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Movie Sets Collection Grouping for Video Database Library Custom Sort Order Filters?
#1
Lightbulb 
Is there a way of forcing movies into a group for them to be displayed in a specific sort order without renaming them?

Example, I have the Die Hard series:
Die Hard
Die Harder
Die Hard: With A Vengeance
Live Free, Die Hard

The first three get put next to one another, and due to the naming even in the right order, the last one is nowhere near these due to starting with an L.


Another example would be the Alien 'quadrilogy' which goes:
Alien
Aliens
Alien 3
Alien Resurrection

Which today is displayed in XBMC in the wrong sort order:
Alien
Alien 3
Alien Resurrection
Aliens


Other examples of other such 'groups' or "series' are; Alien, Dirty Harry, Indiana Jones, James Bond (007), Star Wars, Rambo, and Planet Of The Apes.

Anyone know a good method of doing this? it's not exactly important, but just for the aesthetic value Smile
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#2
nope. all you can do is alter the name to make them ordered the way you want.
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#3
you know what would be cool, would be a sort name field in the db. i previously used meedio and along with dvd profiler (its a program that keeps track of your dvds) it would do what you wanted. dvd profiler keeps two names title name (actual displayed movie name) and sort name (a seperate name used for sorting the order of the listing).

so the title name would be aliens and the sort name would be alien 2. this way your movies would be displayed in the proper order while maintaining their correct name.

i wonder if there's a way to import an xml into the db?
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#4
of course you can... you just need to code it up. the database schema is not complex. you just need to use the xbmc compatible sqlite.dll (since we modified the source code slightly.)

regarding the sort issue... your solution is simple enough to implement. its a nice little project to start someone off coding for xbmc. i'll even outline what needs to be done:

- modify the movieinfo database to include the new "sorttitle" field (defaulting to a null string)
- add a method to the videodatabase to allow writing the sorttitle into the database.
- make sure the other video db methods take this new field into account (getdetails, addmovie, getmovie*, etc)
- add this new field to the cimdbmovie class for use
- modify the cguiwindowvideotitle sort routine to allow sorting by this name if its not a null string
- add an option to the title view context menu to allow setting the sort name.
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Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
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#5
my number two request for the movie database (sorry guys, i don't mean to sound like i am whining about it!Wink.

i would like a method of sorting videos that can be hidden somehow. as i mentioned in another post, i have trouble with certain movies, sequels or trilogies etc, that don't have concurrent names. before, i gave the example of the alien quadrilogy, which always comes up in the wrong order.

as it stands now, the only way to get them in order is to rename them, which works fine. the only trouble is that the titles become incorrect. which as a purist, is a problem for me Smile

what am proposing is... that i can rename a movie for the purpose of sorting, but that those edits are not shown when sorting. if i have lost anyone, i will try to explain.

i had to rename my indiana jones trilogy inside the database in order to get them to display in the correct order.

for example:

indiana jones (1) and the raiders of the lost ark.
indiana jones (2) and the temple of doom.
indiana jones (3) and the last crusade.

ugly huh? what i would like is basically to be able to sort the tiles like this, but hide whatever's in the brackets.

or, be able to name them like this in the database, but pull the actual title from the xml file.

hope that makes sense.
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#6
Quote:having over 100 movies in the database and adding new ones all the time would make that difficult imho.
on the contrary, it wouldnt be difficult to use at all, based off what i outlined earlier. by default, custom would use the "official" title, unless an alternate title was added by the user. (i'd expect that the keyboard entry field would start out with the official title so that it could be modified accordingly.) after an alternate is supplied, the alternate title would be substituted when the list is sorted. the alternate name would be completely hidden, and only used during the custom sort method.

but i must add that i feel this feature would be somewhat useless for the vast majority of users. you're just complaining because you see the true title sort as incorrect and not aestetically pleasing for a small subset of movies.

(not that there's anything wrong with that. you're more then welcome to your oppinion like everyone else.)



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Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.
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#7
sorry about that then, i misunderstood what you meant.

what you are proposing sounds absolutely perfect to me. although, i understand your point that it might be useless to a lot of users. in which case, of course it is up to the developers to do what they feel is right. i am happy with the way it's set up at the moment... like you say, i only want it for the aesthetic value.

having said that though, i do just want to say, that i am really not complaining. i don't see anything 'incorrect' with what xbmc does at the moment. in my first post on this topic, i just asked for a manual method of sorting them if it existed. as it didn't, i suggested it. please don't think i am being an arse about it.
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#8
heh... not at all.  you're just expressing your opinion and offering an idea to enhance xmbc to circumvent a minor issue you're experiencing.  ideas are always welcome, but not always implemented.

while we continue to discuss the future of the video database views in the other thread, im keeping this in the back of my mind.  its not hard to implement.  while i am questioning its value, i'm also thinking that the original suggestion may be the answer.

instead of adding a custom sort to the list, we could make title sort just use the alternate name directly.  the database would be upgraded to include the new field, defaulting to a null string.  there would be no way for the average user to create the alternate name, but advanced users would be welcome to modify their database and add alternate names to those that they feel need it.

so, in your example, you could simply give your indy movies alternate names of:

indiana jones 1
indiana jones 2
indiana jones 3
indiana jones 4

these alternate names would be completely hidden, and only used when the list is sorted by title to put them in the order that you see fit.



Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.
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#9
Sorry to bump such an old thread, but I would like to reiterate this request. There are so many scenarios where this would be useful. Not to mention that it would add quite a bit of flexibilty to XBMC as users could now sort titles however they want without having incorrect movie names displayed..

Meedio and SageTV had a seperate sort name in their db. So does a lot of DVD cataloging software like DVD profiler and Ant Movie Catalog. I believe even the My Videos plugin fro MCE has it. I'm not naming these apps to show any inferiority of XBMC, I'm just trying to show that it's a useful enough feature for other programs to include.
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#10
I think that this would be a nice feature as well.

Would it be possible to override the default order by just having as simple file in the desired directory? Say a file titled "order.xml" present in the directory with files that you want reordered.

the structure of the file would be (please forgive my lack of programming skills)

Code:
<group>
   <file>"indiana jones and the raiders of the lost ark.avi"</file>
      <pos>1</pos>
   <file>"indiana jones and the temple of doom.avi"</file>
      <pos>2</pos>
   <file>"indiana jones and the last crusade.avi</file>
      <pos>3</pos>
</group>
<group>
   <file>"alien.avi"</file>
      <pos>1</pos>
   <file>"aliens.avi"</file>
      <pos>2</pos>
</group>

I really don't know much about xml but would a format like that be possible (and fast?)
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#11
This would be a pretty neat addition....I don't care that much about sequels that are separated anyway, but when they're already grouped right together but out of order (like the lord of the rings trilogy goes Fellowship, Return of the king, the two towers) it would be nice to be able to change that. It just feels wrong haha
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#12
Lightbulb 
I looked around and searched and didn't find anything like this suggested. I realize it's probably a lot of work, but something for a future version perhaps...

What I was thinking about is a movie grouping option for the video library. Right now it sorts alphabetically by movie title, and yes I could change the movie title to put the 'series' or 'group' name in front so it will sort, but it would rock if we could add them to a group.

Example...

I have the Die Hard series...

Die Hard
Die Harder
Die Hard: With A Vengeance
Live Free, Die Hard

The first three get put next to one another, and due to the naming even in the right order, the last one is nowhere near these due to starting with an L.

Examples of other such 'groups' or "series' (usually epic sagas that are followed by each other) are; Alien, Dirty Harry, Fast and Furious, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Grindhouse (Death Proof and Planet Terror), James Bond (007), Lord Of The Rings, Star Wars, Transporter, Rambo, Planet Of The Apes, Sällskapsresan, Jump London and Jump Britain.


If we could create movie 'groups' or 'series' and then attach the movies to these groups and order them in the correct order.

As far as sorting goes, if the movies are in a group, it should insert the group alphabetically with the rest of the movies, and then just order the movies based on the order they're set up inside the group or series.

That way it would show like so:

A Movie, B Movie, C Movie, Die Hard, Die Harder, Die Hard: With a Vengeance, Live Free Die Hard, E Movie, F Movie, G Movie, etc...


If people want them in true alphabetical order, they just leave them without a group, if they want to sort them like this, then they create a group for them, so it can be done either way.

Again, I appreciate all the work that Team-XBMC does, I realize this would take quite a bit of coding and additions to the databases and interfaces, but it would be a pretty cool feature.
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#13
I think there's a sortorder field in the db already - maybe only for tvshows, I'm not sure.

That would be the way I would do it at least, though it would require you the user to edit the database manually, or use a .nfo file for importing.
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.


Image
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#14
I would love this feature and have requested it before (along with others). I'll have to check the db when I get home. If there is no sortorder field in the db for movies would you be kind enough to add one?
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#15
@ jmarshall - I can't tell if there is a sortorder field or not. All the field labels have nondescript names like c00, c01, c02, etc. Some fields are completely empty so maybe one is the sort order, but I can't tell.

Is there any way you can tell if any of the empty fields is for sort order? If none are, could you please add it?

On another note... Why don't the field labels have descriptive names?
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Movie Sets Collection Grouping for Video Database Library Custom Sort Order Filters?3