Mike,<br><br> Thanks for your input, and I'll definetely try to work some kind of 'mass edit' into the design as soon as I have the core work done...<br><br>(I'm back from vegas now so FULL STEAM AHEAD) - (and only down $300)
<br><br>-san<br><br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 9/28/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Mike LaPlante</b> <<a href="mailto:mike@dividia.net">mike@dividia.net</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>San Mehat wrote:<br>> Hey all,<br>><br>> Just an update on my progress with the MythVideo retooling to add<br>> better support for larger and more disparate libraries. This<br>> description does not go into the UI portions very much, although I'm
<br>> hoping to have some screenshots in the next week.<br>><br>> So I've spent the last week going through the code and spending a<br>> fair amount of time on designing a combined 'browser/manager'
<br>> interface which I feel would handle larger libraries better. I call<br>> this 'Vex' for 'Video Explorer' because I ran out of crafty names for<br>> things quite a few years ago ;). Vex works on tags instead of
<br>> 'specific meta-data'. For example, an episode of the Simpsons from my<br>> season 2 boxset might be tagged as SIMPSONS, TV_SHOW, ANIMATED,<br>> MATT_GROENING, SEASON_2, BOXSET<br>><br>> The browser or 'media selection' paradigm is that instead of
<br>> organizing your data or metadata to meet the organization you want<br>> (ie: creating directories for things and switching to the<br>> file-listings which is what I was forced to do after my library got<br>
> larger than 800 entries), you define 'Views' onto the data which allow<br>> you to represent the data in whatever organizational structure you<br>> desire. A view itself can be represented as<br>><br>
> - The view ID<br>> - The view name, ie: 'Sans Favorite Shows which arent animated'<br>> - The view expression which each movies metadata is evaluated<br>> against to determine if its in this view, ie: 'TV_SHOW AND
<br>> SANS_FAVORITE BUT NOT ANIMATED'<br>> - A parent ID for the view, which allows views to be nested into<br>> 'trees' for display.<br>><br>> As you can see, this scheme allows the user a large amount of
<br>> flexibility in organization without needing to change the data in any<br>> way.<br>><br>> ADDING VIDEOS<br>> When adding files to the video_root, a daemon picks up the addition<br>> and automatically tags the video with an internal tag 'RECENTLY_ADDED'
<br>> There is a canned 'view' which displays all content which is in this<br>> tag that can be browsed just like any other 'view'. Users can select<br>> the video and use menu options to quickly scan imdb for a match which
<br>> will automatically create tags if desired. Also the user can at any<br>> point add or modify tags which are applied. A cron job which runs<br>> nightly periodically removes videos from the 'Recently Added' list if
<br>> they have been watched.<br>><br>> WATCHING VIDEOS<br>> Nothing really different here, although when you have been deemed to<br>> have watched a video (and not just scanned through it), Vex tags the<br>
> video with another internal tag 'RECENTLY_WATCHED'.<br>><br>> DATABASE CONSIDERATIONS<br>> This new code does not share any existing tables in the database. I<br>> did this initially because I wanted to be able to continue to watch
<br>> movies while I develop,but later I found that this scheme required a<br>> much simpler database format. In it's current form, Vex does not mess<br>> with any of the other MythVideo tables. You can use the existing video
<br>> manager and the gallery,list, or other views and it will not affect<br>> Vex. Any changes you make to metadata or videos from within Vex will<br>> not be seen by MythVideo. Vex is essentially bolted onto the side of
<br>> the current MythVideo browsing code, although it re-uses all other<br>> aspects (the player code, etc).<br>><br>> UI<br>> I'm currently trying to visualize Views as a tree which can be<br>> navigated with the UIListTreeType (as opposed to the ManagedTreeType
<br>> which is used by the file browser). As I said earlier, I hope to have<br>> some screenshots available soon.<br>><br>><br>> Theres tons of more detail, but i'll stop here for now. My real<br>> question is... Is the MythVideo community happy with such a 'drastic'
<br>> change to MythVideo? At the moment I'm doing it in a 'bolt on fashion'<br>> to provide the other browsers as well. I really feel that this kind of<br>> model could really work well.<br>><br>> Well, I've probably opened myself up to be shot at.. but here goes.. I
<br>> welcome all constructive criticism and suggestions. I have spent<br>> enough time on the design to know that a viewer like this solves MY<br>> problem.... but does it solve YOURS?..<br>><br>> Thanks so much..
<br>><br>> -San.<br>><br>Glad to see someone taking up this challenge. I have a rather large<br>anime collection in MythVideo and using deep directories is the only way<br>I can make things pretty. Tags sound like a good plan, and I like the
<br>"recently added" idea so that I can quickly tag newly added videos.<br><br>This may have been mentioned already (lots of noise on this thread), but<br>what I really want in MythVideo is a way to do mass changes. To be able
<br>to select 100+ Naruto episodes and set them to category 'Anime' or what<br>have you. I have found no way to do this in the current MythVideo<br>without resorting to direct database changes. So, if you could keep that
<br>in mind I would love it. :-)<br><br>Sorry I'm not gifted enough to program these things on my own, so I am<br>one of "those" people that has ideas but never helps make them happen.<br>Personally, I happen to feel even those without coding abilities can
<br>still help by debugging and putting forth ideas.<br><br>Mike<br>_______________________________________________<br>mythtv-dev mailing list<br><a href="mailto:mythtv-dev@mythtv.org">mythtv-dev@mythtv.org</a><br><a href="http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-dev">
http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-dev</a><br></blockquote></div><br>