Solved Removing "the" from folder names
#1
Hello,

I researched this but the terms are so common it makes it hard to find an answer. This should be an easy question.

Background:
1. Movies have a separate folder for each movie with the tbn, fanart, movie, nfo file within the appropriate folder.
2. Folder names are the same as file names.
3. Folder names try to correspond to online database names for scraping.
4. Movies are kept in separate usb external drives.
5. Not all movies are on the same drive.
6. On the drives live the source folders - "Movies A to K", "Movies L to S", "Movies T to Z", "D List"

Functions:

1. XBMC ignores "the" and "a" when sorting.
2. WIndows 7 does not ignore "the" and "a" when sorting.
3. XBMC sorts by title in NFO file which may be different than title of folder after scraping.

Objective:

To get external source folders aligned with how XBMC sorts.

Questions:

1. If I remove "the" from the title of a movie folder, do I have to also rename the files inside the folder?

For example, if I change the folder name "The Alamo (2004)" to "Alamo (2004)" can I leave the files as "The Alamo (2004).mp4, The Alamo (2004).tbn, The Alamo (2004)-fanart.jpg, The Alamo (2004).nfo?

2. If I remove "the" from the title of a movie folder, will the scraper care? Will it still locate and scrape the movie?

Thanks for the help. I am reorganizing my database to accomplish a number of things and knowing these answers will help a lot.
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#2
1) No, you can name the files "anything you like" as long as the folder is named "The Alamo (2004)"

2) The scraper might have issues, when there might be the same named movie in the DB, usually the (date) better describes the file.

You might want to reverse the polarity of your objective, and toggle NOT to ignore articles when sorting.. at least it would be inline with the O/S, I understand your pain... When 'A Farewell to Arms' gets sorted at the front of the A's, while The Farewell to Arms' gets sorted under the F's.
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#3
(2013-07-23, 18:01)PatK Wrote: 1) No, you can name the files "anything you like" as long as the folder is named "The Alamo (2004)"

2) The scraper might have issues, when there might be the same named movie in the DB, usually the (date) better describes the file.

You might want to reverse the polarity of your objective, and toggle NOT to ignore articles when sorting.. at least it would be inline with the O/S, I understand your pain... When 'A Farewell to Arms' gets sorted at the front of the A's, while The Farewell to Arms' gets sorted under the F's.

Thanks for your quick reply. It sounds like I have two alternatives:

1. Reverse the polarity of my objective and have XBMC sort like Windows 7. That may be the best idea although I rather like the way it works now.
2. Alter the folder title incorrectly by removing "A" or "The" in which case the folder won't scrape correctly. If I understand properly, that isn't a problem because I can select "no" when asked if I want to update with the internet and ignore local information. I have all my art, thumbnails, and nfo files the way I like them. So I would just answer "no". For XBMC, the title in the NFO will be used for display.

If I am not understanding you correctly, please let me know and again thanks.
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#4
Why do they need to sort the same? Windows is showing you a filesystem view. XBMC is showing you a metadata view.
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#5
1) most of us live with XBMC sort order, when looking for a movie the 'the' or 'A' is often not at the forethought, it's when you use the O/S file manipulator that the sort order causes confusing issues. Wouldn't be so bad if the A's were treated as 'The' thankfully there's isn't many of them.

2) Scrapers are improving, and there is headway being made, but for now I would say best to have your titles closely resemble the DB listing. If you already have your art & metadata the way you want, then a local scrape is all you need, and if the material is in the format that XBMC can read, you shouldn't have any issues. I do see a lot of questions when 3rd party scrapers are used and saved in local folders for a XBMC scrape only to find that some data was missed by their outside scraper, and XBMC automatically exits to the web to update the missing material and ignores their local stuff.
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#6
Thanks PatK and Nickr.

PatK, a neighbor friend of mine showed me XBMC and drilled into me setting up a folder, putting in the 4 key files, and using media companion to grab the info. So when the movie gets to XBMC, everything is done. My son on the other hand set his up and did all the scraping at once. He let XBMC do the work.

But I am in the habit of doing it one by one. I think I screwed up when I first imported my library and it messed up a few things because the scraper couldn't find the right video. Right now I have a National Geographic Documentary that got changed to "The Noble House". I will just go back and fix that. I had issues with some Nova Documentaries as well. No biggie but I just soon that when I get done organizing my database, remove sources, and then add sources back - that I don't have XBMC update from the net. Maybe I will unplug the ethernet cable.

You offer good advice and I will consider it as best I can as a newbie. I wanted to make sure XBMC wouldn't freak out if I changed the movie title slightly and didn't change out the movie file, thumb, nfo and artwork. And that appears not to be a concern outside the scraping discussion.

Nicr, this is bumbling up for me because I am setting up sub menus or new menu items using the smart playlist feature. The directions I am following has one model the menu items with separate directories. Then it uses that path to create the smart playlist that gets added as a favorite and menu item. Thus... "Movies" will have sub menus that might say "A to K", "L to R" "S to Z". For that reason, I don't want The Alamo showing up in the "S-Z" Windows 7 directory. I suppose I could just manually move those items to the correct directory and maybe that is the best thing to do.

It's helpful to me that you guys gave me some ideas. I am sure others will have these questions as well at some point.
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