jmarshall Wrote:jmarshall Wrote:I think what we're moving to is a single view for library + files that shows everything in a unified way.
IMO the scanning function needs splitting in to two:
1. Scan local information only (file tags where appropriate, + nfo xml files + thumbs + fanarts etc.) into the database.
2. Scan the newly added files in the database for online information.
Step 1 ensures that all the user's videos are in the db, and all the information is correct.
Step 2 obtains additional info (if the user wishes to have it), and can be backgrounded completely.
I am in 100% agreement with that.
Something similar has been discussed before here =>
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=30161
All files should first go into the database, no matter if they can be looked up online or not, (if not they just display the file-name).
I believe that
MeediOS does something like this(?), ...I have not used
MeediOS myself but I understand that they do not even have a 'file-mode', instead they scan in all file-names into the database and just display the file-name in library-mode if no meta data could be found online by their scrapers, (
MeediOS call their 'scrapers' for "importers" by the way, but their purpose is the same as the scrapers in XBMC).
Jeroen Wrote:Talking about adding media for instance there are two scenarios I was thinking about.
The first:
- User is asked to locate the folders he/she wants to add. When a folder is chosen, the user could be asked to indicate which type of content the folder contains. For example:
This folder contains:
O movies O tvshows O musicvideos O music O other
The O's being checkmarks
The scrapers are set according to these choices. Anything marked as "other" will not be scraped.
Boxee have removed the "Add Source" option under each section and replaced it with something almost exactly like that with only one "Add Sources" under settings as a single point of adding new sources, with the difference that they only have 'videos', 'audio', and 'pictures' as the options because they eliminate the last step to "Set Content" and scraper as they instead have tried to automate that part (doing so by a more advanced scanning algorithm which try to detect what type of media it in that source, though IMHO not doing a terrific job with this method, but
Boxee is still only Alpha so they have yet time to better it).
So if XBMC would do something similar then I think it should have a few more options like you suggest to make setting content easier:
() Adult Movies, () Movies, () TV Shows, () Music Videos, () Music, () Pictures, () Other Audio Files, () Other Video Files, () Other
...and in the future we might add additional genres/subgenres in scrapers and the video library database, see =>
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=33710
Again allowing a mixing of file-mode and library-mode in a new view mode which display them mixed together, similar to what
Boxee does but more towards XBMC's library-mode with added files that could not be looked up on the internet
The-Boxhead Wrote:Another thing i think would be nice is the "real" dummy options in wizards. Like not even browsing for sources. Instead just do either a "fast" media search or a "slow" search. the slow option would search all available stations (C:F:G:H, whatever it finds) for both video and music related files - when done it will automatically make libraries without any user intervention. The fast option would only search current user "documents" for media files. (on windows platforms at least)
Again,
Boxee does something similar to that today, (or at least it tried to do it). IMHO this method is not yet mature enough, so I still think that XBMC should at least give the user the option to specify the content type when adding a new source, that way he/she can try to specify the content as Adult Movies, Movies, TV Shows, Music Videos, Music, Pictures, Other Audio Files, Other Video Files, or otherwise they could pick a "I do not know (attempt to do an auto-detect scan)" option, ...and again in the future we might have additional genres/subgenres in scrapers and the video library database, see =>
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=33710