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[MGD_King]

If this tooltip stuff is officially well documented, this will reduce a lot of complaints about the HMI of mc.

This thread is for me by far the most fruitful the last months 

I wonder if we could talk Lepa into creating a Wiki article on it? 

I have a question about one of the pieces of code that shows the Budget and Gross Revenue. The code is:

Code: [Select]

<font size="100" color="#9496a3">If(!IsEmpty([Budget]),<b>Budget:<//b> $Math(trunc([Budget]/1000000,1)) Million  ,)If(!IsEmpty([Gross Revenue]),//  <b>Gross Revenue:<//b> $Math(trunc([Gross Revenue]/1000000,1)) Million,)<//font>
This works great unless the movie has grossed $1 Billion or more, such as Iron Man 3 which grossed $1,215,439,994 (US). Using the above code, the result is only $1 Million. Anyone got any ideas? Thanks in advanced!

[zybex]

This works to append the correct millions/billions suffix:

1. Create field GrossRevenueNum to hold the clean numeric value (see note below):

Code: [Select]

removecharacters([Gross Revenue],/,.$,0)
2. Create GrossRevenueExt like this:

Code: [Select]

if(!isempty([Gross Revenue]),
  if(compare([GrossRevenueNum],<,1000000),<$1 Million,
  if(compare([GrossRevenueNum],<,1000000000),$Math(trunc([GrossRevenueNum]/1000000,1)) Million,
  $Math(trunc([GrossRevenueNum]/1000000000,2)) Billion
)),)
Do the same for Budget field.

Note: While testing this I found out that Math functions [correctly] use the decimal separator that is setup in Windows. This is a problem for non-US machines like mine where the decimal separator is a comma and the thousands separator is a dot (ie, €234.455,00). Since the Gross Revenue is usually stored using US convention, the Math parsing of the string and the division by 1000000 outputs wrong numbers. This is why I'm cleaning up the string using removecharacters() function.

[thorsten]

Another thing I noticed: I complained several times, that the tooltip is disappearing too fast, my wife often need a second in-out-mouse move for complete reading.

With the Selfmade tooltips, the popup stays for minutes (or till the next mouse movement)! Very nice!!!

[Matt]

Is there anything we could do at JRiver to make this process easier?  Thanks so much for the contribution!

[fitbrit]

Is there anything we could do at JRiver to make this process easier?  Thanks so much for the contribution!

Absolutely, I think! 
We got a newsletter yesterday from JRiver that showed what could be done with tooltips and TheaterView. It linked to this thread. And in this thread there is a ton of html/xml/whatever code that the vast majority of MC users would take one look at and think, "Yeah, MC is just too hard to use." I'm really happy that you asked for this feedback.

So, yes, there are things that can be done. I am not the expert here, so forgive my naive suggestions:

1. Make the ToolTip font part of MC when it is installed, it installs the font for MC's use

2. Make ToolTips and Theater View more Wizard-based if possible. Make it so that we can specify which font we want to use for which field. Make it so that we do not have to use characters for the font to get a symbol - that translation is done for us. Therefore more could be done without relying on writing in a mark-up language

3. If possible render the result in an example window beside the code/Wizard so that the output can be tested without having to exit, enter the appropriate view and then check to see if it was right.

4. Let us choose a few variations of default layouts that people can use immediately.

5. Or create an online repository that one can just link to and it will add that template to the views. It could be a separate section on this forum where the talented people present screenshots of their work and a link that you copy-paste into the right area in MC to get the template installed.

Right now we have all the "choice" in the world because there is not much to choose from - we have it all at our disposal if we can create it ourselves. This is either too hard for most people to do, or results in "choice fatigue" where one cannot decide on anything. A few good choices that are easy to implement would be most welcome, I suspect. Other programs offer these pre-made choices and they may not suit everyone, but the majority just deal with it.

[Spike1000]

Is there anything we could do at JRiver to make this process easier?  Thanks so much for the contribution!

Allow (and preserve) line breaks and indenting in expressions so complex expressions are easier to read and edit.

Spike

[Hendrik]

Allow (and preserve) line breaks and indenting in expressions so complex expressions are easier to read and edit.

We've been down that route before, and as stated then - formating in expressions results in formating in the output. There is no really good way to differentiate that. And being able to format the output properly is more important.

Many of fitbrit's suggestions seem like something we might be able to do.

[thorsten]

Hi,

But I must say, that even me as a total noob to expression language and installing fonts found it at the end really easy! Ok, you need 1-3 hours for getting your unique design, but the tooltip setup is now rather straightforward as decribed in the post that is linked in the very first post here:

- start a good, relaxing music album (no trash metal  )
- get your tags with MCRating complete
- install the font (4 mouse clicks)
- create the sub-tag expressions resolution, audio, oscar winner, mpaa etc.
- use the in the thread provided tooltip (movie) as a starting point
- enjoy!

And when you get the system in your head, with a little bit of testing you got it even up and running in the theatre view. This is more difficult, but isn‘t everything concerning the theatre view complex? 

[fitbrit]

Hi,

But I must say, that even me as a total noob to expression language and installing fonts found it at the end really easy! Ok, you need 1-3 hours for getting your unique design, but the tooltip setup is now rather straightforward as decribed in the post that is linked in the very first post here:

- start a good, relaxing music album (no trash metal  )
- get your tags with MCRating complete
- install the font (4 mouse clicks)
- create the sub-tag expressions resolution, audio, oscar winner, mpaa etc.
- use the in the thread provided tooltip (movie) as a starting point
- enjoy!

And when you get the system in your head, with a little bit of testing you got it even up and running in the theatre view. This is more difficult, but isn‘t everything concerning the theatre view complex? 

Actually, that is a great summary!
I think I made the mistake of tackling TheaterView first.

[zybex]

Is there anything we could do at JRiver to make this process easier?  Thanks so much for the contribution!

I like Fitbrit ideas. If you decide to use the symbol font from this thread, please reward the creators with a minimum of a lifetime JR license

Some other suggestions:
1. The Field editing UI should have a button to open a bigger/more featured Expression Editor window, with some nice features:
- syntax highlighting
- matching bracket highlighting
- syntax tooltips for the function names and arguments (à la Visual Studio) would also be nice
- an "insert symbol" button could show the symbols from the excellent font in this thread, or from other fonts
- a "preview" panel, perhaps using the currently selected movie. For most expressions the preview is simple, but for Tooltip it's really awkward to keep having to close the options to see how it looks, then go there again to make a change, close again... etc.

2. An alternative whitespace handling method could also be declared, either by using a new SetMode() function or preprocessor-style directives:

Code: [Select]

SetMode(whitespace, 1)or

Code: [Select]

#whitespace 1
Zero would be the current mode (default), and 1 would be EXPLICIT whitespace mode.
Following this directive, all whitespace (except between words) would be ignored allowing for proper code indentation, code comments (another feature), etc. Explicit whitespace would be introduced as in HTML, with < p >, < br >, &nbsp, etc. < pre > could also be supported. Alternatively (or on top), the standard \n could also be supported, and perhaps \t and \s for a space.
Other preprocessor directives could be introduced in the same way.

3. Support for some more HTML tags would be nice. < hr> comes to mind. < center > would also be great. I guess CSS is asking too much

4. Adding alignment/tables would be awesome. This could be with html (table/td/tr) or with markup-style tables.

5. Expression language could use a few more functions. Just look at the convoluted code in this thread, sometimes just to get to a simple value at the end. Examples:
- repeat(\n,30)    // repeat a char/string N times.
- ifCase(expression, 1, ValueFor1, 2, ValueFor2, 3, ValueFor3, ...)        // switch/case implementation

That's it for now, I hope some of these make sense to you

[zybex]

One more thought for the Expression Editor - a WYSIWYG editor with a toolbar for font, color, size, etc, with a quick toggle to switch between code/wysiwyg/preview modes.

[RoderickGI]

Is there anything we could do at JRiver to make this process easier?  Thanks so much for the contribution!

Lots. But it wouldn't be simple or quick. MC often provides all the basic tools, but doesn't finish functionality with usability. I know, old argument, but it is patently obvious with this existing functionality. So, add some usability tools.

Zybex is on the track I was thinking.

1. Leave all the existing functionality in place for users who want to deep dive into code and tweak it.
2. Standardise the fields used in this solution, if it is seen as appropriate, so that templates become transportable and shareable. Also so inexperienced users don't have to build a bunch of fields before trying a template. Or build into shared template addition the creation of required fields.
3. Commercialise the font being used, or find an equivalent solution that has everything required for media symbols. The current result is great, but I suspect if it was anything other than users sharing the font, there would be legal issues.

4. Provide a graphical, drag and drop fields, symbols and other components, layout tool, so that user could start with a standard template and modify it just by moving, adding or deleting components. Or create a new layout from scratch. I wouldn't expect JRiver to write such a tool from scratch, but maybe select a tool and facilitate its integration into a workflow for editing and creating layouts. An open-source tool would be great. Something that is relatively simple. i.e. Microsoft's Visual Studio might be too much. Basically, hide the complexity from users by using a simple front end tool. If the tools built CSS in the background, I wouldn't care, as long as I didn't have to edit them, even if I could.
5. Make this work for all elements of the layouts. i.e. Turn off image rotation and reflection easily. Resize, move, format images etc.
6. Make the tools added universal for multiple areas of MC. Tooltips and Theatre View are a good start.

We've been down that route before, and as stated then - formating in expressions results in formating in the output. There is no really good way to differentiate that. And being able to format the output properly is more important.

There are development tools that will format code to make it readable though, either without adding anything to the code, or by adding in non-processed functions to the code that tell a tool how to format the code for editing. Even Notepad++ has a language module, and I have a JRiver language version, but it isn't complete or reliable for some functions. It gets bracketing wrong pretty often at the moment. Anyway, any tool that could be launched anywhere where expressions can be edited, so that formatted code could be viewed, edited and saved back to the MC dialogue would be good.

As an example, Moe's tooltip code currently looks like that attached image in Notepad++ using the JRiver language.

Plus all the stuff above. I'm sure that is more than enough to think about! 

[jdizzy623]

Been waiting for what I consider a breakthrough on presentation.
I have added code in Zip file as stated in first post but beyond that am lost as to what to do next.
I see there are a couple of image/font files but don't know where to put them.
Also can't figure how to implement new view created from imported code when browsing movies.

Is there a dummies guide with step by step instructions available?
Thanks!

[lello]

....delete.....

[jdizzy623]

Didn't mean to barge in, just trying to figure out how to get this added to my system.

It would be great if JRM could corporate this into the stock program, to create the needed fields, scrape automagically, and display these nice looking pages in Theaterview.
Thanks

[Skyx]

Dear all,

first I'd like to thank all of the contributors who have put so much work into this topic and share their results.
I'm certainly missing A LOT... but with everything that is posted, I thought it is more or less just copy paste... I'm obviously wrong :-(

What I found is:
Install the fonts ... HOW ? The links provided let me download an html file... but I want a ttf ?
---
In the html is a download link that lets you download the ttf... sorry I missed that !!!
BIG thanks to Moe !!!
---
Create a custom library field ToolTip and copy the code into the expression...
Install Moe's custom Movie Template.
Depending on the available tags, it should give me something I can start working with...

What am I missing ? Which additional steps are required ?

Many many thanks for any input.

BR

[lepa]

I think you might be confusing tooltip and theaterview parts. I've cleaned first post a little so maybe the different parts are now more clear.

I'm currently on holiday from work and also from MC tuning so any complicated answers from me are on hold 

But for short: for tooltips you're gonna need to create custom calculated fields (see first post) and if you want to tune theater view you can copy paste template or create rows manually. Of course if you copy paste a template you can then adjust all the rows yourself to anything you like

font files are just windows ttf fonts so double clicking it will let you install it to windows. Might need to restart MC afterwards to refresh the changes

[lepa]

word

Pretty much what RoderickGI said (and others too)
So more html tags would be helpful to organize data inside theater view item. Basically I've been cheating a little bit by using many fields inside one item to be able to change the look of theater view a bit. Concerning to that one thing to make theater view more flexible could be option to allow to show item fully without selecting it first. In the same way there is currently "hide item when empty" so new option could be "show item always maximized" (of course hidden if empy if that option is selected)

I'm also using notepad++ with MC language file. I've also added new functions there so I get the bracket starts and ends correct most of the times at least

[Skyx]

Hi Lepa,
thanks for your answers... and I think you're right, I may have confused/mixed up Tooltip and Theater Views... from your and Moe's description I thought this is a combo, like you can't have the Theater View shown in the screenshots without the Tooltips...

What are Tooltips for then... ? To show computed data when hovering ? Like when my Mouse is over a Movie in Standard View ?

Enjoy your holidays !!

BR

[lepa]

What are Tooltips for then... ? To show computed data when hovering ? Like when my Mouse is over a Movie in Standard View ?

Enjoy your holidays !!

thanks and yes tooltips are mouse overs in standard view

[RoderickGI]

I'm also using notepad++ with MC language file. I've also added new functions there so I get the bracket starts and ends correct most of the times at least

Could you share your updated Notepad++ language file? I've been lazy and not gone back to it to update and correct mine. When you are off holidays would be fine. Enjoy the break.

[Skyx]

But for short: for tooltips you're gonna need to create custom calculated fields (see first post) and if you want to tune theater view you can copy paste template or create rows manually. Of course if you copy paste a template you can then adjust all the rows yourself to anything you like

font files are just windows ttf fonts so double clicking it will let you install it to windows. Might need to restart MC afterwards to refresh the changes

Sorry to bother again...
I spent a couple of hours to get the TheaterView Template running... without success :-(
I loaded using the zip file or pasted the entire text, I could see your S and L differentiation... but I never got the layout with the icons from ToolTip01 font...
Would someone be so kind and give me a step by step guidance how I can get lepas's or thorsten's TheaterView layout ...
I'd be so grateful...

Many thanks

BR

[lepa]

Sorry to bother again...
I spent a couple of hours to get the TheaterView Template running... without success :-(
I loaded using the zip file or pasted the entire text, I could see your S and L differentiation... but I never got the layout with the icons from ToolTip01 font...
Would someone be so kind and give me a step by step guidance how I can get lepas's or thorsten's TheaterView layout ...
I'd be so grateful...

Many thanks

BR

Could you post pictures of your progress? what does it look like? what have you done?

Flow should be something like this:
If you try to use my template inside the zip you should do steps 1-4 and result should be 5.
Next if you check edit template (second picture) and that search criteria is set to movie (third picture)
Last you should check (4th picture) that this imported movie template (which you just added from the clipboard) is highest movie template (remember pic3 search criteria)


You don't have my filmstudios font so those wont show up as icons but that shouldn't bother the rest of the things so let's not concentrate on that now. You of course you need to install ToolTip01 font to windows

[lepa]

Could you share your updated Notepad++ language file? I've been lazy and not gone back to it to update and correct mine. When you are off holidays would be fine. Enjoy the break.

Sure, it's not complete though, I've just added things what have broken my brackets at the time. Don't know though where it is saved...

[Skyx]

Last you should check (4th picture) that this imported movie template (which you just added from the clipboard) is highest movie template (remember pic3 search criteria)

Lepa,

you're the best.... thank you so much for taking the time while you're on holidays....
The problem was that I didn't move the template up the list... so it would always pick the original Movie Template.

I didn't know that the templates are evaluated top to bottom and the first that meets the criteria is taken... if I would have paid more attention, I could have sorted out the logic by seeing the options 'Move Template Up' or 'Move Template Down'...

I owe you big time.... Many many thanks !!

BR

[Moe]

I'm back, Spain was awesome!

This would be fantastic, Moe!

German FSK rating icons have been added https://moesrealm.com/MC/

Is there anything we could do at JRiver to make this process easier?  Thanks so much for the contribution!

Yes, so much.  A lot of good ideas already mentioned in this thread.  I have two big requests.  They may be too big, but they would make all the difference in the world.

1.  The part that I have found most frustrating when working with these is the amount of clicks required to see changes.  For instance, say you're trying to choose the correct font color for a bit of your tooltip, you have to go through all of these steps tools/options/Library & Folders/...Manage Library Fields/find the tooltip field/make changes/close out options/hover over a file to see the tooltip/if you don't like the color repeat all of the above and test again.  It gets really, really old fast.  I would love to have a tool where you can see your changes in real time, something like this that I mocked up real quick.



At the top left you can choose which tooltip you want to edit, Movie, Television, Music, etc.
Under that you can choose the font for whatever text you have highlighted in the expression box below.
Then you have the file that you want to use as your preview

Finally, you have the actual expression that you're using to create your tooltip. 

When you make a change in the expression box on the left the preview on the right updates in real time.  Something I forgot to add to the image, some sort of character map so that you know that the number 6 corresponds to the IMDB logo, the < corresponds to the small TMDB icon, etc.

Syntax highlighting would be nice too (this would be great for all expression windows)

Something along these lines would be an absolutely amazing.

2.  Full HTML/CSS/Javascript support.  We already have this with Track Info templates, so the functionality is in MC.  This would make life exponentially easier and I think it would also be more user friendly.  Using a font to get images/icons into tooltips/Theater View works, but it's a serious kludge.  Fonts also have serious drawbacks. Fonts can't be multi-color, the Rotten Tomatoes Fresh icon is a perfect example of this. Fonts are confusing to work with, entering a comma to get the OGG icon isn't exactly logical.  Adding a new icon to the font, while not exactly difficult, it is a bit time consuming.  It probably takes me 5-10 minutes to add a new icon (it's easier/faster when adding mulitple icons at the same time), if we had image support it would take seconds.  HTML/CSS/Javascript would open up tons of different capabilities.  We could have dynamic backgrounds on our tooltips, we could change the color of the font based on the dominate color of the movie poster, etc. etc.   

[RoderickGI]

Sure, it's not complete though, I've just added things what have broken my brackets at the time. Don't know though where it is saved...

Cool. Probably just easiest to export it from Notepad++ under "Language > Define your language > {select JRiver language} > Export" to create a new UDL language file.

But no rush.

[Hendrik]

2.  Full HTML/CSS/Javascript support.

This may sound nice in theory, but you really don't want that. We would need to spin up a browser for every tooltip or every Theater View info panel, and that would be terrible for performance and potentially stability. There just is no nice, easy, stable and performant way to embed a browser rendering component into responsive UI elements like Tooltips, or into the 3D environment of Theater View - even less so if you have to consider multiple platforms.

If inlined images are the main concern, maybe we can define a rendering tag that can do that, pull from some default MC folder somewhere (for performance reasons, web requests would also be problematic here, unless we can find a nice way to make the images load asynchroniously)

[lepa]

Cool. Probably just easiest to export it from Notepad++ under "Language > Define your language > {select JRiver language} > Export" to create a new UDL language file.

But no rush.

Don't know how I missed those import/export buttons I'm sure I didn't handle escape characters properly but seemed to work properly with /( and /) so I didn't dig further. Probably also lacks functions which I didn't use at the time when I updated language file...

[Moe]

If inlined images are the main concern, maybe we can define a rendering tag that can do that, pull from some default MC folder somewhere (for performance reasons, web requests would also be problematic here, unless we can find a nice way to make the images load asynchroniously)

Inline images would be absolutely wonderful.  While I am glad that the font workaround has allowed us to pretty things up, actual images would be another leap forward.  Images probably won't be as fast as fonts, but they will sure be prettier.

[jdizzy623]

Last you should check that this imported movie template (which you just added from the clipboard) is highest movie template

That was the key!!
Thanks   

[jdizzy623]

Where might one find the following utilities?

Metadata has been fetched with MC, MCUtils and MCratings

Thanks Again

[Moe]

MC Ratings is here https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,119792.0.html

MCUtils is here https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=100449.0 (I'm not sure if this is the most up to date link or not)

[thorsten]

Hi Moe,

hope you had a good time in Spain.

Thanks for your work with the FSK! I'm "looking" forward to tag my 500+ movies by hand… 

Unfortunately, the downloadlink seems to be broken with this address: https://moesrealm.com/MC/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/ToolTip01.ttf

BR

[Moe]

Sorry about that, font download link is fixed now.

[darky]

And in this thread there is a ton of html/xml/whatever code that the vast majority of MC users would take one look at and think, "Yeah, MC is just too hard to use." I'm really happy that you asked for this feedback.

Even chips ..beer and music..didn't make me understand all the code. But outside that...it is just very interesting to read.
I hope sometime an easy skin/zip noob proof solution comes out of it

Thank you for trying to explain it all

[MGD_King]

This works to append the correct millions/billions suffix:

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! This works perfectly!!

[jdizzy623]

This is very cool... language is a bit challenging though.....

Question, is Theaterview-Audio screen included anywhere?
I like the one shown in first post and could use that for starters as a template.
Still have not got my head around how to start one on my own.
Thanks!

[Moe]

In case anyone missed it https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,121636.0.html

[lello]

If enough people like this but want some more Genre Icons made, I may be able to be persuaded if there is enough demand

I downloaded and installed the lepa template, I downloaded and installed both icon fonts and genre icons, but I can't get the genre icons to display correctly.

Surely I can't copy the various expressions in the right place: could I know where I have to copy them exactly?

I know, everything is simple for you, but not everyone is so good 

[Moe]

Lello, I would just hold for now.  JRiver is giving us true image support (see the thread I linked a few posts back) which is going to make this whole process much, much easier.  It will make it easier to create and easier to share as well.

[lello]

Thank you so much

[lepa]

And another fault: the IMDB-rating in tooltip is of smaller font than the others. No clue why as there are no fond size changes, but I will add one......

If you were using tooltip Moe shared as base I think that there were couple places where font was opened but not closed so that caused unpexpected font sizes.
It is easy to have those kind of errors in scripts as we don't have very good editors for this and there are many layers of IF decisions in which you would open font tag but either forgot to close it or purposedly leave it open. Then there might be double errors which evens things out  So it will become quite complex after a while.

[lepa]

Changed some font logos to images to test coming new image functionality

[Moe]

Looking good Lepa!  How are you finding it using images instead of fonts?  I am assuming it's easier? 

Out of curiosity, what do the gold stars next to the song titles symbolize in the second image?  I know the blue icons indicate Allmusic track picks.

[lepa]

Looking good Lepa!  How are you finding it using images instead of fonts?  I am assuming it's easier? 

Out of curiosity, what do the gold stars next to the song titles symbolize in the second image?  I know the blue icons indicate Allmusic track picks.

not so messy yeah. I think that I will use both. Most of the time went for drawing these simple images with gimp as it has been so long time since I have last used it...

Star means that track is rated by me between 4 and 5. Not yet sure if I leave those marks in front of rows as track names don't look so tidy because they will start from different positions. Do I hear tables?? 

Still just playing with this and trying things and probably in the end will choose something simplistic over bling bling

[lepa]

Just a little experimentation using images as tech icons row in my movie template. Everything is looks bit chaotic as icons are different width, color etc....  Probably will end up drawing/modifying my own icons so the style will be similar between the logos. At minimum will use similar width for all the icons. Just testing for now

[MGD_King]

Just a little experimentation using images as tech icons row in my movie template. Everything is looks bit chaotic as icons are different width, color etc....  Probably will end up drawing/modifying my own icons so the style will be similar between the logos. At minimum will use similar width for all the icons. Just testing for now

I really like the look of those image icons! The colors add depth and texture! The variable width doesn't bother me, in fact, it looks more "natural" in the sense that not all logos are created equal. 

[Moe]

I agree with MGD, looking good and the different sizes don't bother me at all.

I want to put together something so that we can all share images easily.  Seems silly for us all to collect the same IMDB image or whatever.  I want to see if we can share a dropbox (or similar) folder and then have a page that automatically generates a gallery from that directory.  Maybe even do sub-directories, such as Movie Studios, Audio/video containers/MPAA (and other country) Ratings/etc. 

Is this something people would be interested in?

[Matt]

We might even be able to include the images in the new "Tooltip" folder if you'd be willing to share.