[da-anda]

Hey there,

at first I also was one of the guys that wanted XBMC to index my "offline" media by indexing inserted discs. Now I'm also more a fan of having fake files for the case you have to recreate your library. So I like your idea of having 0-byte files with special file type suffixes like ".dvd", ".hddvd" and ".bluray" (is there a need to limit it to 3 letters?).
But - additionally to that, it should be possible to bind the disc label to that file - be it by naming the dummy file like that, or better by adding a dedicated field to the nfo files and in the DB. So like one of the pending patches adding label support IIRC.
For private video collections this would ease things up if the prompt is telling you "Please insert the disc labeld 'Holiday-3'".

By having label support, it should also be possible to index inserted discs - so the dummy-file approach doesn't have to exclude the indexing stuff. I could even imagine that there could be an option to autocreate such dummy files, be it while indexing a inserted disc (would be nice for indexing a single new movie), or via a DB export.
Binding the disc labels/IDs to the offline movies would also have the benefit, that XBMC could show the correct movie infos, posters and fanarts for the inserted discs when in file mode.



While thinking about that feature and the dialog box lately the following idea came into my mind. Wouldn't it be nice if there would a option like:
"While you're searching, would you like to:
- listen to music (using some defined playlist)
- watch the trailer
"
Best would be if those options could be added/modified using addons.

The same options could then be provided for WOL devices while you have to wait for them to become ready (once the WOL feature is implemented nicely in the GUI, but that's a different story).