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rick.ca:

--- Quote ---That should ensure it continues to grow and evolve with PVD.
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I hope it also encourages users to participate in the forum. Preparing this demonstrated finding the best answer to a topical question is not always easy to do. Much of what I have included is still far from what one would expect to find in a wiki or manual. But that's just the nature of the thing. Those of us who participate regularly obviously enjoy tinkering with the software, sharing ideas and helping others with problems. Hopefully, this will encourage others to participate by reducing frustration and the feeling being forced to ask "stupid" questions due to a lack of instruction. Maybe we'll have a wiki, manual or help file some day. But I hope this will always be a community where anyone can jump in and ask, "How do I do this?"

rick.ca:

--- Quote ---Maybe we'll have a wiki, manual or help file some day.
--- End quote ---

PVD Wiki is now online!

rick.ca:
Originally posted to lost topic Where do i begin??? Help File??? in May 2008...


--- Quote ---The only difference between New Movie Master and Movies...
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Or another way of putting this: New just creates a new movie record—you then have to add the information "manually." New Movie Master is like a script that creates a new record, then "automatically" runs all the various data gathering routines for the movie you specify. You can change any of the information obtained, or import from any of the information sources "manually" to get more control over what is downloaded.


--- Quote ---So at this point i think here's another thing for your todo list!
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I think what you want (because I had hoped nostra would have done it this way myself) is "field mapping" whereby you can match each column in your worksheet (whether it has a name or not) to a field in the database (or not, in which case the column is ignored). It's not as convenient as it is, but it does work. You have to be more focused on what you're importing and where it's going, which is perhaps a good thing.


--- Quote ---But is there a way of importing films from IMDB by using for example a keyword?
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Not directly, but you can using Excel as an intermediate step. For example, if I wanted to add all IMDb movies made in Jamaica, I would do the search...

http://www.imdb.com/List?tv=off&&countries=Jamaica&&nav=/Sections/Countries/Jamaica/include-titles

...and cut and paste the resulting list into Excel. In Excel, I would parse the text into "title" and "year" columns (this requires some comfort with Excel's string manipulation formula). The resulting file would then be imported to PVD, as I've previously described.

This is more work, but is a technique worth mastering. With it, you can gather information from any source that will produce a list or table of what you want. And you're not there yet, but the Excel plugin is also very good at importing additional information for movies already in your database.


--- Quote ---My excel database successfully imported but the Producer and Year info is the wrong way round, is there a way to correct this?
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The field names and their order in the plugin configuration probably do not exactly match the columns in your Excel file. At this (early) stage, you should start a new PVD database and try the import again.

Before you do that, consider what I suggested before. Import just the movie title and year. Use PVD to download all the information you want from IMDb. Then do another import from Excel to import only the additional information you want to include in your database. This way, you can more carefully consider whether you want to overwrite an IMDb-populated field with your own data, or put it in a custom field.


--- Quote ---not sure if excel has a search function but if there is one i don't know how to use it
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Soon you are not going to need Excel, but... Select the first row of your Excel worksheet (i.e., the headings/field names) and from the menu select Data-Filter-AutoFilter. That will create drop-down lists for filtering each field. You may find that useful until you are satisfied all your data has been properly imported into PVD. Otherwise, you're going to find searching in PVD much more convenient and powerful.


--- Quote ---Is there a way i can scan my whole films list to get imdb info added to what i've already got?
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This is one of the fundamental features of the program (and others like it). In effect, it allows you to maintain a database of IMDb information for a subset of movies that you are interested in—all of the information is downloaded from IMDb. From there, using other plugins, you might add information IMDb lacks, or replace specific IMDb information with that of a preferred source. To that, you add any "personal" information you want—date viewed, rating, comments, etc.

This is why I suggest you start with just the IMDb information for all your movies. I understand you may be very "attached" to the information you already have. But if that is the case, you should study carefully the information you can get and maintain automatically from IMDb. For each field decide whether to replace that with what you've already got (and no longer download it) or to import the information you already have to a custom field (and maintain it independent of the IMDb information). As you seem to appreciate, you need to be careful about which fields to leave alone, which to update and which to overwrite.

Note that you do not have to import all of your existing data at once. And once you're familiar with PVD, you might want to use the import feature to modify or update your database. For example, you might decide information in two or more columns of your Excel worksheet might best be combined and imported back into one memo field of your PVD database.

I know all this hurts the brain when you're just getting started, but the results are well worth while. You have found the right software. PVD is the only one out there that allows you configure your database exactly the way you want it.


--- Quote ---how does the import function recognize where to put each piece of info...?
--- End quote ---

Each time you use the import plugin, include the movie title and year so the correct record in PVD can be identified. It won't matter what other records are in the database at the time, or what order they are in. If you change any titles in PVD, you might have to take care to make the same changes in your Excel file so any future imports will work correctly. I suppose it would be a good idea to refrain from changing titles in PVD until you have finished all your importing.

PVD is built on a robust relational database. Generally, you can be assured it will do whatever is necessary in the circumstances to identify the correct record and fields to be added or changed. The downside is, if anything does go wrong, you have to accept it is probably your fault.  Make sure to keep backup of your Excel file, make backups of your PVD database (File-Backup) each step of the way, and you'll be fine.

I'm going to spend some time messing with it all

That's the best way to learn how to use it. To avoid becoming overwhelmed, it might be a good idea to start with a database of just a few movies. This is what I do when I'm beta testing. You can quickly make a backup, try something out, and see at a glance it's doing what you expect it to do. If not, restore the backup and try again. You will find you progress much faster than if your database had 1,600 movies in it. Even if you've already created your 1,600-movie database, you can still use a small "test" database to try out things that you're unsure of or would take a long time to complete on the full database.


--- Quote ---[Question about the Field Overwrite settings]
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It's a little confusing because the appearance depends on the user's Windows settings. Hopefully, this makes sense:

-If a field is unchecked (Grey/blank Box) it will not accept data at all
-If a field is checked greyed (Green Box) it will accept data only of it is clear (i.e., the field is empty/unused)
-If a field is checked/black (Green Tick) it will always be overwritten

If you are starting out with just titles and years, you probably want Green Ticks for everything except Title, which should be blank so the download doesn't change any of your titles. (Remember, you want to be sure they stay the same as in your Excel database.)


--- Quote ---i just noticed a bug...
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This has be discussed in the past, but I can't remember how it was resolved. You may very well be right, but a more sensible approach might be to run the update in silent mode, and then update the ones that "failed" manually—one-at-a-time. If a movie is not in the IMDb, there is, of course, nothing you can do. But usually the problem is the name is different, and doing it "manually" allows you to change the name to something so the correct movie does appear as a "candidate." Some users may prefer this behaviour—so it does stop, giving them the opportunity to do this.

Continued in new topic, Importing from Excel.

rick.ca:
Originally posted to lost topic Sequels in August 2008...

To summarize—about handling movie titles in general:

• Use the Title as your "key" field—to uniquely identify each movie and to serve as the default sort key. (The program does not restrict it's use in this way—it will allow duplicates, and it will allow plugins to overwrite it.)

• As a "key" field, the Title should be under your control (you are the database administrator!) Do not allow any plugins to overwrite it.

• To make your job easier, set your Title format preferences to remove prefixes, or put them at the end of the title.

• When adding a movie, don't worry about what you want the title to be. If necessary, use whatever helps the the download plugin find the right movie. After the download is complete, change the Title to whatever you want (so, for example, it sorts correctly).

• If you have made the Title different than the original title, the program will automatically save the original title in the Original Title field.

• I don't think the program considers an identical title a duplicate if the year is different. In the case of remakes, I go against my own advice and use the same name as the original, and allow the year to distinguish the two (by showing titles in the list as "Title (Year)").

rick.ca:
Originally posted to lost topic IMDb Plugin - Silent Mode Fails to find results in July 2008...

If you restart the program, and select a different batch of movies for updating, is the behaviour the same?

Have you checked your preferences carefully to see if your settings may be causing the problem? In particular, is the overwrite setting for the fields you expect to be updated set to "on" (i.e., a green check-mark)? Have you left the ID and password fields blank in the IMDb configure dialog?

I see nothing wrong with the way you're using the program. I wonder if the behaviour is normal, and the "problem" is with the data. If the plugin can't uniquely identify a movie, it will stop and ask you to pick from a list. In silent mode, it will skip the movie and go on to the next. Did you perhaps run a mass update before, and are now left with just the titles that can't be uniquely identified? Does your original data include the year? The chances of matching are greatly increased if the year is included.

Select a few of the problem movies and add the year (get it from IMDb if you're not sure). Try a silent mode update again. If that doesn't work, turn silent mode off and update. Are you presented with a list of movies to select from, or does it just skip the movie? If that doesn't work, find the movie on IMDb, enter the URL to the URL field, and try the silent mode update again. If that doesn't work, we'll at least know the problem lies with the program or your configuration.

[later...]

I imported your Movies.Import.File.csv into a new database. It contained 153 unique movie titles (there were a number of duplicates), without years. In silent mode, 58 updated and 95 were skipped. I tried updating those 95 again; a few were updated on the second attempt, but most were skipped. The plugin got "stuck" a few times, and had to be stopped and restarted (the ones it got stuck on updated or were skipped when it was restarted). I added years to a small sample, and then about half those updated. As expected, it updated without fail when the URL was provided. With silent mode off, I was presented with a list of movies to choose from for each movie. For 8 or 9 of the 10 or so I updated this way, the first title in the list seemed to be the correct choice.

So this is what I recommend for this situation: Run the update in Silent Mode. Select those that do not update (e.g., do an Advanced Search for "Year IS NULL"). Turn off Silent Mode, and run the update again. You will have to select the correct title for each movie, but this is not as bad as it sounds. I updated 10 in a little less than two minutes, so I could have done all 95 in about 20 minutes.

[sidebar]

Nostra, there do seem to be some issues with the plugin running in Silent Mode. I don't think they're critical—but perhaps you can consider them next time you update the plugin:

• A small portion (I guess less than 10%) of movies that are skipped, will update on a second attempt. Why not the first?

• It may get "stuck" part way through a batch; there is no apparent significance to the movie it gets stuck on.

• Most of the titles skipped just need confirmation of the most likely match (i.e., the one that appears at the top of the selection list). It would be nice to have the options of (1) this one being selected automatically (i.e., so it would not be skipped in Silent Mode), and/or (2) only if the year also matched. This would result in some mismatches, but I think at a rate low enough most users wouldn't mind. I suppose it would be a good idea to flag these movies in some way, so the user would be aware the match may be incorrect.

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