2018-01-03, 14:31
Due to a couple of problems, I've been working on re-creating my media-library of my master profile pretty much from scratch ( see here - https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=326243 )
Problems included that Kodi told me it would separate media from my master and a newly created profile, where it did not ( because I'm using MySQL and Kodi used the same database for both profiles ), A failing re-import of an existing backup ( Kodi simply fails silently without telling me why ) and me using the GUI for meta-data additions ( mostly title changes and adding tags ) instead of combined NFOs.
So, here's a couple of suggestions of making the challenge I'm currently in easier, so I don't have spend almost 2 weeks for restoring everything (except of course the progress in movies; for viewed / unviewed, I still have Yatse) again next time this should happen (you never know). And, if some of these things should already work, please tell me how
1) Please add a "refresh" button to the source / file browser. Use case: I'm in a folder, want to rename a movie or add a tag. Right-clicking and "Manage..." does not work ( also, it's not "permanent" like a NFO ), see also https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=326251 . So I'm right-clicking on it, going to "Refresh". Kodi asks me, if I want to use existing info or refresh from Internet, I chose existing. But my new meta-data does not show up. I recheck the NFO, it looks fine. But apparently, Kodi didn't know, that I added the NFO even though NFOs are now shown in that view anyway.
Workaround: Exit directory, enter it again. Imagine doing that hundreds of time.
Improvement: Add a hotkey like F5 to refresh directory.
2) (Improvement to 1) Please, when clicking "refresh" in the info screen, do an internal directory list refresh first and check, if there is a NFO or if it has been updated. This would be helpful for both the file-browser as the movie / tv show browser, as sometimes, I just add a NFO when finding out that meta-data is missing.
Workaround: Exit movie-browser, go to source, find the corresponding directory, try it there, go back to movie-browser.
Improvement: Everytime, when clicking "Refresh" in the info screen, check, if there is a corresponding NFO or if it has been changed before doing anything else.
3) For NFO errors -- Don't fail silently. There are a couple of possibilities, why Kodi does not take infos from my NFOs. I usually see that either in the info screen, when a tag is simply not there, even though I have added it in the NFO. Or if Kodi asks me to select a movie, even though I specified the IMDB URL in the NFO. Please, at least, show some sort of popup "Malformed XML in NFO file ..." with the name of the NFO file, if for example there are unclosed tags or other things. Sometimes, but funnily enough not always, Kodi also seems to have problems with Umlauts, but that's a support-case I guess.
4) Add the possibility to "Manage" things in the file-browser, too. It would be even fancier, if Kodi would ask me to "update the NFO file" when I make changes via the GUI.
5) DON'T reset the viewed / not-viewed indicator when refreshing. I can't think of any case where I'd want to pull that information from IMDB, and it's not in the NFOs either. It should be property of the profile and not be changed by refreshing meta-data.
6) When adding a new profile, please check, if I'm using MySQL. And if so, tell me, that I should take care of specifying a new Database. Or even better, ask me the name for the new Video and Music databases and update the advancedsettings.xml (for the new profile) accordingly.
These changes would help me (and probably others, too) out tremendiously, also in future, when adding more stuff to my library.
Thanks!
Problems included that Kodi told me it would separate media from my master and a newly created profile, where it did not ( because I'm using MySQL and Kodi used the same database for both profiles ), A failing re-import of an existing backup ( Kodi simply fails silently without telling me why ) and me using the GUI for meta-data additions ( mostly title changes and adding tags ) instead of combined NFOs.
So, here's a couple of suggestions of making the challenge I'm currently in easier, so I don't have spend almost 2 weeks for restoring everything (except of course the progress in movies; for viewed / unviewed, I still have Yatse) again next time this should happen (you never know). And, if some of these things should already work, please tell me how
1) Please add a "refresh" button to the source / file browser. Use case: I'm in a folder, want to rename a movie or add a tag. Right-clicking and "Manage..." does not work ( also, it's not "permanent" like a NFO ), see also https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=326251 . So I'm right-clicking on it, going to "Refresh". Kodi asks me, if I want to use existing info or refresh from Internet, I chose existing. But my new meta-data does not show up. I recheck the NFO, it looks fine. But apparently, Kodi didn't know, that I added the NFO even though NFOs are now shown in that view anyway.
Workaround: Exit directory, enter it again. Imagine doing that hundreds of time.
Improvement: Add a hotkey like F5 to refresh directory.
2) (Improvement to 1) Please, when clicking "refresh" in the info screen, do an internal directory list refresh first and check, if there is a NFO or if it has been updated. This would be helpful for both the file-browser as the movie / tv show browser, as sometimes, I just add a NFO when finding out that meta-data is missing.
Workaround: Exit movie-browser, go to source, find the corresponding directory, try it there, go back to movie-browser.
Improvement: Everytime, when clicking "Refresh" in the info screen, check, if there is a corresponding NFO or if it has been changed before doing anything else.
3) For NFO errors -- Don't fail silently. There are a couple of possibilities, why Kodi does not take infos from my NFOs. I usually see that either in the info screen, when a tag is simply not there, even though I have added it in the NFO. Or if Kodi asks me to select a movie, even though I specified the IMDB URL in the NFO. Please, at least, show some sort of popup "Malformed XML in NFO file ..." with the name of the NFO file, if for example there are unclosed tags or other things. Sometimes, but funnily enough not always, Kodi also seems to have problems with Umlauts, but that's a support-case I guess.
4) Add the possibility to "Manage" things in the file-browser, too. It would be even fancier, if Kodi would ask me to "update the NFO file" when I make changes via the GUI.
5) DON'T reset the viewed / not-viewed indicator when refreshing. I can't think of any case where I'd want to pull that information from IMDB, and it's not in the NFOs either. It should be property of the profile and not be changed by refreshing meta-data.
6) When adding a new profile, please check, if I'm using MySQL. And if so, tell me, that I should take care of specifying a new Database. Or even better, ask me the name for the new Video and Music databases and update the advancedsettings.xml (for the new profile) accordingly.
These changes would help me (and probably others, too) out tremendiously, also in future, when adding more stuff to my library.
Thanks!
