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Messages - rick.ca

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2281
Development / Re: Kroozbox - PVD to media theatre solution
« on: October 13, 2008, 09:30:21 pm »
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I doubt that there is an HTML browser in VLC

I'm sure you're right. I saw a references to it having a "UPnP client" and a "HTTP server" so I imagined it might display Froozbox, but I think it just displays files it finds in a playlist. That's rather pointless. I still need a way to make the files play in their associated player, rather than the browser (which, BTW, has the VLC plugin—which obviously doesn't help). Wait a minute! That's my problem. The VLC plugin was trying (and failing) to play the file. Now the only problem with playing a file is Firefox had to "download" it, and my virus scanner has to scan it... ::)

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Added search capabilities to the front end...

The search capabilities are fine—and I'm able to work them with my remote—but they seem kind of out-of-place in a theatre interface. I suppose my bias is as indicated before—most operations should be possible with a few direction key and select/enter presses. If possible, you should increase the font size used in the search boxes to at least the same as used elsewhere. And a nice embellishment would be to not require accented characters—so "leon" finds Léon, for example.

2282
Development / Re: Sql dump from PVD
« on: October 11, 2008, 10:31:04 pm »
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The existing comment field would be impractical, since that is already used in a default imdb import.

Not exactly. There's an option to save the IMDb description in Comments, rather than Description (in case one is getting their description from elsewhere). But that same option can be used to put the description in a custom field. So I think it's "fair" to assume Comments is being used for user comments of some sort. And it was probably it's original intended purpose.

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Date viewed...could be grouped in a separate section with user rating and comments.

Yes. I think it would make good design sense to keep all the user data together and separate from the other movie information.

Please remember I'm just offering suggestions for what might be a reasonable generic template. I assume that's what you want to do. From there, you can advise users generally how to make their own modifications.

2283
Development / Re: Kroozbox - PVD to media theatre solution
« on: October 11, 2008, 09:59:03 pm »
Would you happen to know if I should be able to access Kroozbox from VLC media player? I've been trying to figure that out, thinking it might provide a more realistic simulation than a browser.

2284
Development / Re: Kroozbox - PVD to media theatre solution
« on: October 11, 2008, 08:34:59 pm »
Here's a rationale for title use: Some movies acquire a "popular" or "common" title in addition to their official original title. PVD provides for both, but they have a broader use. Title is used in the movie list, and may be changed to anything that makes it easier for the user to find the movie (e.g., an original foreign title translated to the user's language). If used in this way, original title (if available) will be displayed in the information card. So the appropriate use in Kroozbox would be to use title on the main page—since the purpose is to find movies—and perhaps original title for the title tag. On the details page, the original title (if available) could be used instead of title—since the movie has been found.

BTW, I haven't forgotten...

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I still need to do some code cleanup and mostly the documentation for configuration and templates building

...I've been able to make some changes, but it's sort of hit and miss when I don't understand what's what. It does look very organized, however, so I expect modifications will be straightforward once the documentation is done.

2285
Development / Re: Kroozbox - PVD to media theatre solution
« on: October 11, 2008, 07:21:09 am »
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Try this and let me know

The invisible movie problem seems to be resolved.

I thought I had found another problem where a handful of movies were appearing without a title. After struggling to see a pattern, I finally realized Kroozbox was displaying the original title, and these were the movies in my database that happened to have no original title. [Not the easiest thing to spot, since PVD only displays the original title if it exists and is different than the title.] From the templates, it looks like both titles are being retrieved, but I didn't attempt to figure out if some logic was being used to decide which title to display. From my data, it seems that only the original title is used. Since an original title doesn't have to exist in PVD, I would have thought Kroozbox would use the title, and perhaps instead the original title, if it exists.

2286
Development / Re: Kroozbox - PVD to media theatre solution
« on: October 10, 2008, 10:34:42 pm »
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I updated the templates with "visibility" check and added the "unseen" selection.

Much better, thanks, but there's still a problem... The movie count after selecting All - Newest - A - B - C is still includes the invisible movies, and the navigation arrows attempt to use that—producing blank pages. Unseen works fine.

More on filtering... This is obvious, but it just noticed now—wish list movies are included, but are not distinguished from other movies. I suppose the best way to deal with that is to provide a configuration parameter to include/exclude them.

2287
Development / Re: Kroozbox - PVD to media theatre solution
« on: October 10, 2008, 09:59:17 pm »
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Don't forget that this is for TV viewing. At one point it becomes too much for a TV+ remote control interface.

Yes, as one who has tried to program everything into my remote control, I understand very well. :-[  It's a very challenging design issue. It's always nice to be able to do more with a remote, but if the result is just a little less simple or intuitive, the overall result is usually negative. What you need is selection scheme (i.e., method of zeroing-in on a movie) that is quick and intuitive, and works for most collections. To illustrate the problem, consider what you have now—selection by first letter of title or by genre. In the unlikely event I remember the title, I'm still going to be unhappy about having to scroll to first letter to find it. If I select the genre, I still may have 10 pages to wade through. For me, filtering out seen movies reduces the numbers to a manageable size, but others have much larger collections.

This make break the simplicity rule, or be a nightmare to implement, but here's a thought: Provide a set of useful selection criteria, for example: title, genre, viewed, year, rating, director, movie/series. They might be presented as icons across the top of the screen. For each one, when selected, present a manageable secondary selection that will fit on screen (e.g., titles: abc, def...; viewed: unseen, seen, all; year: decades; etc). Allow them to be applied in any order, each applied to the results of the previous. If that's not complicated enough, make sure one can "back up"—that is, undo the last filter without having to start all over again.

2288
Development / Re: Sql dump from PVD
« on: October 10, 2008, 08:14:23 pm »
I'm not about to use this myself, but it's just too cool not to comment on...

If you were to add user rating and comments, people could use this to publish their own opinions and recommendations. They could be presented as a separate view, similar or identical to detail view, with comments instead of description and user rating instead of, or in addition to the IMDb rating.

Data added is a sort option, but it doesn't seem to appear anywhere. If user ratings and comments were included, this (or perhaps better, date viewed) would be useful. Return visitors, for example, could then easily identify movies most recently added/viewed/commented on.

2289
Development / Re: Kroozbox - PVD to media theatre solution
« on: October 10, 2008, 01:58:02 am »
WOW! Great job. Also, the ease of installation and clear instructions are much appreciated.

I hope you don't mind your post being moved. I think this is a more logical place to look for such "add-ons," and it won't get buried in support requests here.

I can offer a few comments after a brief trial. I don't have a theatre system, so I'm just accessing Kroozbox with my browser (in case that makes any difference to what I'm seeing).

I assume this is a bug... the All - Newest - A - B - C links are producing pages that do not filter-out "invisible" movies. My 700 movie database includes over 100,000 of those, making it a little difficult to find things that way. ;)  The genre links work as expected.

You'll need to add more means of filtering. I've seen most of the movies in my database. There's usually 50 or so I haven't seen or am likely to want to see again in the near future (in which case I've turned-off their seen flag). So while I'll want to see all my movies initially, I'd normally need to filter-out the seen ones to make a selection. For me, that's the most necessary one, but I suppose it would be desirable to be able to filter and sort in as many ways possible without cluttering the display or otherwise making the interface too confusing.

Clicking on a media link causes the media to play within the browser. I understand this is not the intended use, but in case anyone is interested in using Kroozbox in a browser, is it possible to change the links to the media is launched in the associated external application?

I'm impressed how it handles series—allowing selection of available seasons, then episodes.

Up/down navigation arrows mean different things to different people. Maybe the page navigation would be clearer with left/right arrows. I think it's more obvious that left means "back" and right means "forward."

I'm really unsure if this behaviour in a browser is relevant, but... I couldn't figure out how to navigate with the keyboard (which, in my mind, I need to establish as something my remote can emulate). Moving through links/covers with tab/shift-tab works fine, but the links aren't highlighted (as with a mouse-hover), so I can't tell where I am. Hmmm. Now that I think about it, it's definitely a browser issue—the same one that's been preventing me from browsing from the couch. :(

What are the prospect for user-modification of the information Kroozbox displays? Can users change things by tinkering with the template files, or is it more involved than that?

2290
Feature Suggestions / Re: Vote: Features for 0.9.9
« on: October 09, 2008, 09:07:00 pm »
Maybe this would work okay for some languages, but not for English. The English language is so messed-up, translating by word replacement is a waste of time. There are too many situations where the correct translation depends on the context. Ambiguities could be dealt with for finite word sets like genres, but not for things like categories. It's not uncommon that a word in English will have a significantly broader or narrower meaning than it's most obvious translation in another language. As a result, a direct replacement translation will be correct most of the time, but sometimes incorrect or even misleading. If in a sentence, this still may be acceptable, because the reader can understand the correct meaning from the context of the sentence. But if it's just the word alone or in a short phrase, this is not possible.

I can't comment on the quality of non-English movie information sites, but surely there are some where the quality of the information is reasonably good. By that, I mean the information is properly expressed in the language of the site. It has been subject to some form of competent editing. That might even include doing proper translations where the source of the information is not in the native language. No matter what the language, the quality of the information is only going to be degraded by translating it. I think PVD should remain focused on providing the tools necessary to pull together information from a variety of different sources—while preserving the integrity of that information.

I think the next step, should the development time ever become available, would be to make the program multilingual, rather than attempt to "build-in" translation. Maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect a user who is fluent in English, German and Russian, for example, would be more interested in having their data those languages simultaneously, rather than translating different sources into one language.

I understand that even if one agrees with this point of view, translation of some information is still likely necessary or useful. I think this need would best be served by a translation tool/plugin that uses something like Google Translate, if that is possible. It could take the data from an existing field, translate it, and put the translation in a different field or overwrite the original—according to how it's configured. I don't imagine this would be a very efficient way to translate a large number of fields (e.g., the default set of data from IMDb), but it would be handy for grabbing bits of data only available from a foreign-language site.

2291
Development / Re: Export Actors and there roles
« on: October 09, 2008, 07:18:25 pm »
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Everything that can help other users is appreciated.

To illustrate the point... Until a recent post, I assumed XBMC was Microsoft software for the XBox. I now know it's open source with versions for Windows, Mac, Linux and XBox. While XBMC is very impressive, I'm still going to prefer J River Media Center. But JRMC also requires the XML for importing information. So whatever ideas you have are likely of interest to me.

On a more general note, there are a number of excellent media centers out there. And it's obvious they are becoming more "mainstream." XBMC is one of few that download movie information, and I don't think any of them will ever come close to doing that as well as PVD. But if PVD is going to be relevant in a world where everyone is using media center software, it has to establish itself as an effective "back end" for movie information. For now, helping media center users import information by whatever means their software allows is the best we can do. Eventually, maybe media center developers will take note, and add the ability to query PVD's SQL database directly.

2292
Feature Suggestions / Re: TheMovieDB.org
« on: October 09, 2008, 12:12:12 am »
In the meantime, consider adding http://www.themoviedb.org/search?search[text]=%s%u to Web search.

2293
Development / Re: Sql dump from PVD
« on: October 08, 2008, 10:45:57 am »
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Here is my database as exported from PVD

Wow! That's impressive. :o  I don't know anything about setting up websites, but I'll ask what others are bound to... Are you able to share the website template? And with that, would a novice be able to do this? This would be a great solution for those who have asked how to display their database on a website.

2294
Development / Re: Export Actors and there roles
« on: October 05, 2008, 12:39:48 am »
Your question seems to involve what would be required to export XML for import to XBMC (i.e., the actor/role format). It might be helpful if you could post what you've done to XBMC integration?

2295
Feature Suggestions / Re: Vote: Features for 0.9.9
« on: October 03, 2008, 01:36:53 am »
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how about an auto save function like MS Word or auto back-up and tool bar icon for easy save as is

"Auto-save" and "save as is" are not necessary. It's a database—all changes are recorded as they are made. I suppose what is going to be added is some kind of automated backup and/or backup reminder feature.

2296
Feature Suggestions / Re: Vote: Features for 0.9.9
« on: October 02, 2008, 03:09:34 am »
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It just does not make much sense...

Perhaps not—except that grouping provides the same functionality as filtering. Even better—it displays the true and false at the same time! What doesn't make sense to me is a boolean field that can only be displayed in an information card. But that won't be the case with Advance Search handling all types of custom fields.

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In fact, I have already implemented this functionality.

Great news! Advanced Search is going to be so useful, I hope you've included the ability to save searches and map them into custom toolbar buttons. ;D

2297
Feature Suggestions / Re: Vote: Features for 0.9.9
« on: October 01, 2008, 11:16:06 pm »
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If some will need a extra flag he can create a custom field.

...but, of course, he'll need Sorting and grouping custom fields to make any use of it. ;)

BTW, is that feature going to include being able to use custom fields in Search and Advanced Search?

2298
Feature Suggestions / Re: Vote: Features for 0.9.9
« on: October 01, 2008, 06:14:36 am »
1. Use Advanced Search to do things like this.

2. Hmmm. I don't recall this being discussed before. Most of the movies in my collection are ones I've rented in the past. PVD detects those which are on my hard drive and distinguishes them with a filter. None of them are "owned" DVD's, so that's all I need. I'm sure other users record only DVD's they own, so all they need is the "wish" flag to distinguish those they do not yet own. But what about those who are doing both? Perhaps there should be a filter added for "owned DVD's." I'm not sure how that would work—it could be based on the barcode, or some other data recorded when a DVD is scanned. Then one would be able to filter movies on fixed drives vs. removable drives (e.g., DVD's) vs. rentals viewed in the past.

BTW, this illustrates another issue. Because PVD can handle different kinds of collections, the standard filters can be used in different ways. As a result, the default captions may not be appropriate. For example, I use the wish list feature, but this has no bearing on "ownership" in the context of my collection. I therefore use a custom language file to change that filter's captions from "owned" and "not owned" to "seen/available" and "wish list." There are other creative ways one might use existing features. The Loan Manager, for example, could be used to distinguish and manage owned DVD's. Just "loan" all your DVD's to yourself for 365 days—the loan filter would then show all your DVD's. The loan feature could still be used for it's intended purpose by "returning" and "reloaning" a movie. A simple search will isolate a loans to a specific borrower.

There. It seems I've found your features—and saved nostra from some unnecessary work.  ;)

2299
Feature Suggestions / Re: Vote: Features for 0.9.9
« on: September 19, 2008, 09:34:34 am »
It's got to be way too late to asking for new features for 0.9.9, but since I'm here anyway...

I find myself often wishing there were back and forward navigation buttons—like in a browser. I suppose that's because that's what I'm often doing with my database—browsing. It would be nice to be able to just click a button to go back to what I was previously looking at, instead of having to change views and/or find and select the item in the list.

2300
Feature Suggestions / Re: Vote: Features for 0.9.9
« on: September 19, 2008, 09:24:20 am »
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I guess this will be in the stats tool.

I think you would want a tag cloud to be interactive (i.e., click the tag to display the movies with that tag), which rules out the stats tool. This would just be a visible enhancement to what can already be done with Tree View. If it were to be implemented, that's probably where it should go—as a third "Cloud View" for the list pane. Alternatively, it would be nice to be able to sort tree view in descending order of the number of movies in each node. While not as visual as a tag cloud, that would provide the same information while leaving the functionality of the tree.

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