[jistme]

Both Kodi and the forum can be quite overwhelming when trying to find out how things work. So I hope I am asking these questions in the right place.

I am using Kodi 2.0 on Windows. I installed 'The Movie Database Python' it using the 'Universal Movie Scraper'. (after a lot of struggling to find out how to do that)
After having scanned the folders that contain movies, I can now see the movies displaying there artwork as a 'wall'.
But there are quite a lot movies either missing from that wall, or displaying a wrong, very different movie.
Two questions about that:

1.
I was expecting I could e.g. right-click on such a wrongly identified movie. and select something like 'locate file'. So it leads me to the file/folder where I can make any necessary changes.
But I haven't been able to find that option.
How can I navigate to the folder location of a displayed movie?

2.
I am guessing the reason for getting wrongly identified movies is the construction of the file name.
Where can I find what the required and optimal format of movie titles is?
Can the filename e.g. contain underscores, dots, or other info that doesn't directly pertain to the movie title?

TIA!


P.S.
And a more general question:
When using a mouse, I am not able to find out where to click to return to a previous screen/menu.
Am I overlooking a 'back' button? Should I activate such a button option first?

[Karellen]

So I hope I am asking these questions in the right place.

You are now that I have moved your thread.

I installed 'The Movie Database Python' it using the 'Universal Movie Scraper'

That doesn't make sense. One does not use the other. You use one or the other.

I was expecting I could e.g. right-click on such a wrongly identified movie. and select something like 'locate file'.

You can't navigate to the file, but you can see where the file is in your folder structure...

Where can I find what the required and optimal format of movie titles is?

https://kodi.wiki/view/Naming_video_files/Movies

When using a mouse, I am not able to find out where to click to return to a previous screen/menu.

Kodi is not designed to be used with a mouse. A keyboard or remote control works better.

[jistme]

Thanks for the quick action and replies Karellen!

I installed 'The Movie Database Python' it using the 'Universal Movie Scraper'

That doesn't make sense. One does not use the other. You use one or the other.

Ok, so I need to do more investigating and testing these kind of addons. T.b.h. I didn't find it the most intuitive or well explained stuff to be honest.
Ah well, good results often needs a lot of effort.

When using a mouse, I am not able to find out where to click to return to a previous screen/menu.

Kodi is not designed to be used with a mouse. A keyboard or remote control works better.

That's surprising to me.
Kodi's panels and menus are filled with buttons that are begging to get clicked.
There are even five of them in your screenshot.
Are there any discussions or intentions on improving mouse support that you know of?
I find use of the mouse to be essential when e.g. setting up Kodi using my 'regular' Windows computer.

[Klojum]

That's surprising to me.

Kodi (previously XBMC) was one of the first HTPC players on the block, starting on the Xbox. That device was mainly controlled using its remote controller. And thus no real mouse support was created. Also Kodi was designed to be used on the proverbial 10' screen, and setting on your couch controlling Kodi goes way easier and faster using a remote than with a mouse (cabled or wireless).

Are there any discussions or intentions on improving mouse support that you know of?

Not really. Various skin designers have even disabled mouse support in their skins.

I find use of the mouse to be essential when e.g. setting up Kodi using my 'regular' Windows computer.

Not in my opinion. Kodi on a PC (or Mac or Linux box or Android device) can be used with a mouse to some degree, but in the end, using the keyboard will get you where you need to be much quicker and more efficiently. You use the cursor keys for navigating and you type in the text values where necessary. No mouse required.

[jistme]

Where can I find what the required and optimal format of movie titles is?

https://kodi.wiki/view/Naming_video_files/Movies

That link doesn't really go into the details of filename formatting.
I can understand that eg:

Some Movie (2015)
will work better than
Some.movie.2015.720p.BluRay.DD5.1.x264.En-Spa.mkv
 
But in reality 99% of the filenames will not be like that.
And still Kodi seems to match many of them.
So I am interested to learn the exact workings of how Kodi (the addon) is querying filenames.
I am guessing there is some regex going on?
e.g. does it allow for dots and underscores?
Should the year always be between parentheses?
Will the regex matching stop after it found a closing parenthesis and ignore everything after it?
etc.

[Karellen]

Thanks for the quick action and replies Karellen!

Ok, so I need to do more investigating and testing these kind of addons. T.b.h. I didn't find it the most intuitive or well explained stuff to be honest.

Nothing really to investigate.
For Movies - Use The Movie Database Python scraper (default scraper)... https://kodi.wiki/view/Add-on:The_Movie_Database_Python
For TV Shows - Use either TMDB TV Shows (default scraper) or TVDB v4, depending on whether you prefer TMDB or TVDB data...
https://kodi.wiki/view/Add-on:TMDb_TV_Shows
https://kodi.wiki/view/Add-on:The_TVDB_v4

Kodi's panels and menus are filled with buttons that are begging to get clicked.

Yes because it is based on the 10-foot interface design. Big buttons so they can be seen clearly while sitting on your couch across the dark room as opposed to sitting at your desk with the screen an arms length away... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10-foot_user_interface
There are some Kodi skins that don't allow mouse use.
Hitting "esc" on your keyboard should bring you back to the previous screen.

Have you figured out the naming problems you are having? If you give some examples, I can tell you how to improve them.
If you think you are doing it right, but they still won't scrape, provide a Debug Log and I can check where it is going wrong.

[jistme]

No mouse required.

No, but it makes things a whole lot easier when setting up Kodi using a 'normal' computer.
(e.g. using remote desktop or, when learning to use Kodi on your regular pc)
Ah well, so we have different opinions on that.
And I am drifting off-topic with this mouse stuff.

[Karellen]

Some.movie.2015.720p.BluRay.DD5.1.x264.En-Spa.mkv

In the above example, the regex will start at left and move along until it hits the first set of numbers. It will see 2015 and expect this to be the year. Once it finds that, everything to the right is immediately discarded. Everything to the left is expected to be the movie title.
Sounds reasonable and you might think you can add anything after the year, until users stop putting the year in, so then it starts picking up 720 and tries to use that as the year or can't find the year so searches for a movie named Some.movie.2015.720p.BluRay.DD5.1.x264.En-Spa which does not exist, as no movie studio would ever name a move that way.

The best advice I can give you is...
1. Use movie folders and the folder name is absolutely clean -Some Movie (2015)
2. File names should be the same... Some Movie (2015).mkv
In the "Set Content" Screen, ensure you have selected Movies are in separate folders that match the movie title. This will then use the folder name for matching. If you need to, then you can add all that garbage to the filename and it won't affect scraping.
https://kodi.wiki/view/Adding_video_sources#Set_Content

[jistme]

Some.movie.2015.720p.BluRay.DD5.1.x264.En-Spa.mkv
1. In the above example, the regex will start at left and move along until it hits the first set of numbers. It will see 2015 and expect this to be the year. Once it finds that, everything to the right is immediately discarded.
2. Some.movie.2015.720p.BluRay.DD5.1.x264.En-Spa which does not exist, as no movie studio would ever name a move that way.

Isn't that a contradiction?
1. says that it will stop matching as soon as it found the year? (four digits in a row?)
So from the example, '.720' and everything after it  would be ignored?

The filenames often contain some useful information that I would like to keep.
So if the regex would work as I expect it would, that should not be a problem?

And what happens with a title such as e.g.:
"2001.A.Space.Odyssey.1968.2160p.BluRay.x265.10bit.5.1.mkv"
Or is it maybe required that the year is surrounded by parentheses for the scraper to recognise it as such?

It would be useful to know how this works exactly.
I could then use a bulk rename utility (using regex) to format all my movie files in one streak to the formatting that Kodi requires for this to work, and still keep all useful additional info in the filename.

[jistme]

You can't navigate to the file, but you can see where the file is in your folder structure...

I don't have that:


Are you sure there is not some keyboard shortcut for 'locate file'?

Also note that the title is missing at the top, only the year shows.
While the filename starts with: Blade Runner 2049 (2017)...
But hopefully that can be sorted out after it's cleared up what filename formatting is expected exactly.

[jistme]

Hmm, all this stuff is really spoiling the fun.
Clicking on an actor (with my mouse, sorry) does result in showing movies he acted in, but instead of the movie titles it just says '[Movie]'.



Is it really just me experiencing these problems?

[brazen1]

I am using Kodi 2.0 on Windows.

I think you meant Kodi v20 Nexus.

I was expecting I could e.g. right-click on such a wrongly identified movie. and select something like 'locate file'. So it leads me to the file/folder where I can make any necessary changes.
But I haven't been able to find that option.
How can I navigate to the folder location of a displayed movie?

What you expected and what features are available are two different things.  This feature has been requested and someday a contributing developer might add it.  In the mean time, as you were shown, focusing the 'Refresh' tab reveals where your title is located in Windows Explorer.  So, you will have to open Explorer and navigate to it.

I am guessing the reason for getting wrongly identified movies is the construction of the file name.

Yes, you are 100% correct.

Can the filename e.g. contain underscores, dots, or other info that doesn't directly pertain to the movie title?

Yes, it can contain as much info as you desire.  I too use a lot of info in my file names.  This not only helps me understand pertinent info glancing at the title but helps skins to display some of this metadata using visual icons which is also handy.

Clicking on an actor (with my mouse, sorry) does result in showing movies he acted in, but instead of the movie titles it just says '[Movie]'.

When Kodi looks at your collection searching for other titles the actor is in, it's going to display what it perceives you name those other titles.  And if they are incorrect, Kodi will show them incorrect.
 

When using a mouse, I am not able to find out where to click to return to a previous screen/menu.
Am I overlooking a 'back' button? Should I activate such a button option first?

I use a mouse from time to time with zero problems.  Probably depends on the quality of the mouse.  IE: I have 'back' mapped as one of the buttons not only to easily navigate Kodi but Windows as well.  That said, a common right click in Kodi will probably result in a 'back' action.

Should the year always be between parentheses?

In FOLDER names, YES, (which for some odd reason I don't think you're using even though Kodi allows a bunch of title files in one big ol' folder) but for FILE names NO.  Folder names should always be named exactly how the scraping website you choose names them.  99 times out of 100, your common sense will tell you how folder titles should be named.  File titles are best named with periods (.) between every info (metadata).  And your example - 2001.A.Space.Odyssey.1968.2160p.BluRay.x265.10bit.5.1.mkv should have no problem scraping.  

Are you sure there is not some keyboard shortcut for 'locate file'?

Yes, for sure there is not.

I don't have that:

You should.  It's present in the built-in Estuary skin and Aeon Nox Silvo I use.  I've also seen it in other skins because it's common. 
Perhaps post a link to a debug log for further investigation.

Hmm, all this stuff is really spoiling the fun.

All this stuff is the fun imo.  Because Kodi offers so much, it can be overwhelming for a new user.  The basic Kodi installs are as easy as it gets though.  The common features are simply part of the installation.  Everything is provided and fully working.  Problems arise when new users do not use official builds of Kodi and/or feed Kodi the wrong data.  In your case... how your titles are named afaik.
 

Is it really just me experiencing these problems?

No, just you and other users naming their titles incorrectly.  If titles are named correctly enough for scrapers to decipher them, you have more going on than we know.  A debug log will help figure that out if you provide one.

Just a piece of advice... Each of your titles is better off inside a dedicated folder for it instead of a bunch of titles inside one folder.  Yes, it's harder to do but a little effort goes a long way.

Here is a path - E:/My Collection of Movies/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)/2001.A.Space.Odyssey.1968.2160p.BluRay.x265.10bit.5.1.mkv

E:/My Collection of Movies - this is your hard drive and it has a main folder that contains your titles.
2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) - this is one of your movies and it's a folder within that main folder above ^.  You will have many folders each with its own title inside of them.
2001.A.Space.Odyssey.1968.2160p.BluRay.x265.10bit.5.1.mkv - this is the file inside the folder. 

In time, lots of other things will go inside these individual title folders too and you will be glad you organized now instead of later - imo.

[Klojum]

I don't have that:

Look for the differences...

In Karellen's screen image, the focus on the last button ("Refresh").
In your screen image, the focus is on the first button ("Play").

[jistme]

Look for the differences...
In Karellen's screen image, the focus on the last button ("Refresh").
In your screen image, the focus is on the first button ("Play").

Yeah, but I have no 'refresh' button. (and I also don't make the connection between a 'refresh' function' and showing a file path)
Maybe the blue arrow on the right should reveal a 'refresh' button?
I don't know, nothing happens when I click it.

[jistme]

...

Thanks for the detailed response brazen1!

At first glance there are quite a few things that I still don't understand or agree with, but I will digest what you wrote.
(e.g. I really don't understand why Kodi is showing the correct movies (artwork and years that is) when clicking an actor, but it can't figure out the title of the movies, and will just say [Movie])

Considering the responses are coming from experienced users I'll shut up for a while now, and see if I can figure things out and see if there are indeed things I should be doing differently.
Or I'll just keep using plain folder/file structures and my brain to decide on what movie I want to see tonight ;-)