Solved Movie set management
#61
Well I think we need more opinions on this.
I still think current PR is a valid implementation and like it as it is for handling sets.
Let's put up a build for the users to try it out and get their response.
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#62
Yes I agree that that approach would be ideal but I see three (potential) problems with that:
  1. if you don't have "group movies into sets" enabled there's no way to know from the presentation of the items in the GUI if they already belong to a set and if so to which one
  2. if you have "group movies into sets" enabled and want to group together some movies that aren't part of a set and some that are currently part of a different set, you're gonna run into a problem with being able to select them all at the same time because some of them are hidden away behind a set item
  3. we are lacking the code to multi-select in a GUI listing and I doubt that it's something that is added very easily and quickly and it certainly involves more code than needed for option B right now
I just don't see why it hurts having it as an option as well. It's not like it will throw an unwanted dialog in your face. If you really really insist on dropping it, I'm ok with that FOR NOW but I'll be back with an extended dialog which IMO is much better suited for the use case of option B than the current multi-select dialog and would therefore also make it easier and more intuitive to do it that way. I know that that doesn't change the fact that it is the least intuitive way to do the work but it's certainly more efficient than option A.
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#63
B IMO only makes sense in the "Sets" node for which we really need a "add set" list item. I'd actually prefer this over A, but see the need for both.
That B doesn't make much sense in a movie node I agree, but the mixed movie/set list is a special case anyways and grouping by set has to be enabled in first place. In case it's disabled (which IIRC is default), B makes perfect sense just like for tags.
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#64
@Montellese: I agree with all three points. I think the first two show that trying to edit things really requires a listing of everything that you have, rather than some grouped list, or some vpanel/wrap/coverflow view don't really work for editing stuff.

And yes, it would be more code to allow lists to multi-select, primarily in controlling what to do when multiple items are selected and various context/actions are initiated. OT, but one thing that might make sense in the interim is to try and remember to code with this in mind for new context/actions - i.e. assume that there may be more than a single item involved.

My goal here isn't to ensure the feature is not added. Rather, it's to ensure that we add things in the best way possible, and if the only way to do it is a little bit clunky, then maybe the best thing is to just not provide the feature. In my opinion, mass editing of data is best done either with a touch device or with keyboard + mouse - a remote will always be a clunky way to do it. Sure, the odd change here and there can be done within the app as you stumble across things, but I don't think users expect to spend a lot of time inside XBMC fine-tuning metadata. Sometimes, then, it's best just to not bother with anything more than the basics, and instead let that mass editing be done in JSON-RPC clients and the like.

Cheers,
Jonathan
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#65
So where does that leave us? We know the tags GUI is clunky so that needs a bit of work to support a more intuitive mass editing. Montellese said he had something in the works so I did want to wait for that to be available. In the mean time we could throw the multi-selection in the way it is, and subsequently take the opportunity to improve both GUIs for tags and sets.
I'm in agreement with Martijn, da-anda, and Montellese that you need both A and B. Not all users are the same.
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#66
I like da-anda's idea of having the context menu item only enabled when you are in the sets node. Seems like the best of both worlds.
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#67
@jm - well, I've often been in the situation where the movie set didn't get imported correctly or where I forgot to add it to the nfo and I wished that I could simply fix it inside XBMC. In those cases I would have used A to fix it. But I have to say that managing sets via nfos just sucks and I'd rather prefer doing this in XBMC, so I'm also all for B.
I don't want to be forced to do this in a webbrowser or on a remote app. We can ofc provide those features there, but as a media center XBMC has to be useable in itself and out of the box, and not rely on other clients to be managed. Nor should it require a mouse or the context menu - it should work with the limited button set available via CEC or a limited remote (Cursors, ok, back and probably info).
Custom library nodes is another thing I'd like to be able to manage inside XBMC and not via XML hackery. This feature is also clunky to use, but it got injected (clunky because you have to duplicate default nodes and don't get updates on those + the location they have to be moved is odd IIRC).

I ofc agree that when we add a feature it should be done in best possible way from the beginning and not injected and hopefully be fixed later (which often won't happen at all). In this particular case otoh, we already have the clunky interface from the tags feature, so why not reuse this and fix both in one go then? IMO it's not part of this feature/PR to fix the tag interface/handling, but even with the a bit clunky interface it's better then missing completely.
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#68
Not to belittle the work done by anyone, but in my mind, nothing can beat how Add-on:XWMM (wiki) handled sets and other things. Unfortunately, movie sets management isn't working in the current test version of XWMM.

Using a web interface to manage these kinds of "not every day" management tasks is a fantastic idea. I mean, this is cool too, but from the discussion here it's apparent that XBMC's UI needs major rethinking if we want to manage such stuff from within XBMC.
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#69
(2013-04-04, 15:39)Ned Scott Wrote: Not to belittle the work done by anyone, but in my mind, nothing can beat how Add-on:XWMM (wiki) handled sets and other things. Unfortunately, movie sets management isn't working in the current test version of XWMM.

Using a web interface to manage these kinds of "not every day" management tasks is a fantastic idea. I mean, this is cool too, but from the discussion here it's apparent that XBMC's UI needs major rethinking if we want to manage such stuff from within XBMC.

The problem with that is XBMC does not have a web interface database editor built in & maintained as part of the core app, XWMM does a great job but slash disappeared from scene for quite a length of time and there is still no official Frodo version available with the full feature set of the Eden version.
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#70
and I would like to add that while add-ons are nice for the geeks who can/want to use them, mainstream users have the right too to perform some basic set manipulation.
The point is that not everyone has a tablet on the side to use the web interface. The ordinary user just wants to get things done from within the xbmc gui itself.
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#71
(2013-04-04, 18:03)Voyager Wrote: and I would like to add that while add-ons are nice for the geeks who can/want to use them, mainstream users have the right too to perform some basic set manipulation.
The point is that not everyone has a tablet on the side to use the web interface. The ordinary user just wants to get things done from within the xbmc gui itself.

Nice for geeks? XWMM is what I recommend for the ordinary user. Geeks can go edit their confusing NFO files.

Everyone has a web browser. Everyone. You don't have to have a tablet. At some point someone has to download or rip or somehow acquire a video file, put it on a hard drive, maybe rename it, etc. It's the same logic behind why we can't manually add videos to the library. XBMC (10-foot interface) isn't set up for that, but a computer (2-foot interface) is.

This Movie sets management is a great step in the right direction. I'm just pointing out that XBMC's UI needs a lot of work to be able to gracefully handle management tasks like this. I'm all for being able to do it within XBMC.

(2013-04-04, 17:19)jjd-uk Wrote: The problem with that is XBMC does not have a web interface database editor built in & maintained as part of the core app, XWMM does a great job but slash disappeared from scene for quite a length of time and there is still no official Frodo version available with the full feature set of the Eden version.

It's open source. Patches welcome :)

One person disappearing should never be a reason to dismiss an add-on like this when it is open source.
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#72
(2013-04-04, 19:06)Ned Scott Wrote: Everyone has a web browser. Everyone. You don't have to have a tablet. At some point someone has to download or rip or somehow acquire a video file, put it on a hard drive, maybe rename it, etc. It's the same logic behind why we can't manually add videos to the library. XBMC (10-foot interface) isn't set up for that, but a computer (2-foot interface) is.

I take that back, you don't need a tablet, but my point is that it's still a bit geeky, by average user standards, to use XWMM. I consider myself a geek and I'm *not* these media managers. I try to manage everything within the xbmc GUI, and for the very few things I can't do, I'm using SQLite Expert. Confused
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#73
(2013-04-04, 13:25)Ned Scott Wrote: I like da-anda's idea of having the context menu item only enabled when you are in the sets node. Seems like the best of both worlds.

Not sure I see what the benefit of this limitation would be. Right now the context item is sensitive to the item type, for any other type it does not show:

- Movies: For the selected movie, we allow to remove it from its current set, add to another set, add to a new set (the selection list contains sets)
- Sets: For the selected set, we allow add/remove movie members to the set (the select list contains movies)
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#74
(2013-04-04, 19:06)Ned Scott Wrote: It's open source. Patches welcome Smile

One person disappearing should never be a reason to dismiss an add-on like this when it is open source.

Perhaps you could supply the patches then Wink

All I'm saying is if database editing via JSON-RPC & a web interface is deemed to be the right way forward in future for stuff like movie set management, then IMHO it needs to be included with the XBMC core app and supported by the Team to ensure it is ready for the release of each version of XBMC.
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#75
Just to emphasize, I really do think the movie sets management, and then general idea of being able to do these things in XBMC, is the right direction. Hopefully in the future we'll have hammered out some additional standard UI elements/windows/whatever to help ease some of the UI limitations we currently face, but even with those limitations, this is great work.

Re: context menu, I have no strong feelings on it, to be honest. On one hand, I see the point in moving more things out of it, but it's also a perfect spot for when you do want to do something like this. XBMC seems to have a love/hate relationship with the context menu :)
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