[rickx]

Hi everybody,

I've been using xbmc for some time (years) now. I never used library mode finding it more confusing than useful. At the time pm3 was more or less the only skin option (I mean good skin ).
Time passed, HD came along, nice skins also. I learned to appreciate library mode. Well, let's say I was led to...or forced. Most skins are thought and designed around library mode and show their best in that mode only. So I would say the option to choose between file and library mode is not a completely free one today.
This introduces my proposal:
1) what I'm missing in library mode is the possibility to save filtered views. Basically sql views with a gui on top - in the background. Like an independent folder, in the foreground. The one thing where I miss this the most is to keep the kids section separated from the adults section. So making a "family genre" filtered view and saving it would be the solution. But you obviously could have A LOT of customization for your virtual folders. The idea is very similar to iTunes (or mt-daapds) smart playlists.
2) as a consequence this would somehow reduce or remove the need for the file view. The actual file view could be merged with the file manager (the one in pm3 - system setup) to care for
- file management + mantainance
- editing, reorganizing files (physically)
- "moving" new things into the library

Point 2 would be a deep change maybe. But the first should not be difficult to achieve - I always wondered why it was not there...

[spiff]

1) we have smart playlists - wonder if those are like those smart playlists you are on about

[midgetspy]

The new library that jmarshall is working on will basically add exactly what you're asking - smart playlists on the fly through the GUI. Currently I believe you have to write them manually in XML outside XBMC.

[spiff]

there is a gui editor though

[rickx]

ok, very nice [midgetspy]! I hope that will be what I'm looking for.

actually yes [spiff] the functionality is there already. I played around with it and it's not exactly easy to get what you want (e.g. I tried contains genres family or animation or fantasy but this left Avalon in the set, so another playlist to remove genre drama...all this to discover those tv cartoons and stuff are not there as there's no scraper for them...). Ok. Result:
- playlists are cool. not too smart but it's ok. I find they're not *where* they should be. I expect a playlist to be under film/music, on the same level where real folders are shown. but yes, they show all advanced things like classic library view. so probably it's just a matter of skinning to anchor them to the right page (?) or some other trick.
- file mode is probably not removable as long as there is no perfect scraper.

one question remains: why can't file views be as nice/rich/complete as lib views?

[rickx]

one more thing thinking about those smart lists:

when you construct a more complex filtered view, you usually have to store some intermediate step before you reach the final result. This could result in a mess, so maybe having 2 options: save and show/hide would be nice. Save is what it does already. Show/hide to hide the intermediate steps when done.

[Gangsta]

Just now im solving this problem with profiles.

I have (just recently) moved my RATING:15+ films onto a new share, and created a new profile.

On my family profile only the FAMILY share is added as a source, on my adult profile both the FAMILY and ADULT shares are added as sources.

I set a 4 digit pin on the adult profile, and because i use the numbers on the xbox dvd control you cant see what im typing.

Works great for us.

[jmarshall]

rickx: I'm not sure I understand your problems with the UI for smartplaylists?

Obviously there is a problem that they only show up under the "Playlists" node - that will be remedied with my library redesign.

If you could give me some clear information about what you find difficult to get right in the smartplaylists then that'd be most helpful for optimizing the interface.

Also, note there is some detail already in various threads about my proposed changes with respect to having a better filtering mechanism available - I believe it's stickied:

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=51605

Cheers,
Jonathan

[rickx]

example (cited above):

goaleparate kids movies from rest
solution attempt: smart playlist
problems: s.p. do not allow OR and AND (and NOT) grouping.

I tried to filter by genre fantasy, animation, family. But (e.g.) a movie called Avalon with genre drama/fantasy/... was also in the set although not being exactly for kids. So the next steps were
- make playlist of all the allowed genres (together)
- make playlist of the above removing drama.
[ sql solution would be:
select ... where
(genre like '%family%' OR genre like '%fantasy%' OR genre like '%animation%') AND NOT genre = 'drama'.]

This worked. Using at least 2 playlists. But then...tv stuff was still missing. I probably also found a bug at that point. When I created a playlist returning an empty set (tv stuff) and tried to merge it with the other movies playlist (pl1 OR pl2), it returned an empty set although I made sure to choose "one or more of the conditions" and not "all conditions".

So this is what I meant. I have some db experience. A normal user would just not use playlists after such an experience. With, as I said, the side effect of having all those temporary views saved to get to the final result which all show up in the playlists folder.

I'm talking about a practical difficulty - with xbmcs famous user friendlyness and ease of use always in mind! Technically there's nothing wrong, although a bigger gui window would be nice. And the hide/show feature also would be nice...or necessary. And again, the playlists should show in the movies or music folders because that's were you expect to find movies/music.

After reading your blog and thread (parts of them) I may add that it all sounds good. More or less I agree with your view. Filtering by folder path would be a nice help for sure.

One last thought: whatever you make, we will still have no power on the genres of a movie; the possibility to edit a movies genre would be nice also. If that's not possible, maybe adding tags instead and then filter by those?

[jmarshall]

I'm extremely interested in how you would accomplish doing a combination of OR and AND in a GUI. It's non-trivial as far as I can tell

Reason for the empty playlist is likely because we're not supposed to be able to mix tvshows and movies at this point.

Cheers,
Jonathan

[rickx]

I'm extremely interested in how you would accomplish doing a combination of OR and AND in a GUI. It's non-trivial as far as I can tell

Well you could use a hierarchy making it pretty trivial:
first you choose condition (condition 1, condition 2 i.e. "add condition"). [That becomes an SQL bracket.]
then you choose one or more real conditions inside that - like it is now [that's what goes INSIDE the SQL bracket]
and when you choose a condition/bracket other than the first, you're asked if it's AND or OR. Or provide a field near condition x named "condition type" with dropdown OR AND NOT MAYBE. I could sketch a gui if you prefer...
not so complicated after all and not that different from now neither

Reason for the empty playlist is likely because we're not supposed to be able to mix tvshows and movies at this point.

Cheers,
Jonathan

ok, but what are "mixed" playlists for then?
And...that's another point worth discussing: that distinction is maybe not a good one: choosing the type of playlist at the top of the window. Why? That's a filter too imho so it would be nicer to give the choice to make that distinciton the same way you make all others. Also meaning that if you do not make it, you will get all types of media corresponding to the filter in return. Sounds more linear to me...but maybe I'm missing something?

bye & thanks for your answers,
rickx

[jmarshall]

So what does

condition1 and condition2 or condition3

mean to the user? Does it require the user to know the precedence laws of boolean algebra?

IMO the easiest way to make it simpler is to allow anything that naturally would take more than one value (such as a list for genres) to be specified by a single rule. This is done via the "text in" condition that's in SVN now for the resolution stuff I think.

At least that way you can easily have two levels - eg a bunch of OR's that are then AND'd together. Anything more general ofcourse requires bracketing (which is effectively what the playlist stuff does).

I'd be interested in seeing mockup images, sure

Lastly, the reason for the distinction of type is that our queries are quite specific to the table you're querying. i.e. it's the result of an underlying implementation problem. Agreed that it's a bit silly - in the future, we won't need this as far as "video filters" go.

"Mixed" actually means songs and music videos - there never used to be anything else other than songs initially, then music videos were added, and then everything else. :p

Cheers,
Jonathan