pms-mlx (12-04-01 v0.7)

[taconaut]

Happy it works well for you
I only get credit for the part where you can configure the folders shown on your and how they look, the rest goes to the developers of the original code.
If you still want to make a donation, there's a button on the sourceforge page

[lartomar2002]

thanks

[lot2smile4]

OK, no problemo... I shall keep an eye on your posts and try again when you bring out the headless version

If your version does everything that is in your signature, I think you have created a version of PMS that does everything I want (media-browsing wise!)

[taconaut]

If your version does everything that is in your signature, I think you have created a version of PMS that does everything I want (media-browsing wise!)

For videos you've got all the information from the file read with mediainfo (e.g. frame rate, duration, height, languages...) and if it's a movie you can import most of the data available on tmdb; this makes a total of about 50 properties for each video on which you can sort and filter. This gives a lot more possibilities than what's in the sig

[taconaut]

added a quick start guide to the first post

[chocolateboy]

First of all, as I've mentioned many times before: awesome work on this!

Now on to the requests. (Some of these may be fixed/implemented already.)

Issues

1. As mentioned: s/enumarations/enumerations/g.
2. As mentioned, the appropriate PMS subdirectory should be used rather than $HOME/resources on Linux/Windows.
3. As mentioned, a logfile for each level makes log messages harder to find/navigate.
4. As mentioned, it's currently impossible to add an A-Z folder.
5. More user-centric logging in debug.log so users don't have to dive through the developer-oriented logfiles to do basic debugging. In my local branch, I log the title before and after cleanup (i.e. for debugging filename_replace_expressions.txt). I've also patched tmdb.jar to log the Movie.search URL, which is needed to figure out why some files aren't being identified.
6. tmdb.jar has other issues: the tmdb JSON API has bugs that aren't present in the XML API.
7. Regression: the Linux build has an empty (apart from plugins.txt) plugins directory.
8. Regression: can't see a way to add the Web folder.
9. Looks like it's incompatible with the Channel plugin (and any other plugin that adds a root folder?).
10. Genres aren't automatically sorted (e.g. alphabetically).

Enhancements

1. Ability to sort/filter by "last played" timestamp.
2. As mentioned, it would be nice if one could configure a folder to show the last n items e.g. the 15 most recently added videos.
3. TheTVDB plugin.
4. Add a boolean field to expose unclassified/uncategorized files (i.e. films not found on themoviedb.org). At the moment, I'm using Year == 0, which works, but an explicit field would be better.
5. Trailers don't seem to be currently exposed i.e. I'd like to have, say, Trailers -> A-Z -> F and see a list of trailers for all films beginning with F, using a themoviedb poster, and whatever display template I choose. (And possibly an option to intermingle trailers with videos in the same folder.)
6. It'd be really nice if you shipped a list of profiles representing different setups (see below).
7. Long term, it'd be great if you used migrations so that database schema changes don't force a complete rebuild.
8. I'd prefer plots and other text to be "text videos" rather than filenames, though that's something that's probably better handled by adding hooks to the core.
9. Unleash the Library pane!

Re: "profiles". Everyone will have their own preferences for laying out their library. I don't bother with "detail" folders (yet), and delete those. I also make other changes (see the screenshot). While the project is developing, it'd be great if there was a way to save/restore library trees (i.e. unpopulated databases). At the moment, it takes me quite a while to delete things, add folders, sort the genres &c. and it would be nice to just select "chocolateboy" from a drop-down list and for all/most of that to be done automatically.

[taconaut]

First of, thanks for all the feedback, ideas, patches and heads up you've already given. It is really valuable to have a second (or third...) opinion on stuff like this
Going to try commenting on these issues and explain what to expect for fututre releases.

Issues

As mentioned: s/enumarations/enumarations/g.

Yep, I'm aware of that. Didn't want to refactor 100+ classes because of a single character for now

As mentioned, the appropriate PMS subdirectory should be used rather than $HOME/resources on Linux/Windows.

I thought this was ok now. I had applied the patch you've sent. What isn't where you want it to be?

As mentioned, a logfile for each level makes log messages harder to find/navigate

For the release, there is a single info folder . I'm going to keep the config with the three folders (debug, info and error) for development as it's handy for me

As mentioned, it's currently impossible to add an A-Z folder.

Fixed in head

More user-centric logging in debug.log so users don't have to dive through the developer-oriented logfiles to do basic debugging. In my local branch, I log the title before and after cleanup (i.e. for debugging filename_replace_expressions.txt). I've also patched tmdb.jar to log the Movie.search URL, which is needed to figure out why some files aren't being identified.

Agreed, a less techy log would be a good thing. I'll have to give a thought on what info should be in there and how to differentiate what will be logged. What's for sure is that there will be a new log4j appender.

tmdb.jar has other issues: the tmdb JSON API has bugs that aren't present in the XML API.

Haven't noticed anything with this. What did you stumble upon?

Regression: the Linux build has an empty (apart from plugins.txt) plugins directory.

Ok, I'll correct this

Regression: can't see a way to add the Web folder.

The web folder is a plugin. If the plugin dir is empty, you wont be able to add it

Looks like it's incompatible with the Channel plugin (and any other plugin that adds a root folder?).

That's right, plugins implementing AdditionalFolderAtRoot aren't used, because the entire tree structure is being managed differently now.
There is minimal copy/paste work required to build them to work here. The new plugin interfaces hasn't been documented yet. If someone wants to give it a go, the interface net.pms.medialibrary.external.SpecialFolder has to be implemented (the WebSpecialFolder is a simple example). The rest of the plugin mechanism hasn't changed compared to the original one.

Genres aren't automatically sorted (e.g. alphabetically).

Will be corrected

Enhacements

Ability to sort/filter by "last played" timestamp.

The information is stored, but not exposed (yet). Actually, every time you play a video for more than 80% of its length, an entry is being stored with the info what was played, when playing finished and for how long it ran.

As mentioned, it would be nice if one could configure a folder to show the last n items e.g. the 15 most recently added videos.

Will be added. More of a GUI issue..

TheTVDB plugin.

This can already be done by writing a plugin. I'd suggest implementing net.pms.external.ExternalListener. The database is accessible in a static way by calling net.pms.medialibrary.storage.MediaLibraryStorage.getInstance().

Add a boolean field to expose unclassified/uncategorized files (i.e. films not found on themoviedb.org). At the moment, I'm using Year == 0, which works, but an explicit field would be better

Your workaround is good enough for now I don't see much use to have this filter criteria in the tree view. It will be interesting to see this, where you can see and edit all the properties; in the Library view. We're still half blind for now.

It'd be really nice if you shipped a list of profiles representing different setups.
Everyone will have their own preferences for laying out their library. I don't bother with "detail" folders (yet), and delete those. I also make other changes (see the screenshot). While the product is developing, it'd be great if there was a way to save/restore library trees (i.e. unpopulated databases). At the moment, it takes me quite a while to delete things, add folders, sort the genres &c. and it would be nice to just select "chocolateboy" from a drop-down list and for all/most of that to be done automatically.
Long term, it'd be great if you used migrations so that database schema changes don't force a complete rebuild.

I don't intend to ship other profiles. The default profile contains a set of folders which seem useful for most people and are there to give an idea of the possibilities the library offers.
On the other hand, I'd love to have a way to import, export and exchange library configurations. For this the library configuration would have to be serialized (probably xml).
I'll guarantee the library won't have to be reset between releases; db scripts will manage this. Can't guarantee it for svn check-ins, but I'll try to always add a note to the log if the db gets broken by a check-in.
There won't probably be many changes to the db, as it contains pretty much everything it needs (maybe actors will get added at some point). Who knows, maybe you'll propose some great changes requiring changes; the last db modification was for the sort name field :p

I'd prefer plots and other text to be "text videos" rather than filenames, though that's something that's probably better handled by adding hooks to the core.

I think it already behaves the way you want. To clarify what can be added to a file displayed as a folder:
- File: A video file can be either shown as a single file (exactly the same as the original pms would display it) or as multiple files (exactly the same way as the files are being shown in the transcode folder for the original pms)
- Folder: A simple folder with a name
- File Information: You can define the thumbnail to be shown as well as the text it will display. When you play such a file info, the image is being converted to a video; this way e.g. the cover of the movie can be viewed in full screen. I had this mechanism working at some point, but it broke again and can't figure out where the problem lies.
Need help: If someone with better video encoding/serving knowledge could point me in the right direction, it would be much appreciated. The problem lies in the MediaLibraryFileInfo class, which has been greatly inspired by the MovieInfo plugin

Weren't you looking for the File Information behaviour?

Unleash the Library pane!

Yeeees, I want it too!! This will take time though :/

I also got plenty of feature requests, some I'll code myself and others that could be written by anyone as plugins. But lets document the plugin system first before making this post even longer and talking about stuff that wouldn't be clear

Btw, I've finalized the first wiki page! Global Configuration

p.s. would you mind if I link to the image you've posted to have a screen shot in the first post?

[chocolateboy]

I've attached a patch with my outstanding changes.

There won't probably be many changes to the db, as it contains pretty much everything it needs

Does it include TMDb tags? I know they're not being used/exposed yet, but I can't remember if you're storing them already.

I think it already behaves the way you want. To clarify what can be added to a file displayed as a folder

This sounds great! I need to have a play. How about trailers?

p.s. would you mind if I link to the image you've posted to have a screen shot in the first post?

No. Go ahead.

[taconaut]

I've attached a patch with my outstanding changes.

Cool, thanks. Can't have a look at it just now though.

Does it include TMDb tags? I know they're not being used/exposed yet, but I can't remember if you're storing them already.

Yes, there is a system for tags, but it's not exposed for now as it isn't possible to set them (again waiting for the library view). It consists of a key-value pair, which can be used freely; you'll be able to define them yourself, get them from tmdb or any other way you can imagine. This feature is fully working, as genres for movies are being stored with this mechanism.

How about trailers?

No wonder I've missed something in the list The urls are stored, but there's no way to use them for now. I had planned to add them as an additional entry for a file being displayed as a folder. Hadn't thought of your proposition to show a list of all trailers. I like the idea, but don't know how it would look. What about having a third display mode for a folder besides file and folder that would be trailer?

[taconaut]

Updated to v0.2
- allow headless mode
- added web service with basic functionality
- make sure the default plugins are packaged for all platforms
- corrected some bugs

In order to have minimal functionality in headless mode, scanFolder, resetLibrary and cleanLibrary can be accessed through a web service.
The endpoint is being created for the same ip as pms is bound to. The wsdl can be found under http://<ip_address>:54423/PmsLibrary?wsdl
If you don't know what to do with this, download and install soapUI -> create a new project -> Add WSDL with the endpoint address. It should discover the available functions.