Video library redesign idea - How can we improve Smart Playlists, aka Filtered Lists?

As some guys have mentioned, the actors category is useless if you have thousands of actors. As you said in the first post, a search function would be alot better or sub categories with all starting letters (including "View All Actors" submenu)

Basically I have used XBMC since it came out on the xbox. I got my xbox chipped as soon as I could and got XBMC on it as soon as i could and have since moved to pc while still keeping the xbox going as well.

Have seen how it has progressed and tried many of the different features.
I make a point of trying everything and seeing how it works and if it is feasible to use and show my technophobe friends and family how to use.

I use the Library 90% of the time, and 10% of the time i use videos so i can access my latest additions to my collection (1000+ movies, 90+ TV series complete and still growing) which to begin with are located in a single folder till i get the chance to sort them in to my folder structure.

As to the genres and how I sort, well I dont really use genres as I find that most of my friends and family get themselves confused trying to navigate them and getting back to where they were.

I mainly use Movies & TV, title, sorted by year descending so that the newest movies & episodes are first in the queue, as that is what they are after.

I would like to be able to switch it to actors and instead of getting a big huge list of actors that are alphabetical, but have it so it is self sorted to have the actors that are in most of your collection at the top of the list.

For example if I have 90 movies with Bruce Willis and 40 of Angelina Joleline, Bruce would be listed before Angelina.
Have the Library adjust itself to match as you collection changes and grows.


Another nice to have would be to have the option to have the Library organise your collection (like ITunes) in the folders and even maybe rename function to get rid of all the xvid and klaxxon etc in the file and folder names. Maybe even have it so you can have one folder to put all new stuff into and then as the library scans it in, have it move the files from the start folder to either your TV or Movie folders and then into their sub folders of seasons for tv or genres for movies .
This would also make it easier to see what does not get scanned into the library as it will just stay sitting in the start folder.

Cause as I mentioned above all mine goes into the one folder first and sits there till i have time to sort it, as my flatmates do not do this. Also you can not set a single folder to be both movie and TV, it can only be the one. Which makes it annoying to watch new stuff that is not scanned in and do not have time to sort. As i normally have videos hidden in the main menu and only use movies and TV showing on the everyone profile. Videos only shows on my profile. The everyone profile is locked down so people do not change things by accident, have had it happen before, movies deleted and such, due to people not reading what comes up on the screen.


This is just my two cents worth and would love to see it implemented if it is possible.

If there is away to do some of this already please let me know.

Also i like the idea of box sets.

Is there some plan to implement some ideas from this thread?

Or at least option to select movies >(right arrow) for kids, hd
[for kids and hd are may own 'libraries']
or something similar.

I know this thread is old, but I wanted to post my uses/ideas anyways. And some wishlist items.

First off, I use a mysql backend, its awesome. Sharing a library on multiple machines is amazing for my house.

1) I browse by Show or Recently Added exclusively, I don't use any of the other categories.
2) I would love to be able to split my library into things my GF watches, but I never watch, keep them out of my library.

I would love a "profile" system, where me and my GF could have different profiles, which would have different libraries, and save the watched status per profile, this would be awesome. Never again would my GF watch a show, and then I wouldn't see it to watch it!

Maybe you should (1) work out your relationship issues or (2) man up and stop watching girly stuff, unless (3) she actually watches the cool stuff in which case - congratiulations are in order. :-)

*scnr*

In all seriousness though.. I would love something like that. Would be very useful for our setup as well...

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Profiles

You can separate content to different profiles. You can not have custom categories within profile.

Is it possible to make a smartlist with movies that xbmc could not identify?

Or is there another way to see those?

Im missing movies in my lib because I dont know which ones he didnt identify.

Thx

Hi, I would love to see a custom node manager for filtering the music library. An example of this in alternative products is the MagicNodes plugin for MediaMonkey. This essentially lets you develop a custom search node filtering music by a saved sql query. One in particular I like to use is to filter albums where the tracknumber count is greater than 2 or any other figure of choice. This is useful for listing only albums that are complete for example. In media monkey, the magic nodes plugin has over 200 example queries so it is quite evident there are many other custom searches people are finding useful.

I've seen quite a few other requests for specific filters in this thread. By creating a filter interface this would essentially allow users to facilitate there own specific requirements in one area.

See smartplaylists. The only bit missing is listing a specific one in the default heirarchy. Patch welcome - it's not a simple interface to do.