Feature Request (a few small ideas) (1 Viewer)

[Ackbar]

First, thanks so much for such a terrific contribution to those needing to manage large collections of HDD based movies - I've tried many of the alternatives before finally making it here, and Moving Pictures takes the crown for smooth interface design, integration with a capable player frontend, and - most importantly - an unbelievably capable, time saving importer. Once the genre sorting falls into place, I will finally be satisfied with my ability to manage my movie collection. Great work!


If I may, I have a few small suggestions that may improve usability and/or style:

Default Disc covers - Just as there are default backgrounds, it would be great to have a default cover generated for each disc (with the title typed on it) that the importer can't find a cover for. This would make the cover view options usable and less of an eyesore (no empty boxes) for those with numerous movies that lack official covers.

Auto Scrolling - Make an option to slowly scroll through the list of movies (especially for thumbnail and filmstrip views).

Display format, resolution, etc.. - Maybe create one more line in a movies (expanded) description, possibly below Runtime, looking something like: Format: [Media Type] [Resolution] [Audio] [Channels]. For example, a Blu-Ray would appear as Format: Blu-Ray 1080p TrueHD 7.1 , while a movie on a HDD might be Format: HD 720p DTS 5.1 . Information could either be detected from the files, or in the case of discs, maybe from a DB.

User Ratings - A second 10-star rating that can be set from within MP (and maybe a prompt after finishing an unrated movie to rate it) - I'm sure many will agree that IMDB's scores are at best only a rough indicator of one's personal opinions of a movie.

Condensed List View - Currently, depending on skins, I can fit about 10 movie titles on screen at best in list mode; 20 in small thumbnail. Could a more condensed list mode be added to fit the maximum possible number of titles on screen as possible (while still being readable on the avg 1080p display) be added? For large movie libraries, its a pain to scroll through ~50 pages of movies.



Well, that's all I can think of for now, hopefully some of that was useful and not already mentioned. Any of those ideas sound like they would be worth implementing?

 

[Ackbar]

A few more things I thought of, expanding on those above:

When filters are added, would it be possible to add the following:
- Marked for viewing (ability to filter movies you marked ahead of time for viewing - once viewed to completion, the tag is automatically removed)
- Favorites (again, like the watched tag, filter by movies you defined as favorites)
- Enjoyed Movies (probably a better name for this, but it would be a category for movies watched that you enjoyed, but wouldn't consider favorites)

***To facilitate this, I would highly recommend having a box pop up after a movie has been watched all the way through for the first time (which could be disabled for those who don't want it), with the following:
- User Rating - Selectable 10-star rating that can be assigned in addition to IMDB rating
- Favorites check box to add favorites label if desired
- "Enjoyed Movies" (or whatever it should be called) check box to add "Enjoyed Movies" label if desired

Also, when filters are added (you're probably sick of people demanding this by now, but here's my single shameless addition), here is the sorting list from my previous movie organizer (AMC Viewer) that I found to be very comprehensive - hopefully you can add most (or all / in excess of) these filter options:

It's been rough making do without filtering since switching from AMC, but that is really all that it had over MP (and maybe the ability to cram a ton of info on screen - useful to those with large high res displays). Unfortunately, it clearly was not designed to be used for home theater, as it had no remote control functionality - LM remote keymap and autohotkey made the situation salvageable, but lets just say that its interface was as bad as its sorting and organization features were good - and importing to AMC was...well, not something I will ever try to do again. AMC was not really built for managing large, HDD-based movie collections, and it showed. I can't wait until MP adds that one last vital feature (yea, you know...)

 

[emphatic]

May I suggest you have a look at the project page here: Issues - moving-pictures - Google Code and you'll see that many of your suggestions are already in line for implementation.

fforde: Perhaps a sticky "Before making feature requests, read this" so the stream of requests for logo support etc. can be kept to a minimum?

Emph

 

[Ackbar]

May I suggest you have a look at the project page here: Issues - moving-pictures - Google Code and you'll see that many of your suggestions are already in line for implementation.

fforde: Perhaps a sticky "Before making feature requests, read this" so the stream of requests for logo support etc. can be kept to a minimum?

Emph

EDIT:
Personally, I think quite a few of these suggestions are unique, or at least provide a slightly different spin on a certain feature.

 

[marvenius]

[off-topic] I think he was being polite...[/off-topic[

 

[Ackbar]

I've had my say. Lets get this back on topic. If it really is all redundant then have the mods delete this thread - there's no further need to post in here about it.

 

[fforde]

Ackbar I truly appreciate your feedback, but could you please check your attitude. Emphatic was trying to be nothing but helpful and was pointing you to a few resources that he suspected you overlooked. If you want to participate in this community, you need to treat people with a bit more respect. Many people around here do not speak English as their first language, so it is important to give people the benefit of the doubt and be careful with how you word things.

Okay, so as for your thoughts, again thanks for the feedback. Emphatic is right, some of what you mentioned is already in the plans. Other bits really are skinning issues or ideas that would require changes to MediaPortal. Moving Pictures is only a plug-in after all, so we are sometimes limited in what we can do by the constraints of MediaPortal itself.

That being said, here are my thoughts:

Default Disc covers - Just as there are default backgrounds, it would be great to have a default cover generated for each disc (with the title typed on it) that the importer can't find a cover for. This would make the cover view options usable and less of an eyesore (no empty boxes) for those with numerous movies that lack official covers.

Alternate cover images are already possible and is something that is totally up to the skinner. Some skins have implemented an alternate piece of cover art some have not. As for the text displaying the name of a movie, text is normally displayed for each thumbnail image, and the skinner has to go out of their way to hide it. Really though the ideal solution is to add cover artwork for movies that are missing it, so I think this is why some skinners do not pay attention to alternate artwork like this.

Auto Scrolling - Make an option to slowly scroll through the list of movies (especially for thumbnail and filmstrip views).

This would be an enhancement to the MediaPortal skinning engine. It's not a bad idea, but you might do better suggesting to the MediaPortal team rather than the Moving Pictures team.

Display format, resolution, etc.. - Maybe create one more line in a movies (expanded) description, possibly below Runtime, looking something like: Format: [Media Type] [Resolution] [Audio] [Channels]. For example, a Blu-Ray would appear as Format: Blu-Ray 1080p TrueHD 7.1 , while a movie on a HDD might be Format: HD 720p DTS 5.1 . Information could either be detected from the files, or in the case of discs, maybe from a DB.

This has been in our product road map for several months.

User Ratings - A second 10-star rating that can be set from within MP (and maybe a prompt after finishing an unrated movie to rate it) - I'm sure many will agree that IMDB's scores are at best only a rough indicator of one's personal opinions of a movie.

Already planned.

Condensed List View - Currently, depending on skins, I can fit about 10 movie titles on screen at best in list mode; 20 in small thumbnail. Could a more condensed list mode be added to fit the maximum possible number of titles on screen as possible (while still being readable on the avg 1080p display) be added? For large movie libraries, its a pain to scroll through ~50 pages of movies.

The list controls appearance can be highly customized. Most skinners I think try to use fonts and sizes that are readable for as many people as possible (within reason). But this is a skinning issue. You might consider trying one of the 1080p skins though.

When filters are added, would it be possible to add the following:
- Marked for viewing (ability to filter movies you marked ahead of time for viewing - once viewed to completion, the tag is automatically removed)
- Favorites (again, like the watched tag, filter by movies you defined as favorites)
- Enjoyed Movies (probably a better name for this, but it would be a category for movies watched that you enjoyed, but wouldn't consider favorites)

We are already planning custom tagging, and as I mentioned above, an integrated user rating system. As far as in GUI integration for these tags, we haven't gotten that far in planning. At first I think at most, we would have in GUI User Ratings and Favorite integration. Other tags would probably have to be managed in the Config Screen. We want to provide flexibility but we also do not want to over-complicate the plug-in.

Also, when filters are added (you're probably sick of people demanding this by now, but here's my single shameless addition), here is the sorting list from my previous movie organizer (AMC Viewer) that I found to be very comprehensive - hopefully you can add most (or all / in excess of) these filter options:

<snip/>

I linked it above but we do plan to integrate video file meta-data into the plug-in and the most important aspect of this would of course be for filtering. The plan is to allow filtering of virtually any field in the database. Maybe with a few exceptions for fields that don't quite make sense to filter by (like runtime).


Thanks again for the feedback. And by the way, if you have any other thoughts on specific upcoming features, you may want to post on the issue thread for each issue on Google Code. This would provide much more visibility to the developer implementing the enhancement.

 

[wkwapil]

OT: pissing my pants <sensitive like mimosa>

Edit:
Ackbar: "my" respect for "your" sry to emph ;-)

 

[emphatic]

May I suggest you have a look at the project page here: Issues - moving-pictures - Google Code and you'll see that many of your suggestions are already in line for implementation.

fforde: Perhaps a sticky "Before making feature requests, read this" so the stream of requests for logo support etc. can be kept to a minimum?

Emph

Speak for yourself. If a Developer has the same opinion, fine, but until then, I would hope you could show even the most infinitesimal bit of courtesy in your future replies. I'm sorry if I happened to overlook a few of the things I mentioned in that long, vague list of upcoming features. Personally, I think quite a few of these suggestions are unique, or at least provide a slightly different spin on a certain feature. If you disagree and would rather me not contribute to this community, fine. I happily gave my time to provide something which I thought may be of value to improve this application, but if this is the thanks I get, I won't make that mistake again. I'm sorry if I wasted a few seconds of your precious time with a couple of redundant suggestions - hopefully you can get over it. At least my post added something of value to this forum...

On an unrelated note, I can see your user name plenty well from where it is in the sidebar. You don't need to type it after every one of your posts, unless you have some sort of complex... For heavens sake, If you really feel the need to type your own name (or rather, avatar) after every single thing you post, at least put it in your sig - that's what its for.

/rant

I'm sorry if I stepped on your toes, but you need to not take my kind suggestions personal. As the request for logo support (yes, I really want this myself ASAP) pops up here so often, some might stop reading these posts after they see that over and over again. fforde is one of those rare developers that however takes his time to read suggestions and adress them when needed, so kudos to him. As far as I'm concerned all of your suggestions are good and would be of value to MediaPortal.

Hopefully if you care to stick around, you'll see that I post when I think I can be helpful and that at least 85% of my posts are of value to this forum as well...

Best regards
Emph

 

[Ackbar]

Thanks again for the feedback. And by the way, if you have any other thoughts on specific upcoming features, you may want to post on the issue thread for each issue on Google Code. This would provide much more visibility to the developer implementing the enhancement.

Can anyone post issues / enhancements there? I didn't know that - I thought it was only for coordination between developers / privileged members.

I see most of the stuff I posted is already accounted for in some variation, except maybe for the review box popup after watching a movie:

I would highly recommend having a box pop up after a movie has been watched all the way through for the first time (which could be disabled for those who don't want it), with the following (and whatever else is relevant):
- User Rating - Selectable 10-star rating
- Favorites check box to add favorites label if desired
- "Enjoyed Movies" (or whatever it should be called) check box to add "Enjoyed Movies" label if desired

Would that be something worth making an enhancement request for?

@Emph: Yesterday was not my day - I really should not have chewed you out over that :sorry: