[setupio]

Like for many other users the source of my video content is the directory of seeded torrent files, i.e. tree with two levels. As the torrents are active the tree structure and the name of folders and files (that is chosen somehow by someone) should not be changed. Some movies are placed to the folders and some not. And the Kodi is used to present that content in more or less visually attractive and convenient form. I suppose the case is quite typical.
It is obvious that the current Library structure is not compatible enough with the content described above, here are most serious problems:
1. (IMHO) The artificial content splitting into "Movies" and "TV series". What is the reason? What is the logical and practical difference say with two-part movie and series of five episodes? Why do we have different information providers plugins for movies and series? That separation in case of mixed content leads to the the need of manual specification of directory type and content scan. It is a big pain for hundreds of directories.
2. Absence of batch (what allows fast multiple items selection for same action like deleting) operation with library content. For instance as result of incorrect content scan I often get the large set of incorrectly associated "movies" instead of one series. I have to remove it one by one clicking (for TV box) <long press OK>, <select "Manage" from drop down menu>, <select "Remove" from drop down menu>, <choose "Yes" at the dialog box>, <press "Yes">. It is a nightmare.
3. "Series" are often recognized incorrectly so the list of episodes is empty. And there is no way to update int manually. Why? And that empty series are not shown in the list of series by default.
And so on.

Also there are many things that looks absolutely illogical. Look at the "TV Shows"/"Recently Added". The resulting list contains episodes of shows (in order of scanning) instead of expected list of recently added TV shows. I can not imagine the situation then I need that info. And so on.

The overall conclusion that this part of design must be completely redone.

[Klojum]

The artificial content splitting into "Movies" and "TV series". What is the reason? What is the logical and practical difference say with two-part movie and series of five episodes?

Movies do not have seasons but can be part of "collections".
TV shows have seasons and episodes, and sometimes specials.
The basis is quite different, and not easily stored in a relational database.

Why do we have different information providers plugins for movies and series?

Because each provider decides for itself what it will provide metadata for. Kodi is not commanding or ordering which metadata providers should collect, we can only make suggestions and deposit our wishes.

That separation in case of mixed content leads to the need of manual specification of directory type and content scan. It is a big pain for hundreds of directories.

Kodi has no intergalactic senses with which it can detect what video is which type. So the user will need to indicate this via separate root folders for each video type. It's a simple task you can do at the start of your media collection. It's hardly a "big pain" for user or computer, it's a logical setup with which scraping can be done quite efficiently.

Absence of batch (what allows fast multiple items selection for same action like deleting) operation with library content.

Batch actions are indeed not present. Should the user decide to remove multiple movies or tvshows, he can do so in an alternate manner: delete those files/folders manually using Kodi's File Manager or his own OS's File Manager, directly from his harddisk(s), and subsequently do a "Clean Video Library" action. That way the relevant entries will be removed from the Kodi library. On the one hand, all responsibility lies with the user, and on the other hand Kodi does not require foolproof delete routines (which is likely still a souvenir from the past).

"Series" are often recognized incorrectly so the list of episodes is empty. And there is no way to update int manually.

Both statements are wrong. In our experience, series that are not recognized are often incorrectly named or spelled. Double-checking yourself on the website of the used scraper (e.g. TheMovieDB.org) often gets you the correct name/spelling. Also, incorrectly scraped TV shows can be "refreshed" with a manual search selection.

Also there are many things that looks absolutely illogical. Look at the "TV Shows"/"Recently Added". The resulting list contains episodes of shows (in order of scanning) instead of expected list of recently added TV shows.

Episodes of TV shows are released very much mixed. Plenty of TV shows are releasing new episodes at the same time with different season and episodes. if you want a chronological listing of TV shows alone, then go to the TV shows listing, and adjust the sorting accordingly via the slide menu on the left.

I can not imagine the situation then I need that info.

Your assumption is apparently very different from that of most of our Kodi users.

The overall conclusion that this part of design must be completely redone.

As Kodi is totally "open-source" and since we ourselves are a bit short-staffed, we are looking forward to you providing us a "Pull Request" with all your enhancements and improvements of the Kodi application.

[setupio]

The artificial content splitting into "Movies" and "TV series". What is the reason? What is the logical and practical difference say with two-part movie and series of five episodes?

Movies do not have seasons but can be part of "collections".
TV shows have seasons and episodes, and sometimes specials.
The basis is quite different, and not easily stored in a relational database.

Try to look from the user point of view. When you decide what to watch tonight do you choose series or movie first? Or let's think about "Garry Potter". Is that series (one episode per season according to your terminology) or several movies? Let producers tell us. Anyway for me (and IMHO for many others) it is much convenient to treat it as series in spite of formal classification.
What does this have to do with the type of database? It is just implementation detail a user should not know about. Just keep two different tables and merge the result of queries in UI. Or treat a movie as degenerate case of series with one season and one episode (set the "true" value to the "movie" boolean field just to let the "view" know). Whatever. Of course if you are serious.
The main point that it is much more convenient for user to deal with one plain list of named "objects" to watch even if the "internal structure" ("Seasons") has a little difference.

Why do we have different information providers plugins for movies and series?

Because each provider decides for itself what it will provide metadata for. Kodi is not commanding or ordering which metadata providers should collect, we can only make suggestions and deposit our wishes

Do you mean that there are two tvdbs? One for movie and one for series? Or do you mean that the internal request format are different? This question is strongly related with the previous. The same logic here.

That separation in case of mixed content leads to the need of manual specification of directory type and content scan. It is a big pain for hundreds of directories.

Kodi has no intergalactic senses with which it can detect what video is which type. So the user will need to indicate this via separate root folders for each video type. It's a simple task you can do at the start of your media collection. It's hardly a "big pain" for user or computer, it's a logical setup with which scraping can be done quite efficiently.

Indeed. And I spent a first paragraph to explain that sometimes (IMHO quite often) it is impossible to have separate folder for different "types" of videos. And no need in intergalactic senses to read it (or better to predict that before developing). The Kodi is absolutely inconvenient in that case. And the main point here that in general there is no need to know the "type" of video before scanning the external data base. If the movie is found for given name then mark it "movie" if series then mark it accordingly and try to get episodes info (and so on, and ask the user to resolve ambiguities). Ok, if it sounds as a rocket science, just give the user a chance to mark subfolders before scanning of the main source directory. Whatever, but take into account the "mixed" source scenario somehow.

Absence of batch (what allows fast multiple items selection for same action like deleting) operation with library content.

Batch actions are indeed not present. Should the user decide to remove multiple movies or tvshows, he can do so in an alternate manner: delete those files/folders manually using Kodi's File Manager or his own OS's File Manager, directly from his harddisk(s), and subsequently do a "Clean Video Library" action. That way the relevant entries will be removed from the Kodi library. On the one hand, all responsibility lies with the user, and on the other hand Kodi does not require foolproof delete routines (which is likely still a souvenir from the past).

I am talking about batch actions for the library's items not for files. And I have provided the real life scenario in the initial question.

"Series" are often recognized incorrectly so the list of episodes is empty. And there is no way to update it manually.

Both statements are wrong. In our experience, series that are not recognized are often incorrectly named or spelled. Double-checking yourself on the website of the used scraper (e.g. TheMovieDB.org) often gets you the correct name/spelling. Also, incorrectly scraped TV shows can be "refreshed" with a manual search selection.

Again, read the first paragraph of the initial question. It is impossible (you would spoil the torrent) to rename it (does not matter the mistake or not). In the real life you are often dealing with something like "BBC.Life.01.Challenges.of.Life.BDRip.1080p.mkv" where the "Challenges" is the right name of an episode (and "01" is the sequential number). If the given parser is not smart enough to extract an episode name then give it a chance to do it manually (as it possible for series/movies names).
The need to navigate such collections is one of the reason to use Kodi. If it is possible to make clear and logical file structure than there is no need in Kodi, just the file the system with any good video player do the job.

Also there are many things that looks absolutely illogical. Look at the "TV Shows"/"Recently Added". The resulting list contains episodes of shows (in order of scanning) instead of expected list of recently added TV shows.

Episodes of TV shows are released very much mixed. Plenty of TV shows are releasing new episodes at the same time with different season and episodes. if you want a chronological listing of TV shows alone, then go to the TV shows listing, and adjust the sorting accordingly via the slide menu on the left.

Ok. Here you a probably right. Actually never thought about house wives who may view several different shows per day. They actually may need it.

I can not imagine the situation then I need that info.

Your assumption is apparently very different from that of most of our Kodi users.

The overall conclusion that this part of design must be completely redone.

As Kodi is totally "open-source" and since we ourselves are a bit short-staffed, we are looking forward to you providing us a "Pull Request" with all your enhancements and improvements of the Kodi application.

Just do not confuse my opinion about that part the product with an order to do something. Better think that I have tested it for free and spend time for report no one force you to read (most of the user I know just install something else silently without reporting).

[Klojum]

Better think that I have tested it for free and spend time for report

In case you forgot, XBMC and later Kodi have been developed and released for free for 15+ years. So that would be a BS argument on your part.

no one force you to read

I have given it my time as you have noticed. But with the undertone on that line, I think I've done enough by now.

most of the user I know just install something else silently without reporting.

Most of the users of Kodi (which are millions worldwide) have no problems in using and navigating Kodi. What you are asking will require a more than a total overhaul of the Kodi ecosystem: database as well as all internals, not to mention the majority (if not all) add-ons that are written for Kodi. Basically, a new application. I'm not saying that Kodi is perfect, there is certainly room for improvement. But given the current situation, I don't see that massive overhaul happening in the foreseeable future...

[setupio]

Better think that I have tested it for free and spend time for report

In case you forgot, XBMC and later Kodi have been developed and released for free for 15+ years. So that would be a BS argument on your part.

no one force you to read

I have given it my time as you have noticed. But with the undertone on that line, I think I've done enough by now.

You started that kind of rhetoric (including the suggestion to start a participation in the project from committing the changes that are "more than a total overhaul" in your own words and even without prior design and discussion of the desired UI), not me.

most of the user I know just install something else silently without reporting.

Most of the users of Kodi (which are millions worldwide) have no problems in using and navigating Kodi. What you are asking will require a more than a total overhaul of the Kodi ecosystem: database as well as all internals, not to mention the majority (if not all) add-ons that are written for Kodi. Basically, a new application. I'm not saying that Kodi is perfect, there is certainly room for improvement. But given the current situation, I don't see that massive overhaul happening in the foreseeable future...

Any proof? May be voting (that includes not only the "happy customers")? It looks like a variation of survivorship bias.
All I can say after 30 years of software development is that if a software engineer decide how the modern UI should look basing on the internal database structure (made by someone 15 years ago) it means that everything has gone wrong. And the approach itself is fundamentally wrong.
BTW, even with the current DB structure nothing prevents from adding to the series the episodes that are not recognized. Just a "Add unrecognized episodes" checkbox in the "Set content" dialog. Or even the same manual scenario that is used for series name but applied to the episodes.

[Karellen]

Any proof? May be voting (that includes not only the "happy customers")?

Do you have any proof that it is not??

Series" are often recognized incorrectly so the list of episodes is empty. And there is no way to update int manually

Well, if the list of episodes is empty, it means there is something wrong with the numbering of the episode files. And because you state you use torrent seeds, then it is definitely a problem with your naming. It is your problem, not Kodi's problem. This software is distributed as is.

All I can say is, If Kodi does not suit your needs, then you should find some other media manager that is more suited. And if you have time, let us know which media centre out there is designed as you describe above.

As for the claim that many users have a seeded torrent setup, I can disagree with you. Look at my post count. I have looked at thousands of logs over the years, and I can count on one hand how many of those use seed files as Sources. Why? Because it is not suited- file naming is wrong as well as required folder structure. And we are certainly not going to redesign Kodi to suit a predominately piracy setup.

I am not sure if you are stating that you have 30 years of software development, or if that is a general comment. But if you claim to have that experience, then your posts above lead me to disbelieve that claim.

BTW, even with the current DB structure nothing prevents from adding to the series the episodes that are not recognized.

It is possible to do so. If you would like to write a "Local File" scraper, then that issue will be solved. Other users have written that scraper for v18, but they never updated it to work with Python3 in v19 and later. Here's your chance to put that experience to work and become a contributing member, rather than a complainer.

[setupio]

Any proof? May be voting (that includes not only the "happy customers")?

Do you have any proof that it is not??

It is just a typical sophism. Instead of proving the original statement, you are asking for proof to the contrary (with ignoring the survivorship bias argument).

Series" are often recognized incorrectly so the list of episodes is empty. And there is no way to update it manually

Well, if the list of episodes is empty, it means there is something wrong with the numbering of the episode files. And because you state you use torrent seeds, then it is definitely a problem with your naming. It is your problem, not Kodi's problem. This software is distributed as is.

It was obvious starting from the first paragraph of initial post. And besides, I repeated it again specially to your colleague above. Why are you reiterating it to me? It seems that you and your colleague are just talking to yourselves.

All I can say is, If Kodi does not suit your needs, then you should find some other media manager that is more suited. And if you have time, let us know which media centre out there is designed as you describe above.

Actually it us universal workaround even for the app that is not even starting. I.e. senseless.

As for the claim that many users have a seeded torrent setup, I can disagree with you. Look at my post count. I have looked at thousands of logs over the years, and I can count on one hand how many of those use seed files as Sources. Why? Because it is not suited- file naming is wrong as well as required folder structure. And we are certainly not going to redesign Kodi to suit a predominately piracy setup.

First, the problem is that by "users" here you obviously mean something like "Kodi users participating that forum". But I mean (obviously I suppose) any video content users who need to organize the video library without touching a file system. So you are talking with yourself again.
Second, which "redesign" are you currently mean? Roughly my suggestion consists of two parts: removing movie/series division and providing a fallback to fix the the incorrect episodes naming via Kodi UI (without touching file system  or using external managers) with minor UI addition related with "batch" library operations. If you are talking about first part it does not strongly related with predefined "mixed" content. It follows from the general usage scenario (see "Garry Potter" above). Second part is even semi-implemented: it is possible to supply the name for move/series manually (if not unrecognized). And at the same time it is not possible for episodes. Why? Logic gap? And what kind of piracy are you talking about? Is that another logic problem? (Like "Torrents are used by pirates so all torrents are illegal"? Are you sure you want to discuss that?)

I am not sure if you are stating that you have 30 years of software development, or if that is a general comment. But if you claim to have that experience, then your posts above lead me to disbelieve that claim.

I don't think anyone cares if you're sure or not. Your level of understanding of your opponent and your argument's level (combined with your avatar), also forms, say, a very specific portrait (about that I have great doubts about having any experience). But who cares? If you are really interested you may provide a responsible (in terms of non-disclosure of personal data) third party with obligation to post the results here and I will provide them my Linkedin account, CV, diploma degrees, officially documented employment history, etc. to confirm the statement.

BTW, even with the current DB structure nothing prevents from adding to the series the episodes that are not recognized.

It is possible to do so. If you would like to write a "Local File" scraper, then that issue will be solved. Other users have written that scraper for v18, but they never updated it to work with Python3 in v19 and later. Here's your chance to put that experience to work and become a contributing member, rather than a complainer.

It looks like a worst solution. So again. The current UI already provides a fallback for unrecognized movies/series names that allows to get the movie description from public DB. It looks cheaper to implement the same scenario for episodes at UI level (I suppose) that allows to get episodes description than implementing the local scrapper stub.

[Karellen]

@setupio

Thanks for your comments regarding the direction Kodi should have taken. Most of the team has read the thread and are aware of your expectations.

It is not a direction the project will take in the foreseeable future, as such I will close this thread as nothing more of value can really be added.