2008-08-28, 17:54
First, I want to clarify a previous misunderstanding:
When I said "at least for me, library mode is completely broken and cannot even be mended", I didn't mean it to say "my opinion is that library mode is broken", but "for my (very personal and particular way of) using of my movies collection, library mode is broken", its because of that that in the end I say library mode is almost perfect for a certain, more general, use. Hope that nobody got offended for my too ambiguous sentence.
But even so, me saying that cannot be mended was maybe too premature, since with my recently acquired knowledge about scrapers, I have the inspiration that some of the things that bug my particular use of library mode can be corrected.
Well this particular solution I propose would require, to be properly implemented, some changes in code (to include some more fields in the db like <tag></tag> and some more), but since it is really a hack, it can be hammered in the current, pre-atlantis structure. I will tell the general idea before considering actual implementation.
First, we need some places to insert information in the db. All of the fields are interesting and important, but I feel we can consolidate <tagline>, <outline> and <plot> all together in the <plot> field (in fact, even before this I planned to put <outline> or <tagline>, when there is one, in the <plot> field for movies with an empty <plot>....).
Then, since the IMDB genres are (IMHO) too general, I would put them in the <tagline>. They will be show in "movie info" window so you can know what IMDB thinks about the movie but will not be used in navigation.
So we have now free the multi-instance field of <genre>, and we populate it according to the source. For example, a directory that contains original version subtitled comedies will have <genre>OVS Comedy</genre><genre>OVS Movies</genre>; for the kids' movies directory, it will contain <genre>Kids' movies</genre> and so on. So, navigation by genre is in fact like navigation in directories. I have my movie collection carefully classified in directories and all that clasification gets lost in library mode... not anymore thanks to this hack!
This could solve my 1), 2) and 5) complaints about library mode in my original post. 3) is not so much an issue since you have an alternative navigation. To address 4) [that was that the file may be offline], I could use <outline> tag to insert information like "This movie is in USB disk #4, please connect it to watch the movie" or "This movie is in the 'Vintage' server, please turn it on with the Wake On LAN script if necessary". Not a perfect solution (a script that automatically runs before starting the movie and that shows a dialog if necessary, even waking the destination server, would be much more nice) but a solution nevertheless.
Now, to actual implementation. In pre-atlantis time, the info could be inserted using "settings" of special-made scrapers; I do not know if that can be since I have not yet started the study of scrapers' settings, but I know for sure that another, much more ugly solution, is to create a copy of the appropriate scraper for each source that has the <genre> etc tags harcoded.
In post-atlantis time, the sky is the limit if the programmers want: new fields like the proposed <tag> can be created, an "advanced" windows in "movie info" could exist to enter specific information or to re-scrape a movie with a specific scraper, "partial" scrapers may exist that simply add info to a movie or source in addition to the existing one...
airyphary,214284 Wrote:"Completely broken" is incredibly harsh, not to mention not true. Just because something is not perfect/appropriate to you doesn't make it broken and unmendable.
When I said "at least for me, library mode is completely broken and cannot even be mended", I didn't mean it to say "my opinion is that library mode is broken", but "for my (very personal and particular way of) using of my movies collection, library mode is broken", its because of that that in the end I say library mode is almost perfect for a certain, more general, use. Hope that nobody got offended for my too ambiguous sentence.
But even so, me saying that cannot be mended was maybe too premature, since with my recently acquired knowledge about scrapers, I have the inspiration that some of the things that bug my particular use of library mode can be corrected.
kraqh3d Wrote:regardless, xbmc is in a feature freeze so nothing is going to change for a bit, and even if its does, it may not do what you want. but since xbmc is fully open source, you are always welcome and encouraged to make changes to suit your own needs, and submit patches.
Well this particular solution I propose would require, to be properly implemented, some changes in code (to include some more fields in the db like <tag></tag> and some more), but since it is really a hack, it can be hammered in the current, pre-atlantis structure. I will tell the general idea before considering actual implementation.
First, we need some places to insert information in the db. All of the fields are interesting and important, but I feel we can consolidate <tagline>, <outline> and <plot> all together in the <plot> field (in fact, even before this I planned to put <outline> or <tagline>, when there is one, in the <plot> field for movies with an empty <plot>....).
Then, since the IMDB genres are (IMHO) too general, I would put them in the <tagline>. They will be show in "movie info" window so you can know what IMDB thinks about the movie but will not be used in navigation.
So we have now free the multi-instance field of <genre>, and we populate it according to the source. For example, a directory that contains original version subtitled comedies will have <genre>OVS Comedy</genre><genre>OVS Movies</genre>; for the kids' movies directory, it will contain <genre>Kids' movies</genre> and so on. So, navigation by genre is in fact like navigation in directories. I have my movie collection carefully classified in directories and all that clasification gets lost in library mode... not anymore thanks to this hack!
This could solve my 1), 2) and 5) complaints about library mode in my original post. 3) is not so much an issue since you have an alternative navigation. To address 4) [that was that the file may be offline], I could use <outline> tag to insert information like "This movie is in USB disk #4, please connect it to watch the movie" or "This movie is in the 'Vintage' server, please turn it on with the Wake On LAN script if necessary". Not a perfect solution (a script that automatically runs before starting the movie and that shows a dialog if necessary, even waking the destination server, would be much more nice) but a solution nevertheless.
Now, to actual implementation. In pre-atlantis time, the info could be inserted using "settings" of special-made scrapers; I do not know if that can be since I have not yet started the study of scrapers' settings, but I know for sure that another, much more ugly solution, is to create a copy of the appropriate scraper for each source that has the <genre> etc tags harcoded.
In post-atlantis time, the sky is the limit if the programmers want: new fields like the proposed <tag> can be created, an "advanced" windows in "movie info" could exist to enter specific information or to re-scrape a movie with a specific scraper, "partial" scrapers may exist that simply add info to a movie or source in addition to the existing one...
