[snowjim]

I've never seen a photo website or photo app that listed by recently added. I've only seen "last batch/roll", where it showed the last group of photos added, but even that is sorted by the date the picture was taken.

Imgurl do only store when the image was uploaded, I would think that deviantart.com is the same.

"Casual" users typically don't use XBMC.

Interesting, how do you know this?

All XBMC users I know installs XBMC, point out the library and then they watch videos. I would call that a casual user? Don´t you think that most users of XBMC are of this kind?

Users that run movies from RAR archives should be shot.

And yet you allow it?

We also cater towards situations where people legally create their movie databases, as in they rip DVDs or Blurays, use PVR, or otherwise acquire DRM-free media legally. So yeah, I'm not really bothered by the inconvenience we put on usenet users. You're getting free movies, so stop complaining.

No idea what you are talking about. Free movies? I buy movies and backup them to my server to make it easier to watch?

We think about it and make logical conclusions.

Logical? Can you pleas explain the logical conclusion you made for this setting? That would be interesting to hear (more then just my friend wanted it).

For most of us, we don't think or care about what the majority wants. Often what is wanted isn't even what is best, because often people don't know about better options. Instead, we try to think of what would work better, for ourselves, for our friends and families that use XBMC, and for users. We also do use direct user feedback in all of this, but "raw majority" isn't always right. You could say that the majority is fine with iTunes and Hulu+ and cable TV and using DVD players. Majority is unreliable.

So thanks for the feedback, but understand, this isn't going to change, at least not any time soon.

YES!! I think that this is the problem, I have simple had wrong thoughts about what XBMC is. My believes/hopes have been that XBMC was driven in a "professional" way where the users and developers together decides where XBMC should go (yes even if its free) to get as many users as possible. Instead its nothing about users but instead what developers that are working on XBMC right now have in mind even if its a drawback for a majority of the users.

Users and developers can cooperate to make a great product, if only developers is deciding the end result will probably not be vary good and the same goes if only users makes the decisions. A nice blend should be the best.

I can only hope that there will be more projects like XBMC so we can get some real competition

[Martijn]

@snowjim

Go read the complete thread. There you find enough opinions about the topic. We don't owe and explanation specially for you since there's enough said about the topic.
And in the end it still won't change the fact that this is now the default setting.
You can't live with that fine, change it through advancedsettings.xml
Still can't live with that, well I suggest you then start searching for some competition mediacenter.

nagging users like you now do only drives devs away from hearing the opinions of users and just do as they like for themselves. So thank you in achieving that goal one step further.

[snowjim]

Okay Martijn lets sum it up :

According to Montellese there is three main reasons to make this change :

1. Refreshing the information of an old movie (maybe there's a better cover or whatever) within XBMC doesn't make it show up in recently added even though it has been in your library for many years.

Maybe a better solution would be to just make it possible to update a specific movie/episode with public data(info/grade/choose poster/fanart) and then let everything else(data bound to this installation/user) stay like watched, last added and so on. It is already possible to change images without removing the item first. But yes, the current change is probably easier bot also less logical.

2. If you ever have to rebuild your library because it got messed up or you lost it (harddisc crash or whatever) you're recently added list will have the exact same order after re-creating the library as it had before. With the old behaviour the order was pretty much random or rather it was the order the videos appeared in the filesystem (which has definitely nothing to do with when it was added to the library).

But how about all Windows users? The new setting is using last modified date, this will as we already said a lot of times result in a vary random order when added to XBMC library. Yes we could "touch" all the movies so they get a correct last modified date(yet another step when adding a video to XBMC) but how about existing librarys? Should I work my way through 1000 movies and manually "touch" them? Is it possible to decide the last modified date so my movies ends up in the correct order?

3. the majority of developers in the team prefer the new behavior so that's what it's gonna be

I think that this is the main reason, this setting fits at least half of the developers better, don´t think a second on what would be logical or good for the majority of the users.

And in the end it still won't change the fact that this is now the default setting.

No it won't but It would be nice to discuss the change in a civilized way, why it was made and how they thought that the Windows users would benefit from it. Right now it just feels like: - hay guys lets make this change, it would fit my setup nice, don't mind how it will inflect the every day user. Users are just users, we don't really need them.

You can't live with that fine, change it through advancedsettings.xml

Yes thats nice!

But its also yet another special setting to fit a every day XBMC setup, soon I will have to write a entire manual to set it up correctly the next time I need a re- installation.

Still can't live with that, well I suggest you then start searching for some competition mediacenter.

Hehe, do you really think that I haven't looked in to this? XBMC is the best by far and that's why I am a bit afraid when changes like this just pups up without any thought on what it will mean for users.

nagging users like you now do only drives devs away from hearing the opinions of users and just do as they like for themselves. So thank you in achieving that goal one step further.

So what you are saying is that users may not question a couple of change that the dev makes? If you don't care about users, why even have a forum for them?

If a strange change is made and the devs can back the change up with good reason, then there is no problem. If they run away instead, well then maybe the reason was not that good?

Finally, I'm not sure why we talk about the rights to question changes, why not just discuss the change in the topic? Two have answered my post but none have really discussed/answered the change.

- Why not make the "special" setting (that do not work with Windows) a advanced setting instead and letting the original be? This way the sorting would be more logical and users that need the "special" setting would probably have no problem setting it in the advanced setting file.

- Why not add another sort order option right in the GUI?

[Martijn]

I hate settings so I'd rather remove the option to change it completely.
You may question them but it doesn't change them.
Besides it was also requested by numerous users and having the majority of devs also wanting it who happen to be also the ones who need to maintain the code makes it a pretty darn good reason.
Why don't we want to discuss this? Because we have done it enough and are kinda tired of it. So further discussion is kinda moot.
Whatever decision is made there will always be people who disagree and start yelling that we are a bunch of idiots for choosing that direction and we don't care for users and bla bla bla bla.....
This is the last I will say about it and would also rather close this topic.

[snowjim]

I hate settings so I'd rather remove the option to change it completely.

XBMC is filled with settings and a lot of them is not easy to understand, it took me about 2 month to find a video setting that gave me smooth playback with okay audio sync. I'm glad that the settings was there else this would never be possible.

Ho often do you really change the setup of the system? Not often I suspect.

The XBMC project feels like a project that tries to be as flexible as possible, just see how many platforms it is running on and this makes settings vary valuable.

Someone once seed that XBMC was not for casual users but for geeks that loves to play around with the setup, and then you say that settings is a bad thing?

You may question them but it doesn't change them.

YES this have been typed all over the place already.

So I open a discussion where I explains the problem that I run in to. Instead of just discussion how the problem can be solved (besides letting all users invest hours to "touch" all there files) you say, - Shut up, we don't care about you, in fact we do not care about our users at all.

You know, its not uncommon that devs reverts changes in software when they see what response it gets from the users, maybe some users provides information that shows another side of the change that devs did not think of (for example the Windows problem discussed).

Besides it was also requested by numerous users and having the majority of devs also wanting it who happen to be also the ones who need to maintain the code makes it a pretty darn good reason.

Someone said that, what users wants, do not matter vary much because they do not know the consequence of the change. You provide XBMC to alot of platforms, most users can only think of what it will mean on the platform they are using. In this case not even the Devs seems to think of how Windows would handle the change. The AdvancedSetting just feels like a last time change - oh hmm its not working vary good for all the Windows users, but we really want this change and we do not care about the users so we let them invest some hours to "touch" all there videos and if they don´t want that, then they could set the AdvancedSetting (wonder how many casual users that will do this).

The new setting needs more thinking to understand what it means (especially in Windows), that makes it a lot better placed in advancedSetting. The best solution would be 1 more sort order directly in XBMC GUI but that's one setting to much apparently?

Why don't we want to discuss this? Because we have done it enough and are kinda tired of it. So further discussion is kinda moot.
Whatever decision is made there will always be people who disagree and start yelling that we are a bunch of idiots for choosing that direction and we don't care for users and bla bla bla bla.....

Okay? So you do get this a lot? Great, then I'm not the only one that don't understand how the development of XBMC works. The main problem seems to be that you mainly got developers that developer for them self (and there friends). YES they do it in there own time and the software is free. But there is a lot of voluntary software development out there that is developed by enthusiast that wants nothing more then getting there software to grow (and to get more happy users), XBMC is simple not such a project and that is what I struggled to realize.

This is the last I will say about it and would also rather close this topic.

Yes, you should. All you say when I try to open your eyes for the problem is that, - we don't care, no changes will be made, we do in fact not even care about that the setting is generating a lot more trouble then it solves for majority of the users.

[Montellese]

Just a hint: I coded and added this feature and I did it on Windows 7 and I'm still loving it the same way I did when I added it. So after X posts from you I actually still don't understand what your problem is. Why do you need to "touch" your files? Why don't you just change the dateadded mode through advancedsettings to the mode where it simply picks the current date/time when you actually add the file to your library if that's what you want? I don't really care about the other advanced settings options because I don't use them but based on USER reports I took the time to add them so everyone could be happy somehow. But these days that seems to be impossible as there are always people complaining. That's why the answers of NedScott and Martijn are so aggressive.

I withdrew from this discussion because for 11 pages lots of users go on and off about what should be the default value and no matter what you do there's always someone who thinks he has a good enough reason to complain. Actually this has kind of become a phenomenon for every feature that is added to xbmc and it's really making it a lot less fun to work on it. You ask who makes the decision on the default value. Obviously I did because I was the one who coded it and then it was discussed in the team and decided that it was the right default setting. Then discussion started on the forum and again after 11 pages there's no consensus on what should be the default. There's a bunch of users who prefer either of the three options so which one should it be? I'm certainly not gonna count how many users voted for 1), 2) or 3) because for every user that took part in this discussion there are thousands of users out there who didn't (they probably never even made it to this forum in the first place).

Looking at the facts there are already 3 different ways to use dateadded. If there needs to be a fourth you have to make a very clear and strong case on why it can't be done with any one of the already existing modes. And "I don't want to change advancedsettings.xml" is not an argument.

[snowjim]

Just a hint: I coded and added this feature and I did it on Windows 7 and I'm still loving it the same way I did when I added it.

Okay? So you are using it in Windows 7 right now? Pleas explain to me how I should use it on my 1000 movie big library without fiddling with advancedsettings? How did you solve it?

So after X posts from you I actually still don't understand what your problem is. Why do you need to "touch" your files?

I have explained this a couple of times already, Movies in Windows get a strange modified date and this date is what you use in XBMC.

Why don't you just change the dateadded mode through advancedsettings to the mode where it simply picks the current date/time when you actually add the file to your library if that's what you want?

Yes I do so already, thanks for that setting! What I try to tell is that a lot of users will run in to the same thing (most of your users run XBMC on Windows) as me and they will be as puzzeld I was. The default behavior right now do not really work in Windows (or if it does pleas explain how), You will have to use the advanced setting to solve it(to get the old setting back).

I don't really care about the other advanced settings options because I don't use them but based on USER reports I took the time to add them so everyone could be happy somehow. But these days that seems to be impossible as there are always people complaining. That's why the answers of NedScott and Martijn are so aggressive.

Yes thanks for that setting, I suspect you would have A LOT more comments about this change if there was no work around.

This is the thing, I'm questuing the change and explains the problems I run in to. No real solution is explained more then setting a advanced setting and this makes me think, are not Windows the biggest platform for XBMC? How do other users handle this problem? Maybe there is a solution without using advanced setting?

If most of the users will have problems with this new change in Windows then maybe the default value should be the other way around.

I dont care about aggression in response, if they feel that they need to sink to that level, fine, let them. I do really not see the problem, I ask how a Windows user should use the new setting and the general response is, don´t, go to advanced settings. I ask - Why do you make a change that most of your users will have problems with? and you responde that you want to setting, not that the majority of users want this change? Thats the part I don't understand. But hey, if the new change is possible to use with windows then there should be no problems, just explain how.

I do still not see what one extra sort order would harm XBMC GUI. No response on that eather.

I withdrew from this discussion because for 11 pages lots of users go on and off about what should be the default value and no matter what you do there's always someone who thinks he has a good enough reason to complain. Actually this has kind of become a phenomenon for every feature that is added to xbmc and it's really making it a lot less fun to work on it. You ask who makes the decision on the default value. Obviously I did because I was the one who coded it and then it was discussed in the team and decided that it was the right default setting. Then discussion started on the forum and again after 11 pages there's no consensus on what should be the default. There's a bunch of users who prefer either of the three options so which one should it be? I'm certainly not gonna count how many users voted for 1), 2) or 3) because for every user that took part in this discussion there are thousands of users out there who didn't (they probably never even made it to this forum in the first place).

But the change is not working in Windows? So If a change breaks the functionality its not okay for a user to ask about it? really? Then you should probably not work with development at all because that's part of the job.

To me the best settings is the settings that works out of the box in all cases, if you need something special that maybe only work in a couple of environments then place this setting deep down the GUI or in a config file. This means that if a user needs/wants a special setting, they will know what thay looking for and what to expect. This sounds like basic development skills to me.

Looking at the facts there are already 3 different ways to use dateadded. If there needs to be a fourth you have to make a very clear and strong case on why it can't be done with any one of the already existing modes. And "I don't want to change advancedsettings.xml" is not an argument.

Yes I agree its not easy to explain in one or two words that this sort order is based on the files life in the file system and not in XBMC. What you are doing now is to letting the sort order have the same name (last added) and then you change the behavior from looking on the added to library(XBMC) to the modified date on the file itself. That is a big change, the last modified do not even reflect when the file was copied to the current filesystem in Windows so that name of the sort order(last added) do not longer correspond to what it does(in Windows)?

And yes I can change the advancedsetting and this is already done, what im saying is that the change is not logical at all. You will probably get a lot of questions on this change.

Its not strange that you get a lot of questions when you do changes like this.

BUT If there is a solution to get the default setting of this change to work in Windows pleas explain.

[Ned Scott]

I unpacked a couple of movies yesterday all of them got the creation date set 12/04/2013, the modified date was however set to different values on all of them, I suppose that this date is when they was first created (seemed match release date).

That's some interesting ripping software you have, then. I'm not condoning priacy or anything like that, but if some usenet or torrent has a rar packaged movie, and due to it being in that package the dates get messed up, that's not really our problem.

We don't even know if this is a Windows-specific issue. It could be the unrar app you used, or it might apply to everyone, or some other OS/app/whatever situation might have a case where both c-time and m-time get messed up. The way it appears to us is that you have a specific situation where this happens. You don't even seem to be making the argument for change for the same reasons other people did in this thread, it just seems about your specific use case. That rubs us the wrong way, and that's why you get these kinds of responces.

Personally, I would like to see this as a GUI option. There's kind of a phobia about new settings in XBMC right now, because we have so many, but I belive it is less about the amount and more about their placement in the UI. I used to have the same view as you about what the default should be, but I changed my mind after thinking about various use cases, real use cases that appear to be very common.

I apologies for the harshness of my responce to you. I think the first thing we need to do for your case is to figure out more details on why this is happening. If this really is a mass issue of inconvenance then of course we will change things, but we have to be reasonably convinced of that first.

[snowjim]

I unpacked a couple of movies yesterday all of them got the creation date set 12/04/2013, the modified date was however set to different values on all of them, I suppose that this date is when they was first created (seemed match release date).

That's some interesting ripping software you have, then. I'm not condoning priacy or anything like that, but if some usenet or torrent has a rar packaged movie, and due to it being in that package the dates get messed up, that's not really our problem.

We don't even know if this is a Windows-specific issue. It could be the unrar app you used, or it might apply to everyone, or some other OS/app/whatever situation might have a case where both c-time and m-time get messed up. The way it appears to us is that you have a specific situation where this happens. You don't even seem to be making the argument for change for the same reasons other people did in this thread, it just seems about your specific use case. That rubs us the wrong way, and that's why you get these kinds of responces.

Personally, I would like to see this as a GUI option. There's kind of a phobia about new settings in XBMC right now, because we have so many, but I belive it is less about the amount and more about their placement in the UI. I used to have the same view as you about what the default should be, but I changed my mind after thinking about various use cases, real use cases that appear to be very common.

I apologies for the harshness of my responce to you. I think the first thing we need to do for your case is to figure out more details on why this is happening. If this really is a mass issue of inconvenance then of course we will change things, but we have to be reasonably convinced of that first.

Best answer yet! Thanks!

I usually rip my own DVDr and Blu-ray movies to the server and in this scenario the created date will be set according to when the file is created, this works fine with the new change. But I also get movies from friends and these is packed with winrar. Im using Winrar to unpack them and then copy them to my server. The last modified date on these files is based on when they was ripped so when letting XBMC add them to the library with the new setting they will not end up at the top of the list when sorting by "Last added" (fallen).

I suppose that its all about how you use the sort order.

In my case I set the sort order to "Last added" and fallen. This makes it vary easy for me to keep track of new movies added to my library. My problem with the new default setting is that when adding movies from the rar archives they will not end up at the top of the list but instead be inserted in more or less random places which makes them vary hard to find.

Am I alone to set up XBMC like this? Is there maybe a better way?

About the settings, Its all about placement, if they are advanced, then they should be placed deeper down the application. There is a lot of software that have list up and list down with settings, as long as they are placed at the correct level within the application there should not be any problems.

[kricker]

But I also get movies from friends and these is packed with winrar. Im using Winrar to unpack them and then copy them to my server. The last modified date on these files is based on when they was ripped so when letting XBMC add them to the library with the new setting they will not end up at the top of the list when sorting by "Last added" (fallen).

There in lies your problem. The defaults were not setup for people sharing movies (which is seen as piracy). It is setup for people who rip their own movies. If you acquire your movies in other ways you need to get an app that lets you change the creation or modified date. There are plenty of them out there. Arguing to change how XBMC works based on illegal acquisition of content is pointless. I understand it may be inconvenient to you and others who acquire content in such a manner, but you need to thing of the bigger picture. The current method truly makes the most sense for legally acquired content.

[Montellese]

@snowjim: So the behaviour is not really broken (and it's not Windows specific either) it's just not how you expect it to be. But you should be able to easily solve that by changing the dateadded mode in advanced settings. All in all it comes down to what should be the default value and not that anything actually doesn't work. But like I said everyone prefers a different default setting but the one that is used right now is, for the reasons stated by kricker, the best (at least that's what Team XBMC has decided).

[Montellese]

BTW I just checked and WinRAR has options to change the behaviour of what creation and modification time will be. Go to the "Extract to" window and then to the "Advanced" tab and you'll see two options to update the creation and/or the modification time during extraction. In my installation (which should have the default settings) updating the modification time is enabled whereas updating the creation time isn't.

[rev105]

If I have <dateadded>2013-04-13 14:20:50</dateadded> tag in the nfo it doesn't seem to be recognized. Is it supposed to use this with the default setting? It appears to be ignoring the nfo tag and using the mdate of the file.

[vbat99]

As a support Dev for Media Companion, I'd also like to know if there is a tag for the nfo for <dateadded>, or XBMC only gets this from the physical file.

[snowjim]

There in lies your problem. The defaults were not setup for people sharing movies (which is seen as piracy). It is setup for people who rip their own movies. If you acquire your movies in other ways you need to get an app that lets you change the creation or modified date. There are plenty of them out there. Arguing to change how XBMC works based on illegal acquisition of content is pointless. I understand it may be inconvenient to you and others who acquire content in such a manner, but you need to thing of the bigger picture. The current method truly makes the most sense for legally acquired content.

Okay, so lets see, you are accusing me for piracy? Do you even know what type of movies/videos I got? Do you know if these is homemade videos? Could some of them simple be "free" movies/videos? Just because you get a movie/video from a friend it does not mean that you are conducting piracy, you should think before accusing.

But when we are on the subject, do you really think that most of the users of XBMC rip there own movies/videos? I have a hard time believing that.

BTW I just checked and WinRAR has options to change the behaviour of what creation and modification time will be. Go to the "Extract to" window and then to the "Advanced" tab and you'll see two options to update the creation and/or the modification time during extraction. In my installation (which should have the default settings) updating the modification time is enabled whereas updating the creation time isn't.

Great! I will look in to this. It does however still mean that 1000 of the already existing movies/videos will have to be "touched" manually in some way.