Suggestions for Moving Pictures v1.0+

Big for releasing MovingPictures v1.0.0 beta. I was still switching between MediaPortal's MyVideos and MovingPictures v0.7.5, due to the lacking of Genre/Year/Actor filtering, but now I've deleted the MyVideo database and rely soley on MovingPictures. The ability to locate an actor and then see all the movies in the catalog that they are in, is not something that I used a lot, so I can wait on that in a future release. From what I read from others, I guess I could add filters for that, but I prefer an automatic way as in MyVideos.

In importing my collection I stumbled across a few things that would make my life easier in the "Movie Manager" tab:

• Ability to filter the catalog to those movies lacking common fields, such as plot and cover-poster/fanart images.
• An indicator showing that a fanart picture is stored locally.

It would also be nice if a toggle option could exist to switch between "Unwatched" and "All" when inside a filter already (with a configuration option to select which view you want default). I haven't played a lot yet with the filtering system, and I'm sure I could just create extra filters, but a toggle inside an existing filter would keep things easier to use (especially for the WAF).

The toggle could be added via the options menu where "Sort By" is located, but it would also be nice if a direct switch could be made for those fortunate to have some buttons left on their remote/keyboard. I just realized that I don't even know if it is possible to map remote control buttons inside MediaPortal configuration to control specific functions for a plugin, but I'm able to also emulate keystrokes with my ATi Remote Wonder, so I could map the '*' key or whatever isn't used by default that could be used for this "toggle".

Speaking of toggles, I love the SMS style searching to go directly to a movie inside a large collection, but sometimes I wish to have the regular style when just browsing for a movie and like the ability to quickly jump to all the movies starting with the letter 'S' by hitting '7' key 4x (I've used SMS-style from the beginning, but I presume that the default behaviour is how MyMovies is). The '1' key would be free to use for this, as it has no letter assigned to it.

That would make MovingPictures ideal for me, but it's pretty darn close already

Thanks for your suggestions RoChess. Some of what you are describing is already possible though! Other items we have scheduled. Details below:

• Automatically Populated Actor Menu Items - In the Categories Menu Editor simply add a dynamic node for Actors. It will auto populate with Actors from your database and will auto update as new movies are added to your collection. The default is to only include actors in two or more of your movies but you can change this in the Advanced Settings.
• Unwatched Movies Toggle - This is already possible and already setup with a default configuration. From any movie list simply click Menu (F9) -> Filter By -> Unwatched Movies. Turning the filter off works the same way. We plan to add support for a default filter applied on startup with Moving Pictures 1.1. As for a single key press to toggle a filter (or do any other action) it would be difficult to setup a customizable configuration for this, but it is something we will keep in mind. If you feel strongly about this feel free to create an enhancement request on our issue tracker.
• Jump to Movies Starting With... - This is possible with remote control filtering. Just click 0 first then the number key corresponding to the letter you want to jump to. See the wiki for more details.
• Filtering in the Movie Manager - This is planned for an upcoming release.

If anyone else has any enhancement ideas, feel free to post. Take a look at the existing list of scheduled enhancements first though. And again, thanks for the thoughts RoChess.

You can just remove the Unwatched Filter from the Filters Menu. It is completely customizable.

As for supporting multiple backdrops (fanart), there is an issue for it on the tracker that you can star, but it is already scheduled for a pretty near release.

fforde, thank you. Since this was a hot of the press beta, I figured that it already contained everything planned, should have known better

I thought I had gone through all the options and must have overlooked the filtering of unwatched while inside Genre view, so once the wife is done watching her shows will have to check things out in more detail.

Thank you even more for that wiki link, the "year" method is going to be extremly handy when inside a Genre filter. It's hard to admit but stuborness kicks in quick on a common feature that one has used on a different device, such as SMS-style entry on a cellphone, and instead of reading the manual one just assumes it works the same

I have brought this up with the rest of the team. I cant promise any changes, but we are talking about simplifying things.

I am going to have to think on the best way to implement something like this, because I am afraid it is not so simple of a problem. Things like genre and actor in particular are tricky because if your doing a bulk edit you don't want to wipe out other genres or actors when replacing one in particular.

In the meantime though you can fix your Categories with a tweak to the menu:

1. Open the Categories Menu Editor.
2. Click the Genres node.
3. Click the gear toolstrip icon and click "Convert to Regular Menu Item".
4. Delete the "aventure" node.
5. Edit the "Adventure" node filter and add an additional rule to grab all movies with the "aventure" genre as well.

This is not a perfect solution because this means if new genres are added to your database they will now no longer be automatically added to the Genre list. But if you have a fairly large database this may not be a problem for you. Hope this helps.