Option to add additional custom genres to the databases, scrapers, & library filters?

jmarshall Wrote:That's the basic idea of the new library system, yes. Though you get a choice as to whether you wish to browse by folder structure or library structure.

Great. Is it open for discussion?

Can I ask what is the difference between browse by folder or library structure?

I saw only http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=51605 and had a feeling it is more about library overhaul with a possible migration to CouchDB, rather than adding a column to DB and using it as top level category filter.

either you see the fugly filesystem (browse by folder) or you see a neat library layout (browse by library).....

sho Wrote:Use movie sets and profiles for now.

http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Movie_Sets

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=61779

Thanks for links, I'm familiar with those threads. To be frank, solution for sets looks more likely as hack then XBMC feature.

Nevertheless, this proposal is not about me. Most of my needs is covered by existing files mode. It is rather about simplifying and consistency to improve XBMC user experience.

2 years ago I was on WMCE and using MyMovies content manager. It is a different approach which gives you a full control over content, but at a price - it is tiresome and time consuming.

I switched to XBMC because it platform independent, good looking and uses scrapers. But I found out that you can not easily control what is scraped or at least override scraper metadata and it is not easy to group your content. File mode can help, but has a few drawbacks.

Sure, you can use media managers, or all kinds of hacks:
- create custom categories through custom genres in nfo files
- put offline DVD collection numbers in plot tag, if you are using library
- put fake avi file with offline DVD number as a name, if using file view
- extract IPTC metadata as folders to imitate picture library
- etc..

But what about John Average? Maybe XBMC is not meant for John Average and in that case I have gone all astray.

XBMC sure is swiss army knife media center. But can we effectively use it or do we need another swiss army knife just to open it? I would like it simple but powerful.

you can talk all you want about what you want. it won't make it happen. send diffs!
we are humans with limited time on our hands. no devs have felt the need for most of those features YOU want.

all those "hacks" you listed are just peoples ingenious ways to do things we do not (yet) support

spiff Wrote:all those "hacks" you listed are just peoples ingenious ways to do things we do not (yet) support

Glad you like them, they are mine.

spiff Wrote:you can talk all you want about what you want. it won't make it happen. send diffs!
we are humans with limited time on our hands. no devs have felt the need for most of those features YOU want.

Wowowow! I wonder what triggered such a reaction!?

So no devs had felt need for sets and custom categories, none had felt a need for library improvements? Those are just MINE needs? Then I just misinterpreted what I had read in forums.

I think you did not pay much attention what I wrote, you just needed somebody to yell at

oh i read it perfectly fine. you come through as demanding ('i would want it blablabla', demeaning ('army knife blablabla') and whining ('poor me switched from mce and now it doesn't do what i want'). i yell when it is deserved, not out of a desire to do so.

i (and apparently not the ~ 2 other devs who have worked on the video library) have felt the need - cause then odds are good the features would be in there. back when i actually used xbmc (haven't had a working setup for months), the current library fit my needs perfectly - it did movies and shows and i didn't have to lift a finger. now, this is not me claiming it's perfect, it's me explaining why things are as they are.

however there is hope which i pointed out. for instance, we got the current set support through a third party submitted patch. i didn't say others don't want these features now did i? all i told you was that don't expect others to do the work for you. learn by history - i wanted a video library - hence i built it. somebody wanted sets - so they add it. now it's your time - you want feature foo - you add it.

I agree that adding custom categories other than movies and TV shows would be a great addition to the library (see posts 27 and down on this thread http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=62142&page=3); and could be accomplished by adding some functionality to the 'set content' menu.

The bottom line though (as spiff indicates as well) is that while I've seen several posts to this effect, someone is going to have to take the time to actually build the damn thing into XBMC or we are just going round and round in discussion.

I personally don't think I would use the category idea, so it would be a waste of my time to start researching ways to implement it; I'm more interested in the status of the PVR branch and MythTV at the moment. What we need is someone who not only wants the feature, but has the means to work on it.

robweber Wrote:I agree that adding custom categories other than movies and TV shows would be a great addition to the library (see posts 27 and down on this thread http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=62142&page=3); and could be accomplished by adding some functionality to the 'set content' menu.

Thanks for the link I completely missed that one.

However, if we ever happen to find someone with knowledge and will to improve existing library, I'm suggesting to consider:

- there is no need to complicate IU further (set content or home page)
- library could stay 95% as it is
- sets and categories could be used if one choose so
- there is no need for nfo files editing
- there is no need to separate library and file views
- it can be used with music/video/pictures

How:

- if found, directory structure is imported to DB
- directory names are used as custom tags (sets, categories)
- if found, user data are kept, NOT overwritten by scraper (*.jpg, *.nfo..)

In order to:

- One can have data in library organized as on disk, if one wants
- you do not have to use content managers to control your content
- you can group data as you like in all DB
- you are still able to use existing library tag filtering (artist, album, genre...)
- you do not have to choose but can have both (directory_names tags&library tags)

spiff Wrote:oh i read it perfectly fine. you come through as demanding ('i would want it blablabla', demeaning ('army knife blablabla') and whining ('poor me switched from mce and now it doesn't do what i want'). i yell when it is deserved, not out of a desire to do so.

Well, not quite. It's more like - since devs wrote thay consider library changes, 'would like to suggest blablabla' in order to use XBMC 'army knife blablabla' potential in a different way 'not by manually editing nfo's as I had to when I was on mce'.

Anyways, to cut the crap, I'm not a programmer and not tend to learn C at my age for the sole purpose of XBMC DB. I could try to write something in Perl, which would scan DIR structure and populate SQlite DB with 2 additional columns.

Problem is a) how to make them available to skin, b) this would work on Linux or Mac only, c) I would consider this rather as 'hack', d) <joke>You do not understand my English well, let alone my Perl </joke>

I've begun work on a very basic implementation of a category feature. I know I said I wouldn't be interested a few post back but I had some free time and wanted to play around with the source code. it is very basic, but working. Here is a link to the thread.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=64687