The Future of MyFilms? (1 Viewer)

[Guzzi]

AW: Re: The Future of MyFilms?

Hi Guzzi - hope you had a good rest

I tested the zip dll of 4.9.2.4 - context menu is good. Search is great. One minor issue, when you search, the search actually respects the current view selected. So in my case, when I search on Edward Norton for example, in my Unwatched view, it only retrieves 1 movie which is correct. However, on the context menu it shows Edward Norton as Producer (1) Actor (6) - 6 is the correct number of total movies in my db in which he is listed as an actor. At first I was confused by the number 6. Now I understand it, it may be quite useful. However the ideal would be "1 (6)" or "1 of 6" tho I am not sure that is much clearer or necessary as long as you explain what the count means somewhere.

Yes, tHis behaviour is meant by design - it should find and search all related entries in your current DB - that's what it makes so fast, because you don't have to browse through all possible views to find something. You can always do a "normal search" from left menu as alternative - I think if this behaviour is explained (e.g. in Wiki ;-)), it should be hopefully understandable...
btw. - I have taken the "1 of 6" additional info in mind, so might add this at a later time.

I did not test the new #myfilms.mastertitle and #myfilms.secondarytitle properties yet. However, I do like those names a LOT better. I am not really sure what to suggest. I only know English movies and IMDB script and how that works. What script do you use and how does it enter the data for you? Keep in mind that other catalogs likely use a diff name for that Orignal Title field.

I use german ofdb and other scrapers, so usually have translatedtitle as mastertitle - and always have proper names in those fields - that's why I don't get those things when testing myself ...

That is why I prefer your name of master title. Original Title was always odd imo.

MyFilms exposes all ANT databasefields directly - there you find "originaltitle and translatedtitle" that directly match those fields in the db.
mastertitle and secondarytitel, as suggested, are mappings according to the users choice in the configuration - so their content is dependant on the userconfig - similar to those older item1, item2, item3.

Of course it is complicated, because IMDB lists movie titles according to the country where they were produced - hence the name Original Title I presume One case = Io sono l'amore (2009) from Italy ("I am Love" in English). First thing I do is switch the titles in ANT so the Original Title is in English or I can never remember the name of the movie! So I did a few tests and it seems that most ANT scripts do put the English title in Original Title (if the movie is English), even when using foreign language scripts.

The problematic one seems to be the English IMDB script which, as I indicated previously, often displays a ridiculously long list of alternate titles. However, you cannot afford to disable Translated Title entirely, because in the case of a foreign film the English title displays in the Translated Title field.

I think this problem should be left to the scrapers in ANT Database - MyFilms plugin should and does give the user to choose what he wants, there istn't more we can do on pluginside imho... afaik there is already code in to only take the first or the last title of the field, if there are multiple (according separators defined)...

Usually TMdb does a good job of redirecting foreign language titles to the correct movie page, at least in all the cases I tested.

Conclusion - I think matching fanart on master (original) title is usually fine. And display in Main view is fine. In Details View imo Title Order should actually switch the titles as you suggested - i.e. if Translated Title is selected in Config, then it becomes Master Title. Thus in the skin you simply put the master and secondary titles to display correctly and the user chooses which title displays as master title. However fanart (and posters?) still should always match on original title I think. If anyone knows cases where this does not work, I hope they speak up!

That's what I intended with the two new properties... so would be great to let me know if it works as intended...

 

[catavolt]

AW: The Future of MyFilms?

Hi Guzzi, forget about my comment from months ago - just go on and release - I will care about it later

 

[Dadeo]

Tested master and secondary titles - all with your B3 skin file, modifying #myfilms.originaltitle to #myfilms.mastertitle and #myfilms.translatedtitle to #myfilms.secondarytitle (I even tested reversing the control IDs or using ID 1, but it made no difference)

1. I still get the error and MP crashes with a CLR20r3 error when I use Translated Title as the master title. It happens as soon as I scroll to a film with a long Translated Title. I tried with it as the Sort Title and not - didn't matter, I got the same error.
2. #mastertitle seems fixed to #translatedtitle, I thought the whole idea is that it would display whatever the user selected as the Master title, but it doesn't. When I set master title to Original title, the original title still displays as the secondary title.

TBH I don't consider the first issue a serious error. Normally any English user will use Original Title as the master title, and those are never long fields. However, to be safe, you could set a limit on the length of the Translated Title field in MP and just truncate the data if it is longer than MP will accept.

About actors count in search - I agree as long as it is explained in Wiki should be fine.

 

[Guzzi]

AW: The Future of MyFilms?

Hi Guzzi, forget about my comment from months ago - just go on and release - I will care about it later

ok, so let me know, if something is wrong from your point of view

 

[Guzzi]

AW: Re: The Future of MyFilms?

Tested master and secondary titles - all with your B3 skin file, modifying #myfilms.originaltitle to #myfilms.mastertitle and #myfilms.translatedtitle to #myfilms.secondarytitle (I even tested reversing the control IDs or using ID 1, but it made no difference)

arghh - ok, so coding without testing is proved not to work good - even if it's a simple thing ;-)

1. I still get the error and MP crashes with a CLR20r3 error when I use Translated Title as the master title. It happens as soon as I scroll to a film with a long Translated Title. I tried with it as the Sort Title and not - didn't matter, I got the same error.

1. 
   Can you give me an example of a translated titel where it crashes - or even a db with that single record that's failing - I will then debug - and at least limit the length to avoid the crash...
   
   

   [*]#mastertitle seems fixed to #translatedtitle, I thought the whole idea is that it would display whatever the user selected as the Master title, but it doesn't. When I set master title to Original title, the original title still displays as the secondary title.

you're correct, that's the idea - will debug, most probably I made a mistake - as mentioned I made a "blind coding" in those parts...

TBH I don't consider the first issue a serious error. Normally any English user will use Original Title as the master title, and those are never long fields. However, to be safe, you could set a limit on the length of the Translated Title field in MP and just truncate the data if it is longer than MP will accept.

Well, but it shouldtn't crash - especially if the user can/should select what title to display it should be crashsafe - will definately fix that.

About actors count in search - I agree as long as it is explained in Wiki should be fine.

the next big challenge ;-)

 

[Guzzi]

AW: The Future of MyFilms?

Hi Dadeo,
so after my first tests, I can confirm #myfilms.mastertitle and #myfilms.secondarytitle work as intended.
so again to make it clear:
#myfilms.mastertitle is the property you have configured in the configuration as "master title"
#myfilms.secondarytitle is the property you have configured in the configuration as "secondarytitle"
#myfilms.originaltitle is the property that comes directly from the DB as originaltitle
#myfilms.translatedtitle is the property that comes directly from the DB as translatedtitle
id 2025 should be used for visibility of mastertitle
id 2026 should be used for visibility of secondarytitle (it will be invisible if both titles are the same)

I have tried both as originaltitle and translatedtitle in configuration and it showed up as expected.

Will now have a look at the crash you reported...

 

[Guzzi]

AW: The Future of MyFilms?

Hi Dadeo,

so find attached updated file for testing - when titlename is too long, it will just return no fanart and should therefore not crash anymore.
In general, I think the user should take care about using titlenames, that make sense - and configure the plugin accordingly (should now be easier with the new properties imho).

Included is also blue3wide skinfiles, that have commented textlabelcontrols in mesfilmsdetail.xml for #myfilms.mastertitle and secondarytitle - you can uncomment it in the skinfile and test - it worked for me.

 

[Dadeo]

Hi Guzzi - testing 4.9.2.5 = better but not perfect yet.

First, when I was testing 4.9.2.4, I used B3 (not wide) skin files, not realizing you had not updated those (don't forget 4x3 is also required). Also, I did not realize the skin had to keep #myfilms.originaltitle + #myfilms.translatedtitle in the skin file - I had just replaced them with the 'new' properties. I verified they are required in the 4.9.2.5 test, without them in the skin file the new properties don't work correctly. So where are skins supposed to display those? Off screen? More documentation! Or is this just because we are still in test mode?

Anyways, there is still one case that does not work. If I have a film with an Original Title but NOT a Translated Title, and I select Original Title as Main Title and Translated Title as Secondary Title, then no titles display in Details view. You can see the example with Inception in the attached screenshot. This is often the case because IMDB does not always provide Translated Titles for all films, and many English users may choose not to use them since they are such crap anyways.

Unfortunately I still get a crash on long Translated Titles. I don't think the issue is only with fanart. As you can see in the attached error.log the error seems to occur when trying to create thumbs for the long Translated Titles (error log says 260 characters is max). I even managed to get a crash in Config, tho I cannot reproduce it now.

Of course, fanart has to be redownloaded when you switch Main Title, but I think that is 'expected' ?

I attached a rar of an xml for AMC, of just the movies that have original titles so you can test. I'm not sure if the pictures got in there or not since usually I have them linked (not stored in catalog). Hopefully it is enough for you to reproduce and debug the crash.

EDIT: Just so I don't forget, that balloon tip help for Hierarchy is pretty useless

 

[Guzzi]

AW: Re: The Future of MyFilms?

Hi Guzzi - testing 4.9.2.5 = better but not perfect yet.

First, when I was testing 4.9.2.4, I used B3 (not wide) skin files, not realizing you had not updated those (don't forget 4x3 is also required).

Will do, although I cannot really test, because I don't have 4x3 screen...

Also, I did not realize the skin had to keep #myfilms.originaltitle + #myfilms.translatedtitle in the skin file - I had just replaced them with the 'new' properties.

that's fine - you can replace it in the existing controls with ID 2025 and 2026 - I just tested and used #myfilms.mastertitle with ID2025 and #myfilms.secondarytitle with ID2026 and it works as expected - if I change the configuration the display in details changes too - we're talking about the detailsscreen, right? If you still can't get it to run, please send me your myfilms.xml and I will check.

I verified they are required in the 4.9.2.5 test, without them in the skin file the new properties don't work correctly. So where are skins supposed to display those? Off screen? More documentation! Or is this just because we are still in test mode?

As mentioned above - should work as you also expected - so we have to verify if something else is wrong - you're running on 1.1.2, right?
Can you plese doublecheck the you have mesfilms.dll from 13.12.2010 23:21 ?

Anyways, there is still one case that does not work. If I have a film with an Original Title but NOT a Translated Title, and I select Original Title as Main Title and Translated Title as Secondary Title, then no titles display in Details view. You can see the example with Inception in the attached screenshot. This is often the case because IMDB does not always provide Translated Titles for all films, and many English users may choose not to use them since they are such crap anyways.

This could be - there is some logic for the visibility in the plugin - but you could easily override that if you don't use the ID2025/2026 but 0 or 1 instead - then the plugin won't control the visibility anymore and the property should always be visible. But I will check the code if there is a problem anyway ... tomorrow...

Unfortunately I still get a crash on long Translated Titles. I don't think the issue is only with fanart. As you can see in the attached error.log the error seems to occur when trying to create thumbs for the long Translated Titles (error log says 260 characters is max). I even managed to get a crash in Config, tho I cannot reproduce it now.

Ok, I doublechecked the fix - and realized, that I only checked the length of the filname itself - so if you have long directoryname, this might Quite possible, because the titel is used at several places - I just fixed the one where I myself encountered the crash. If I remember right there is at least one more place where it uses the "safename" for filepath - so will also check that tomorrow ;-)

Of course, fanart has to be redownloaded when you switch Main Title, but I think that is 'expected' ?

Yes

I attached a rar of an xml for AMC, of just the movies that have original titles so you can test. I'm not sure if the pictures got in there or not since usually I have them linked (not stored in catalog). Hopefully it is enough for you to reproduce and debug the crash.

EDIT: Just so I don't forget, that balloon tip help for Hierarchy is pretty useless

Well, that was an easy one - changed it already ;-)

 

[Guzzi]

AW: The Future of MyFilms?

ok, here is another testversion... that hopefully now finally fixes the crash you reported (tested with your DB).
PLease remember, that it does not cure all problems with extraordinarylong titlenames - but it should avoid the crash (and writes a note in the log, if that happen).

I also made some more tests with titles and visibility - and cannot reproduce your problems above...

Attached is dll and the blue3wide skin I used for testing.
If you still have the problems mentioned, I would parobably need your myfilms.xml configuration and example, where it happens ...