Better Media Organization / Browser

[erasmix]

Yes Collin, and I'm sorry. I made this post before your answer came in on the other topic. Right now I'm doing a clean install and will give it another shot. I sincerely appreciate your help

[colinjones]

no worries - I see that you mention your share is on the external network, which would certainly limit the autodiscovery functions! Either way, NFS is not my thing - Roy knows all about that stuff, and it seems like he is giving you a hand, so good luck!

[wombiroller]

right now, the only way is to go into the media files sync, and adjust the attributes of each individually..this is why I want to rewrite it.

-Thom

FWIW IMHO - this would be a key for people migrating existing data or linking to a NAS (which a bunch of rips).

I am browsing via filename currently (which is fine) - mainly because I can't be bothered editing all the attributes via the admin tool... one by one... by one...

Thanks Thom 

[colinjones]

If you just want to edit the attributes, you can do this in any mp3 id3 tag editor, or even in the properties of the files in Windows. This will embed the attributes into the files, then UpdateMedia will come along and bring them all into the database. Much easier than using the web admin....

[nite_man]

Try sorting by filename instead of title.

It it possible to use that sort option as default? Because each time after reboot my core/hybrid I have to choose it again.

[colinjones]

No. Same when you reload the router - very annoying. I logged a mantis on this months ago, but it hasn't gone anywhere yet, understandably low on the priority list

[nite_man]

No. Same when you reload the router - very annoying. I logged a mantis on this months ago, but it hasn't gone anywhere yet, understandably low on the priority list

That's very said   I don't think that it's difficult to do. Will dig the code

[indulis]

It not advocates we need so much as people who are willing to take on the task and DO it. People are working on a lot of things. So jump in 

Working involves not just coding but updating wikis, writing documentation, and also spending the time to document issues back to the developers so that they can improve things.  I have spent a LOT of time investigating the horrid area of Linux compatible TV tuners, and have documented my findings back to the linuxtv wiki.  I personally think this is also useful work.

I have to agree with other people on this forum, it seems that there is a "hair trigger" mentality here.  It is not really what I would class as a friendly forum, I get the feeling you have to be careful what you say or you will get crisped to a cinder.  Sometimes just for reiterating or agreeing with what someone else has commented on.  Definitely not the tone of say the Oztivo mailing list (where the same Qs get asked a lot of times but always get patiently answered, and yes I did my share of this tedious replying when I had a hacked TiVo), or the Mythtv forums.

I work with large UNIX computer systems (banks, retail etc).  K-Mart do rollouts of new systems or upgrades to their stores.  They have pilot rolllout stores where they test their procedures for installation/upgrades by having the store personnel carry out the process.  The rule is that if the user breaks the install/upgrade, then it is the fault of the developers, and it goes back for more bullet-proofing.  Same should be true of usability- the fact that people are complaining about the same thing many times says that it is an issue and needs to be fixed.

[colinjones]

Not sure where you are going with the Kmart story, you certainly can't compare a commercial project with a OSS project in that way for what should be obvious reasons.

It is certainly true that some get overly worked up in this forum, but frankly that is hardly unusual for forums generally. You will find many regulars still posting (patiently) the same answers to the same questions all through the forum. The answer is, just don't get precious about the odd rude comment and don't return fire. But most importantly, try to avoid these situations by doing at least a modicum of searching and research before posting a question - it really is inconsiderate to ask a question that has been answered many times already - basically it says, I'm too lazy to look and I expect existing forum members to spoon feed me! And THAT is common to all forums.

Yes, doing documentation, wikis, bug report, etc is all helping the project, at the same time the real hard work is the coding!

[indulis]

Not sure where you are going with the Kmart story, you certainly can't compare a commercial project with a OSS project in that way for what should be obvious reasons.

...

Yes, doing documentation, wikis, bug report, etc is all helping the project, at the same time the real hard work is the coding!

Kmart story was to say don't blame the users for complaining if something gives them pain.  "The end user is right" is not always true but gives you a reason to at least consider that they might be.

And yes I think everyone recognises that the coding is long hard work, but rewarding. I have done some coding so know the late nights and the hair-tearing with bugs.  The documentation and wikis etc are tedious and are not rewarding in the same way.

[Monkgs]

And yes I think everyone recognises that the coding is long hard work, but rewarding. I have done some coding so know the late nights and the hair-tearing with bugs.  The documentation and wikis etc are tedious and are not rewarding in the same way.

What's your point?

[chrisbirkinshaw]

The point is, obviously, that we should be grateful for the people who don't code but write documentation, because lets face it nobody wants to write documentation! I work for a software company and it's easy to get a patch, but you try and get release notes, or an updated install guide, and you're in trouble! ;-)

[indulis]

Thanks Chris. Exactly my point.  That contribution of time and effort is time and effort no matter which part of the project it is being done for.

Back  OT, I am also not a fan of filesystems being the storage/search paradigm for a media UI.  The database with search is potentially a better way to go if done right.

Noone wants their mp3 library to be accessed by directory sorted alphabetically by album name, so Linuxmce should naturally fall in more with the "mp3 media library" model.

I think the trick would be to give users a hierarchical set of predefined searches for things like "by series-by date" which could be easily navigated.  Then the option to create additional searches.

I think that would satisfy everyone. 

[tschak909]

This has been hashed over and over again, repeatedly.

But honestly, the way we have it STORED, is the right way to do it. The entire view is constructed on the fly in response to what needs to be shown in the view.

Where we fall short, and these are being addressed, is in these areas:

* Proper tagging of media. This system lives and dies by it. If you don't have any of your media tagged, of course it's going to be one big blob flat mess.
* more effective viewing of media that has a common title, but differing subtitles and discs, again, we have the code in the media plugin to handle this, it just needs to be dealt with.
* more effective visual cues as to which filter options are being selected. Right now, you can't tell if unviewed/viewed media is selected. This is a bug. There are a few others, but this is the gist of it...

Keep in mind too, that you  can select the black boxes on the details page, to turn on a filter for a given attribute.

-Thom

[nite_man]

Sure, proper tagging of media content will help to organize media library much much better. But it'd be nice to have possibility to store search preferences and use them when the LinuxMCE is up instead of default ones. Also I think  it'd be nice to use IMDB to get movie info together with Amazon. Its database is bigger and it provides more useful info. Will see how to implement it.