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

[travisp]

Adding a random sort for all folders could be done. In order to keep the folder update mechanism as simple as it can, each time you enter a folder with random sort order, all the files would have to be reloaded and will show up sorted differently. The first time you open the folder it would be as fast as for any other folder; the subsequent entries (going back out and in again) would be slower though, as all the previously shown files would have to be removed, before adding the new ones again. Would this do the trick?

It sounds like it would work. I'm a little concerned that it would be too slow, but as long as it can be applied to more than just "All photos" (e.g. a subfolder or a folder of photos with a particular property) it should be manageable. I have thousands of photos stored in my photo directory and they take quite a long time to load when "All photos" is viewed.

As I'm no photo-expert at all, I'd like to have some input on how to apply the filtering mechanism to photos. Currently, only following parameters can be stored in the db for photos: width, height, exposure, iso and orientation; this is beside the default file properties, like path, creation date etc. Are there other parameters that would be available for most digital photos, you would be interested to have stored (exif), which would allow to filter and sort pictures on?

I think if we could choose which exif properties we wanted to use ourselves, that would be the best, although I'm not sure how complicated that is.

Parameters that would be available for most digital cameras that would be useful: Camera Model Name, maybe a calculated resolution from width and height (so I could filter out all low resolution pictures if I wanted)

Exif parameters that would be available only for people who have entered them, but would be great to be able to use at least in my case: Keywords or Subject, Hierarchical Subject, Country-Primary Location Name or Country, Location. I'm sure there are plenty of other people who have added keywords to their photos and entered location information.

[lot2smile4]

Thanks. It's now working with both the console and my ODB.
My tips for others regarding connecting to the database:
Tip #1: Don't clear out the default "sa" username
Tip #2: For those on Windows, ignore the additional .h2.db that gets tacked on to the end of the pms_media_library.db extension.

Meskibob, how did you get your OpenOffice connection to work, as I am not able to see any tables when I open the database. I am using OpenOffice through windows, and have downloaded the jar file from [irl]http://repo2.maven.org/maven2/com/h2database/h2/1.3.151/h2-1.3.151.jar[/url]

I think I have done everything right as far as I know... I have tried with both the PMS service running and stopped, and I have tried all combination's of entering the file name, with the .h2.db on the end and without, and none of them seem to work. If I click on test connection it succeeds, and when I click on Test class on the db connection window, this succeeds too.

As far as the web interface goes, all I see is schema stuff too, and I have tried several ways to try and get this to work... the command line I am using is:

Code: Select all

java -cp h2*.jar org.h2.tools.Server -webAllowOthers -tcpAllowOthers -pgAllowOthers

this succeeds, and says to open a browser... but all I see is the schema stuff, is there anything else that I should be able to do from the web interface?

Taconaught, I noticed on your feature requests on sourceforge that you have put to expose all features through web interface... thanks for doing this, I think this will make PMS a very powerful media server, as it will allow headless running to be much easier I may tap up one of our developers tomorrow at work to see about writing a simple front end app for doing the soap config, save me from using soapUI all the time

I hope that someone can shed some light on this, as I am keen to use this method of seeing my films, etc, as I find it much easier to see what I have and haven't watched this way

thanks for ALL the work that is put into this project, I know I appreciate it, and I am sure that many others do too!

[meskibob]

Here is what I did:

1. Install H2 from http://www.h2database.com/html/main.html
   Just grabbing the JAR from somewhere else should work, but I dl'd the full install (also helps with getting the web console to work)
2. Follow the directions at http://www.h2database.com/html/tutorial ... pen_office for adding the JAR to the Java classpath in OpenOffice.
3. For the datasource URL, I followed the syntax from http://www.h2database.com/html/features ... tabase_url for an embedded (local) connection using absolute paths (no %appdata%)

Note that I am still having some other issues with the JDBC connection and it pulling the wrong schema name, so I can't open any of the tables in OO, but I'm pretty sure it's just a setting somewhere I need to find.

[lot2smile4]

not sure if it will help you meskibob, but have you tried downloading v 1.1.105 of h2? It appears that is the version that is used with PMS, and I was wondering if the different version would be causing you a problem.

Just a a thought...

[taconaut]

not sure if it will help you meskibob, but have you tried downloading v 1.1.105 of h2? It appears that is the version that is used with PMS, and I was wondering if the different version would be causing you a problem.

pms-mlx uses h2 version 1.3.146; it is a more recent version of the db than the original pms. They aren't compatible btw.

I think if we could choose which exif properties we wanted to use ourselves, that would be the best, although I'm not sure how complicated that is.

This would be possible but not all that easy. Everything is ready and available to store custom properties as you propose, but I can't tell how fast it will work when loading 5000 photos all having 50 properties. Also offering a way through gui isn't trivial; if you select to import pictures, the exif tags of all the pictures have to be read first, in order to know what is available, then a new dialog has to be done that lets you choose which properties you want to import.

[lot2smile4]

Ty Taco!! Once again you come up trumps with that one... putting the right version of the h2 server on pms and then running the web interface enabled me to see the data tables and even edit it! ... only trouble is, I need to get my head around the data structure lol! But thank you for having such an open interface... I could yet get some sense out of it :-9

[taconaut]

Ty Taco!! Once again you come up trumps with that one... putting the right version of the h2 server on pms and then running the web interface enabled me to see the data tables and even edit it! ... only trouble is, I need to get my head around the data structure lol! But thank you for having such an open interface... I could yet get some sense out of it :-9

Nice. Your welcome to use any tool that helps you access and configure stuff which isn't accessible through the interface or the services; you'll just have to fiddle around a bit for that
I'll probably also describe the data structure at some point in the wiki; in the meantime, this schema (almost up to date) might help you.

[PepJr]

Great effort. Just what I've been looking for.

[chocolateboy]

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.

Is there no way to implement a compatibility shim that allows plugins using the old interface to work with pms-mlx? At the moment, root folder plugins have no way to work on (both) PMS and pms-mlx.

[taconaut]

Is there no way to implement a compatibility shim that allows plugins using the old interface to work with pms-mlx? At the moment, root folder plugins have no way to work on (both) PMS and pms-mlx.

There's always a way :p I'm just not sure I want to take it, because of the not so nice mixture of mlx folders and the others.

What would have to be done:
Let net.pms.medialibrary.dlna.RootFolder implement refreshChildren() and discoverChildren() to handle the root folders. Currently, the entire refresh is being managed by MediaLibraryFolder which is extended by RootFolder; this makes it tricky to dynamically refresh changed folders at root, without duplicating these methods.
This would hopefully only be a temporary solution until the plugins are being recompiled for mlx. This represents almost no work, but has to be done by someone..

Don't know if you've noticed, you can edit the folder structure and files while the ps3 is connected to pms and for the next folder reload (when exiting and entering again), the files and folders get updated to the updated structure. That's what makes it hard to add other type of folders like the additional folders at root.

[edit] I should also mention the additional possibilities you've got with the new plugin mechanism:
- You can add as many instances of the plugin as you want, in any folder
- The plugin will show up with icon and name (if configured) in the context menu
- Each instance can be configured differently. This can be done (e.g. File System plugin) but must not (e.g. web plugin)