind of does something like this for the "Awards" category (a record might say "Awards (1 Wins & 2 Nominations)" for a given person), but it could be applied to the other categories as well.
Ideally, it could be further broken down to show both the total number as well as certain other statistics: the number of movies with visible records plus the number with hidden records (the way I use PVD, I always import full filmographies from IMDB, so visible movies are movies I actually own, hidden ones are ones I don't own). So PVD could display, say, "Actor (100 movies, 25 visible, 75 hidden)" or something like that.
Sure, I could sit there and count the movies by hand, but why should I have to?
Aimhere
(P.S. - I know that the "Statistics" feature can show the number of movies in my database for each actor, but this only counts the number of visible movie records, not the actor's entire filmography. And besides, it takes an extra step... I'd like to see the count shown right in the People view.)
46
Support / Re: Problem with skin/image toolbars
« on: November 04, 2013, 05:00:55 pm »
Never mind, I figured out where in the XML file it sets the width of the photo area, and increased it so the toolbar fits now. Still, for what it's worth, I think the toolbar coding ought to be modified at some point to avoid this kind of thing.
The whole pop-up toolbar code could stand to be cleaned up, really. I find that when I'm in edit mode and point at a blank/unused image area, I often briefly see a snippet of some other image in the background of the pop-up toolbar (it may be the last image I happened to point at within the database record, or a bit of the main toolbar, or even the application window's titlebar).
The garbage image goes away when I move the mouse again, but it's disconcerting to think the application is grabbing data from outside of the current image area. I'm no programmer, but it seems to me that somewhere in the code, there's a pointer that isn't being properly checked that it's in an appropriate range, causing the code to read image data from a place where it shouldn't be looking. This doesn't crash the application, but it's still a condition that needs to be tracked down and eliminated.
Aimhere
The whole pop-up toolbar code could stand to be cleaned up, really. I find that when I'm in edit mode and point at a blank/unused image area, I often briefly see a snippet of some other image in the background of the pop-up toolbar (it may be the last image I happened to point at within the database record, or a bit of the main toolbar, or even the application window's titlebar).
The garbage image goes away when I move the mouse again, but it's disconcerting to think the application is grabbing data from outside of the current image area. I'm no programmer, but it seems to me that somewhere in the code, there's a pointer that isn't being properly checked that it's in an appropriate range, causing the code to read image data from a place where it shouldn't be looking. This doesn't crash the application, but it's still a condition that needs to be tracked down and eliminated.
Aimhere
47
Support / Problem with skin
« on: November 04, 2013, 04:21:25 pm »
I recently noticed a problem with the "PVD Classic" skin used in People View mode.
If I hover my mouse over the area where the person's picture is supposed to go, I get the pop-up toolbar with buttons for importing an image, paste from clipboard, etc. The trouble is, the amount of space allocated within the skin for the picture isn't wide enough to display the entire toolbar at times, and the far-right button "Remove Image" is often truncated or hidden completely by the image area's bounding box. This makes it difficult or impossible to click on that button.
Is there any chance the image toolbar could be reworked so it always displays in front of the image bounding box, rather than behind (and masked by) it?
Barring that, how would I go about increasing the minimum size of the image area so the toolbar will always fit inside it?
Aimhere
If I hover my mouse over the area where the person's picture is supposed to go, I get the pop-up toolbar with buttons for importing an image, paste from clipboard, etc. The trouble is, the amount of space allocated within the skin for the picture isn't wide enough to display the entire toolbar at times, and the far-right button "Remove Image" is often truncated or hidden completely by the image area's bounding box. This makes it difficult or impossible to click on that button.
Is there any chance the image toolbar could be reworked so it always displays in front of the image bounding box, rather than behind (and masked by) it?
Barring that, how would I go about increasing the minimum size of the image area so the toolbar will always fit inside it?
Aimhere
48
Feature Suggestions / Re: Mass editor issues
« on: November 03, 2013, 04:37:22 pm »The old mass editor could only change a subset of fields that could fit in a window. Implementing such functionality for all fields, as it is now in version 1, would be not so great.
I understand that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to fit all of the available fields into a single window or dialog box. But, perhaps you could bring back the "old" mass editor (with its previous subset of the fields) as an option that could be selected in Preferences? Very rarely, if ever, do I need to mass-edit any fields outside of the "core" ones that were present in the old mass editor.
Aimhere
49
Feature Suggestions / Mass editor issues
« on: October 28, 2013, 06:20:16 pm »
Hi,
I finally upgraded my PVD to the 1.x version, and while it's working well enough, I'm really missing the way the "old" Mass Editor used to work. When I add a bunch of movies off a DVD-R with the file scanner, I need to set the values of several fields on all of them. With the 0.9 version, with all of the movies selected in the list, I could click the edit button on the toolbar to get the multi-editor in its own window, and could change the value of multiple fields all at once. In 1.x, the Mass Editor only lets me set the value of a single field at a time, and I have to laboriously choose the field from the drop-down fields list (which is way too small for the number of fields, by the way) , choose the value from the values list, and click the green "Apply" button to apply the changes, then do it all over again for each and every field I want to update. The old method was MUCH faster and easier. Why even call it a "Mass Editor" if you can't edit everything en-masse?
ALSO: There is a pretty big bug in the Mass Editor right now. If you select a Field, select a Value, click the "Apply" button, then choose another field, the "Value" box retains the value from the previously-chosen field, which is totally inappropriate for the newly-chosen field. If you accidentally click the "Apply" button, the inappropriate value is written to the record, and you then have to edit the record to remove or correct it.
For example, say I have a "Location" called "Storage boxes in closet". I select a number of movies, open the Mass Editor, choose the field "Location", then choose "Storage boxes in closet" from the Values dropdown. Okay so far. Then, I choose the field "Media Type" (perhaps intending to set it to "Retail DVD", let's say), get distracted for a moment, and click "Apply" accidentally (forgetting I hadn't actually chosen a new value). Now I have a movie with "Storage boxes in closet" as a "Media Type", and have to fix it manually.
Furthermore, if the more recently-chosen field happens to be a "list" field (e.g. "Genre", "Tags", etc.), then clicking "Apply" has the additional effect of adding a new (inappropriate) value to that list, and you have to go into "Preferences/Lists" to delete it.
What needs to happen is, any time a new field is chosen from the "Field" drop-down list, the "Value" box should be cleared out so it doesn't retain the previous value.
Aimhere
I finally upgraded my PVD to the 1.x version, and while it's working well enough, I'm really missing the way the "old" Mass Editor used to work. When I add a bunch of movies off a DVD-R with the file scanner, I need to set the values of several fields on all of them. With the 0.9 version, with all of the movies selected in the list, I could click the edit button on the toolbar to get the multi-editor in its own window, and could change the value of multiple fields all at once. In 1.x, the Mass Editor only lets me set the value of a single field at a time, and I have to laboriously choose the field from the drop-down fields list (which is way too small for the number of fields, by the way) , choose the value from the values list, and click the green "Apply" button to apply the changes, then do it all over again for each and every field I want to update. The old method was MUCH faster and easier. Why even call it a "Mass Editor" if you can't edit everything en-masse?
ALSO: There is a pretty big bug in the Mass Editor right now. If you select a Field, select a Value, click the "Apply" button, then choose another field, the "Value" box retains the value from the previously-chosen field, which is totally inappropriate for the newly-chosen field. If you accidentally click the "Apply" button, the inappropriate value is written to the record, and you then have to edit the record to remove or correct it.
For example, say I have a "Location" called "Storage boxes in closet". I select a number of movies, open the Mass Editor, choose the field "Location", then choose "Storage boxes in closet" from the Values dropdown. Okay so far. Then, I choose the field "Media Type" (perhaps intending to set it to "Retail DVD", let's say), get distracted for a moment, and click "Apply" accidentally (forgetting I hadn't actually chosen a new value). Now I have a movie with "Storage boxes in closet" as a "Media Type", and have to fix it manually.
Furthermore, if the more recently-chosen field happens to be a "list" field (e.g. "Genre", "Tags", etc.), then clicking "Apply" has the additional effect of adding a new (inappropriate) value to that list, and you have to go into "Preferences/Lists" to delete it.
What needs to happen is, any time a new field is chosen from the "Field" drop-down list, the "Value" box should be cleared out so it doesn't retain the previous value.
Aimhere
52
Support / Selecting text
« on: October 20, 2013, 05:55:41 pm »
Hi,
I finally bit the bullet and upgraded my PVD permanently to the version 1.x line (after having lingered with 0.9.x for many moons). It works well enough for the most part (and I'm gradually getting used to the "new" user interface), but I've noticed one irritating little problem.
When I'm editing a record, it always used to be that I could use the mouse to double-click on a word in any text field and select the entire word. (This is pretty standard in most, if not all, Windows programs.) But in version 1.0.2.6, this doesn't work. I can still select text by click-and-dragging, or by using SHIFT and the arrow keys, but double-clicking does nothing (it just sets the position of the typing cursor as if I had single-clicked).
I would like to know if the original double-click selection could be restored? Double-clicking really is much easier than the other text-selection methods for most of my editing.
Aimhere
I finally bit the bullet and upgraded my PVD permanently to the version 1.x line (after having lingered with 0.9.x for many moons). It works well enough for the most part (and I'm gradually getting used to the "new" user interface), but I've noticed one irritating little problem.
When I'm editing a record, it always used to be that I could use the mouse to double-click on a word in any text field and select the entire word. (This is pretty standard in most, if not all, Windows programs.) But in version 1.0.2.6, this doesn't work. I can still select text by click-and-dragging, or by using SHIFT and the arrow keys, but double-clicking does nothing (it just sets the position of the typing cursor as if I had single-clicked).
I would like to know if the original double-click selection could be restored? Double-clicking really is much easier than the other text-selection methods for most of my editing.
Aimhere
53
Support / Re: Apostrophe catastrophe
« on: October 20, 2013, 04:58:04 pm »Never mind, I just tried it and it worked.
I don't know if this was the intent of the SQL, but all of the affected movies actually do still show the name of this studio. But they are now grouped correctly with "View/Group by/Studio", which is all I wanted.
Thanks again, Nostra.
54
Support / Re: Apostrophe catastrophe
« on: October 20, 2013, 12:54:53 am »
I just tried the new version 1.0.2.6 with my database, and find I still cannot change or delete the studio that has the apostrophe in its name.
To reiterate: If I try to delete/clear the "Studio" field's value, the original value comes right back when I save the changes. If I try to replace the value with something else entirely, the movie record winds up having TWO studios shown (the original with the apostrophe and the other value I entered). If I then delete both and save again, I'm back to having the one with the apostrophe.
It does this regardless of whether I edit individual movie records or use the Mass Editor to attempt to make changes. It also doesn't matter whether I have "ignore case" checked OR unchecked in "Preferences/Lists".
As before, every occurrence of this studio's name in my database is treated as a separate entity when "View/Group by/Studio" is selected. I have 43 titles from this studio, so the studio name is repeated 43 times in "Group By/Studio" view.
It's almost as if the apostrophe somehow set some kind of "write protected" status on the "Studio" field when the records were first added to the database, AND also made the database engine treat this studio's name as "unique" for every instance it appears.
Is there anything I can do to fix this?
Aimhere
To reiterate: If I try to delete/clear the "Studio" field's value, the original value comes right back when I save the changes. If I try to replace the value with something else entirely, the movie record winds up having TWO studios shown (the original with the apostrophe and the other value I entered). If I then delete both and save again, I'm back to having the one with the apostrophe.
It does this regardless of whether I edit individual movie records or use the Mass Editor to attempt to make changes. It also doesn't matter whether I have "ignore case" checked OR unchecked in "Preferences/Lists".
As before, every occurrence of this studio's name in my database is treated as a separate entity when "View/Group by/Studio" is selected. I have 43 titles from this studio, so the studio name is repeated 43 times in "Group By/Studio" view.
It's almost as if the apostrophe somehow set some kind of "write protected" status on the "Studio" field when the records were first added to the database, AND also made the database engine treat this studio's name as "unique" for every instance it appears.
Is there anything I can do to fix this?
Aimhere
56
Support / Re: IMDB People plugin
« on: October 14, 2013, 11:37:24 pm »
I lost track of which people in my main database exhibited this behavior with the plugin, but here are a few I found in testing with random actors:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3378749/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0853358/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3520196/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3283577/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1863607/
In each of these, the IMDB plugin misses the last entry (whether it be a movie, TV series, or whatever) in the actor's filmography.
I've yet to run across another case where the plugin imported no films at all, so maybe it was just my imagination...
Aimhere
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3378749/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0853358/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3520196/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3283577/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1863607/
In each of these, the IMDB plugin misses the last entry (whether it be a movie, TV series, or whatever) in the actor's filmography.
I've yet to run across another case where the plugin imported no films at all, so maybe it was just my imagination...
Aimhere
57
Support / Re: Apostrophe catastrophe
« on: October 13, 2013, 08:06:12 pm »
Okay, I figured out why I couldn't load my 0.9.x database into PVD 1.x. The test database was stored in a disk folder containing an apostrophe in the folder name, and while 0.9 could load it from there, 1.x kept internally stripping out the apostrophe, so it was trying to load it from a (nonexistent) location. Once I copied the database to the location where 1.x was looking for it, the program loaded it okay.
See my separate post regarding folders for more details.
(still waiting for that apostophe fix, but I can live without it for now.)
See my separate post regarding folders for more details.
(still waiting for that apostophe fix, but I can live without it for now.)
58
Support / Folder access weirdness
« on: October 13, 2013, 07:55:51 pm »
Hi,
I've noticed a bit of weirdness with regard to how PVD looks for its database files on my hard disk.
When I set up Windows 7 on this PC, I relocated the "My Documents" folder off of my C: drive to the E: drive. (To do this in Windows, you open Windows Explorer, find and right-click on "My Documents", click "Location" tab, then "Move...") The folder I moved it to is "E:\Aimhere's Documents", though this still appears in Windows Explorer as "E:\My Documents".
Now, this arrangement works for most programs. All of my other apps which attempt to store files in "My Documents" get redirected to the correct folder on E:. But for some reason PVD doesn't work correctly with this.
If I try to create a new database in PVD, in the "Save as..." dialog I can navigate to the folder path "Computer > E: > My Documents > PVD Files" and see my existing database files. So I type in a new file name (let's call it "TEST") and click "Save". But if I flip over to Windows Explorer, I find the database file has been saved as "E:\Aimheres Documents\PVD Files\TEST.pvd" instead of "E:\Aimhere's Documents\PVD Files\TEST.pvd" (note the difference... PVD saved it in a folder named without an apostrophe.)
What's more, the new 1.x version of PVD won't even open database files from "E:\Aimhere's Documents\PVD Files" (if I navigate to this folder in the "Open..." dialog and choose a file, no data is displayed in the app window)... unless the file is ALSO present in "E:\Aimheres Documents\PVD Files". If the file is not present in the latter folder, PVD 1.x just creates a new, empty database there with the given filename. (The 0.9.x version will at least open a file from its original location in "E:\Aimhere's Documents\PVD Files".)
It looks like PVD's internal routines for managing folder paths are somehow stripping the apostrophe from "E:\Aimhere's Documents" prior to opening the files, resulting in the creation of "E:\Aimheres Documents" (if it doesn't already exist) and writing database files in subfolders of that. And 1.x appears to expect to load databases from that location as well.
If this issue can't be fixed, I may need to move my databases to a different folder (perhaps just "E:\PVD files") and forget about using the "My Documents" folder. I wouldn't mind doing this, but PVD's code really ought to be fixed so it works as expected with folder names containing apostrophes.
Aimhere
(P.S. - this folder-name issue explains why I was having trouble loading my existing movie database from 0.9.x into 1.x, per my post in the "Apostophe Catastrophe" thread. Once I moved the copy of my database to the folder without the apostrophe, 1.x was able to load it. It seems PVD just doesn't deal correctly with apostrophes, in folder names as well as in database fields!)
I've noticed a bit of weirdness with regard to how PVD looks for its database files on my hard disk.
When I set up Windows 7 on this PC, I relocated the "My Documents" folder off of my C: drive to the E: drive. (To do this in Windows, you open Windows Explorer, find and right-click on "My Documents", click "Location" tab, then "Move...") The folder I moved it to is "E:\Aimhere's Documents", though this still appears in Windows Explorer as "E:\My Documents".
Now, this arrangement works for most programs. All of my other apps which attempt to store files in "My Documents" get redirected to the correct folder on E:. But for some reason PVD doesn't work correctly with this.
If I try to create a new database in PVD, in the "Save as..." dialog I can navigate to the folder path "Computer > E: > My Documents > PVD Files" and see my existing database files. So I type in a new file name (let's call it "TEST") and click "Save". But if I flip over to Windows Explorer, I find the database file has been saved as "E:\Aimheres Documents\PVD Files\TEST.pvd" instead of "E:\Aimhere's Documents\PVD Files\TEST.pvd" (note the difference... PVD saved it in a folder named without an apostrophe.)
What's more, the new 1.x version of PVD won't even open database files from "E:\Aimhere's Documents\PVD Files" (if I navigate to this folder in the "Open..." dialog and choose a file, no data is displayed in the app window)... unless the file is ALSO present in "E:\Aimheres Documents\PVD Files". If the file is not present in the latter folder, PVD 1.x just creates a new, empty database there with the given filename. (The 0.9.x version will at least open a file from its original location in "E:\Aimhere's Documents\PVD Files".)
It looks like PVD's internal routines for managing folder paths are somehow stripping the apostrophe from "E:\Aimhere's Documents" prior to opening the files, resulting in the creation of "E:\Aimheres Documents" (if it doesn't already exist) and writing database files in subfolders of that. And 1.x appears to expect to load databases from that location as well.
If this issue can't be fixed, I may need to move my databases to a different folder (perhaps just "E:\PVD files") and forget about using the "My Documents" folder. I wouldn't mind doing this, but PVD's code really ought to be fixed so it works as expected with folder names containing apostrophes.
Aimhere
(P.S. - this folder-name issue explains why I was having trouble loading my existing movie database from 0.9.x into 1.x, per my post in the "Apostophe Catastrophe" thread. Once I moved the copy of my database to the folder without the apostrophe, 1.x was able to load it. It seems PVD just doesn't deal correctly with apostrophes, in folder names as well as in database fields!)
59
Support / IMDB People plugin
« on: October 11, 2013, 12:22:49 pm »
This may be related to the issue in the other thread regarding the IMDB Movies plugin.
I'm finding that when I'm in People View and use IMDB to import an actor's filmography, it doesn't always pick up every film listed on the IMDB website. It may only pick up a handful, or sometimes none at all.
The IMDB People plugin always used to work fine, I'm not sure at what point the problem started. I've usually been using it to update existing entries, and have seen it add a film or two most times I run it, so didn't notice the problem until I ran it on a few actors who didn't have much of a filmography to begin with, and saw the imported filmographies were smaller than the ones on the website pages.
I'm (still) using PVD version 0.9.9.21, with version 0.3.0.18 of the IMDB People plugin. In Preferences, the IMDB People plugin is set to import filmography (fully checked, not filled-square checkbox), and "merge filmographies" is checked.
Aimhere
I'm finding that when I'm in People View and use IMDB to import an actor's filmography, it doesn't always pick up every film listed on the IMDB website. It may only pick up a handful, or sometimes none at all.
The IMDB People plugin always used to work fine, I'm not sure at what point the problem started. I've usually been using it to update existing entries, and have seen it add a film or two most times I run it, so didn't notice the problem until I ran it on a few actors who didn't have much of a filmography to begin with, and saw the imported filmographies were smaller than the ones on the website pages.
I'm (still) using PVD version 0.9.9.21, with version 0.3.0.18 of the IMDB People plugin. In Preferences, the IMDB People plugin is set to import filmography (fully checked, not filled-square checkbox), and "merge filmographies" is checked.
Aimhere
60
Support / Re: Apostrophe catastrophe
« on: October 11, 2013, 12:09:03 pm »QuoteWill this update automatically consolidate all of the identically-named "studio" entries I now have?Well, that's a bit tricky as I would need to check all list values for all fields and correct them. This could lead to a rather lengthy waiting time for all users. I am not sure if it worth it as it seems to me that not so many of them have the "Ignore case" option on AND values with apostrophs. I will do some tests and will let you know.
As long as it lets me delete the existing studio field value (which I cannot do now!), I can always re-create it. I would hope that PVD would then properly group the movies all under the same (single) studio name.
Quote
There is another question: why could not you load the 0.9.9.21 database in 1.0.x? It would be good to have a sample database that reproduces this problem as well.
I'd like to why as well. Does me no good for you to update the 1.x version if it won't load my massive database (i used a copy made from Windows Explorer, of course, not my actual main database). I'll have to try making a smaller database and see what happens.
Aimhere