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[Music_Man]

I found the following post re. my subject: 
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=78198.0

"glynor's" following video from the above linked post worked well to organize sequential movies and a single movie's bonus features: https://vimeo.com/59632103 

But in the Theater / Genre View, I would like to see the same organization -- e.g. a single movie with a sub-tier of its added content behind it (bonus features  etc.).  Presently (my default) Genre view lumps everything together in one extensive mix. With thousands of files, this obviously makes it difficult to visually pick and choose the actual movies from their related content.

My understanding of Expressions is that they exist (little else).  A knowledge of how or where to apply them to obtain a Genre view as stated (or for that matter anything else), is lacking.  I was hoping that since the linked-to post in 2013, MC 27 may provide a more elegant way of displaying movie related content & sequential movies.  Something that uses tags as opposed to expressions.  If so, please advise.  If not, I would appreciate some help doing what I would like.  If this is possible, it would be great if it could be presented in a step-by-step fashion. 

On a related note, are there scripts (if you will) available in an aggregated (e.g. wiki) area, that would automate or display the method of creating tasks such as what “glynor” did?  Something that would provide the new user with the ability of automating view tasks such as described herein?  These obviously wouldn't give a user the complete do-it-as-I-would-like experience.  But they would provide a new user with something closer to an expert user's sorting and viewing experience - a not perfect, but a better turn-key experience if you will........Thanks, -Mike

[wer]

There haven't been any substantive changes to Theater View in that regard.  The only way to achieve this is with Expressions.  Expressions use tags, of course, but what you are asking for amounts to "is there some magic built in that on the basis of certain tags will automatically group my movies without using expressions" and the answer is no.

I don't have time to do a full step by step tutorial for you with screenshots and the like, but I will give you the core of it, as I'm doing the same thing, and something similar to glynor.

First, the difference between my approach and glynor's is that mine, due to my own preferences, is a bit more flexible. Glynor uses the [Series] tag to group movies. That's fine, and it's what his video shows.

I use TWO custom fields, because I want to be able to have groups within groups.  An example of what I would do:
A group that contains all Star Wars movies.  Within that group, there would be multiple subgroups; one subgroup would be "The Empire Strikes Back" and within that group, I have multiple versions of the movie: Theatrical, Special Edition, etc.  Get it? 

So I have two user-defined fields:  [GroupSet] and [Grouping]
GroupSet is a set of Groups. "Star Wars Movies" in the example above. Grouping holds individual movies, "The Empire Strikes Back" in the example above.
So for every Star Wars movie, I set its [GroupSet] tag to be "Star Wars Movies" and then I set the [Grouping] tags as appropriate. Not every movie in the Star Wars groupset needs a Grouping tag.

Then when you configure your view, you create a view level of type Expression, and you fill out the fields as follows:
For Expression to group by:

Code: [Select]

FirstNotEmpty([GroupSet],[Grouping],[Name])
For Expression to Display:

Code: [Select]

If(isempty([GroupSet,1]),FirstNotEmpty([Grouping, 1],[Name, 1]),[GroupSet,1])
So the magic bit is the use of the FirstNotEmpty expression.  It picks from amongst the three fields, using the first one that has something in it.  This makes the GroupSet and Grouping fields OPTIONAL.  You do not have to fill them out for any of your movies.  But if you DO fill those fields out, any movie so tagged will be automatically grouped in views defined as I showed you above.

Compared with Glynor's approach, my [Grouping] field is the equivalent of the way he uses [Series]. I then layer [GroupSet] on top of that, so that I can have groups (sets) of groups.  So you could simplify my first expression to take the more limited form of Glynor's approach as follows:

Code: [Select]

FirstNotEmpty([Series],[Name])You can see, this is exactly the same as my first expression, except it changes Grouping to Series, and omits Groupset entirely.

I hope this makes sense.

Giving a new user an expert user's knowledge and experience is, you have to admit, a problematic thing. Software packages that are super easy to use, give everyone mostly the same experience, and then there's not really any such thing as an expert user.  MC is like Photoshop: it gives everyone access to the same tools, (like Paths and 3D Extrusion in Photoshop). But being able to wield that tool in an expert manner is a question of skill and experience.

[Music_Man]

Thanks wer, I haven't had time to analyze your input yet.  But a cursory look provides me a starting, if not an ending point.

I've been a casual user of MC for well over a decade.  Back then, it was strictly for audio.  I found my way around to do what I wanted.  Now, after a significant amount of video ripping, I want to massage the Theater output. 

I fully understand and concur that JRiver provides a unique and anything but a turnkey experience.  It is usable out of the box, but has tremendous capabilities subject only to the user's knowledge and experience (as you mentioned).  This means that one has to forego a fully intuitive experience, to obtain individualized personalization.  One of my complaints when trying Apple in the early 90's from growing up with MS beginning with DOS (in the early 80's) was the inability to easily change how iTunes wanted to drive vs how I wanted to drive it.  My point is that making something that just works, verses allowing and encouraging personalization, are normally opposing perspectives.  For somethings I prefer the former, for others the latter.         

[wer]

I couldn't agree more that it would be beneficial to provide a better and easier experience for new users, both in terms of documentation and the intuitiveness of the GUI, and especially how Theater View views are configured.  But that argument has been made over the years, by myself and others, and it's not happening. So new (or learning) users will have to get by as best they can, asking questions etc, and those for whom the learning curve proves too steep will find other software packages more to their liking.  You're certainly not alone in using the app for quite a while but only focusing on one thing, and then wanting later to branch out and learn more.  If you're someone who likes to tinker, there can be a certain amount of fun in that learning process. Up to a point, of course.

Good luck with the movie grouping...

[glynor]

I will say, I don't use that exact system anymore. I still tag them with [Series] and [Episode] tags, and use these for display (and filesystem storage) but my general movies views are "flat" and don't display the [Series] field (or any field at all, other than sometimes an "alphabet" sorter).

Instead, I use sorting to accomplish the same thing in a flat-listing.

I have a Calculated Field defined called [Sort Key - Movie] with this expression:

Code: [Select]

If(IsEmpty([Series]),,[Series]-)If(IsEmpty([Episode],1),,[Episode]-)[Name]If(IsEmpty([Disc #],1),,-[Disc #])
That field isn't actually displayed anywhere in my Views in MC, but all of my Movie Views sort-by this field, which is built to make sure they're just in the order I want, with movies in a series together (in episode order, if they have them), and others sorted based on their names (with [Disc #] thrown in for the handful of examples where I have those still, if any).

The nice thing about this is that the [Names] of the movies don't have to be "special" to achieve the sort order I want. I can leave them named with their "real titles" but get them to sort in "episodic order" properly, and sort together with their "series". For example, my James Bond movies in my Standard View > Video > Movies > All Movies view:

Click to embiggen.

And the setup for it:

Click to embiggen.

Same thing in Theater View:

Click to embiggen.

Setup:

Click to embiggen.

This has several benefits. In some cases, I don't need to "care about" making sure they're tagged "properly" with [Series] and [Episode] tags at all. Many "serial" Movies such as Back to the Future Part 1, 2, and 3 (or The Godfather) are already "right" and don't need any [Series] or [Episode] tags to be applied to sort correctly. Avoid hand-tagging where you can avoid it.

But, if needed, it still allows me to solve issues like James Bond shown above (which would otherwise sort all separately all over the place), or Finding Nemo and Finding Dory (which would sort alphabetically in the reverse "order") by simply adding a Series tag and applying some Episode numbers. For others, I might not particularly care about the "order" of the films, but I still want them to all sort together as a group (like the classic Peanuts movies I have in my library, for example) so I just tag [Series] and leave [Episode] blank. It also works well for Miniseries that fit better under Movies than TV Shows, like the old 1990s It series shown in the screenshots above.

And, importantly, it:
1. Lets you do all of the above without needing to "specially tag" the [Name] field. Having to do that messes with being able to look up Metadata through TMDB in MC and is just a bunch of manual work.
2. It lets you keep the Movie titles short, so that they can display nicely in a Thumbnails grid-view in Theater View mode.
3. Since it is still just a flat list (with no special "expression category" that you need to "open") it doesn't mess with the display of the movies in Theater View, and saves "navigation clicks".

[wer]

It's interesting how many ways there are to solve the same problem.

Glynor is using multiple fields, and then a fairly complicated expression, to get all the movies to sort the way he wants them in a flat view.

I had that same issue (getting all the James Bond movies to sort together, for example) and found that the simple solution was just to use one field and no expression.

So I just have a field called NameSorting. That field is never displayed, but all my movie views sort alphabetically by that field. Then I just fill out that field for each movie to make it sort correctly. So James Bond movies just have JamesBond01 through JamesBond24, the Alien movies are Alien1 - Alien5, etc. 

Couldn't be easier... 

[glynor]

Yep. That works too. Your [NameSorting] field is effectively identical to my [Sort Key - Movie] field, except that you're hand-tagging it while I'm generating it automatically with the expression based on the other fields (if they're there).

I like using the built-in [Series] and [Episode] fields because I can mass-tag them much more easily (using the pane checkboxes, or the Tag AW drop-downs. When tagging, I don't type if I don't have to because it is (1) a bit slower, (2) more prone to typos, and (3) requires a little repetitive typing. I make the expression once (and you, dear listener, can just copy-paste what I put above) and then it "just works" and I just use the tags like they "are intended to be used". If you have never seen my Library before, but you see the fields called [Series] and [Episode] and what they contain, it is obvious what they do (even if you don't know how I made it act like it does).

But, wer's method is perfectly serviceable too, and is effectively the same thing.

I'll note: Part of the problem with JRiver providing "better defaults" is that everyone doesn't agree on what works best for them, and their set of media. To wer, it probably works better (and easier) to just hand-tag that one field to override the sorting. If you have a relatively modest Library of video, and don't keep things often once you watch them, then maybe the default views (or slight modifications of them) are fine. The cool thing with MC is, IMHO, that you can solve these problems in a way that works for you.

That said, I really, really, really think they need some better default Views. Across all of the Modes, but especially Theater View. And it would be very nice if they were easier to "package and share" with others. You can do some things to save View templates out to disk, and then share them, but it is extremely clunky and manual. And I've often not gotten it to behave the way I want when I do share them with other people and Libraries.

[glynor]

One other thing if you do use something like my system, look at this screenshot:

Click to embiggen.

You'll notice that in the Details Panel on the right, it has an item called Movie Series that lists "James Bond - 3" for Goldfinger, right under the movie's title. That's just another simple calculated Field I have called [Movie Series] which is:

Code: [Select]

If(IsEmpty([Series,0]),,[Series]If(IsEmpty([Episode],1),,/ -/ ))If(IsEmpty([Episode],1),,[Episode])
Defined in Options > Theater View > Appearance > Customize File Info Panel:

Click to embiggen.

If a Movie is tagged with:

• Neither [Series] nor [Episode] then it outputs nothing (and so is omitted from the Details Panel entirely).
• [Series] alone it displays the series name by itself.
• [Episode] alone it outputs just the number.
• Both [Series] and [Episode] then it outputs Series - Episode, as shown with Goldeneye in the screenshot.

That way, you can see the Series name and Episode number (and why they might be sorted like they are, if you don't recognize that they're part of a series by the movie title), and it doesn't have to be the same "look and feel" as the field used exclusively for sorting.

The sorting one is made for sorting, and the display one is made for display (and only shows when it has something to show, and looks nice when it does).

[wer]

Actually, I only partially hand-tag it. An import rule sets NameSorting=Name by default, so I only have to edit by hand if I want to override.

You effectively have to do the same thing: those episode and series fields for Alien movies aren't getting set for you automatically by get movie and tv info when media sub type=movie. I get what you're saying about pane tagging. Actually I don't keep that on; I find it too easy to make a mistake unnoticed!

It's true: there are as many "best" ways to do things as there are people to do them. Being able to sort exactly the way _I_ wanted to was what drew me to MC in the first place. You have to put some work into it, but at least you can organize how you want.

[Music_Man]

Hi wer, I’ve had a few days to work on this and I remain scratching my head as to how to get it to work.  I favor you two field approach and the use of user defined fields, which I managed to create.  I understand what's going on with the expressions. What I don’t grasp are the machinations relative to entering them.  I’m quoting your input so I can ask questions:

So I have two user-defined fields:  [GroupSet] and [Grouping]
GroupSet is a set of Groups. "Star Wars Movies" in the example above. Grouping holds individual movies, "The Empire Strikes Back" in the example above.
So for every Star Wars movie, I set its [GroupSet] tag to be "Star Wars Movies" and then I set the [Grouping] tags as appropriate. Not every movie in the Star Wars groupset needs a Grouping tag.

Yes, this makes sense.

Then when you configure your view, you create a view level of type Expression, and you fill out the fields as follows:
For Expression to group by:

Code: [Select]

FirstNotEmpty([GroupSet],[Grouping],[Name]).

Here, is where I get lost.  “Then when you configure you view” is this what glynor did, configure a view? 
“....you create a view level” Again is this what glynor did?  How, why and where would I enter this expression?  I’m trying to relate what you’re advising to what glynor did and I’m lost as to what to do and how to apply it to my Genre question.

For Expression to Display:

Code: [Select]

If(isempty([GroupSet,1]),FirstNotEmpty([Grouping, 1],[Name, 1]),[GroupSet,1])
So the magic bit is the use of the FirstNotEmpty expression.  It picks from amongst the three fields, using the first one that has something in it.  This makes the GroupSet and Grouping fields OPTIONAL.  You do not have to fill them out for any of your movies.  But if you DO fill those fields out, any movie so tagged will be automatically grouped in views defined as I showed you above.

Yes, I grasp the logic of what's transpiring.

I’m in the process of modifying the results of 1,000’s of rip'ed movies.  My son did the ripping and although he has an IT degree and uses JRiver, he doesn't use its database; choosing to scroll through our files as if he was using Windows Explorer.  I know crazy, right!  I advise this, because our files contain information randomly applied for a user's manual selection process.  This clutters filenames with extrenous information.  And because the data insertion is random, it makes views difficult to manipulate without modifications to the tags.   

With that said, if fields need to be created so data can be entered to get Theater Views as I would like them, I need to get it right up front or all my data manipulation is for naught.  So, I'm looking at hours of tag modifications.  What makes matters worse, is that the modifications are mostly manual.  I'm sure this is because I unaware of how to automate them.  Because I've done enough research to know that MC has massive abilities to automate most any database task.  I've spent countless hours researching simpler ways to do things and it has helped some.  But I'm sure things could be much easier. 

Below, I've the steps I culled from glynor’s ever-so-helpful video.  I've inserted "LOST" as in, I'm confused about what's going on -- why is it being done?  Because if I had to transfer from glynor's video each and every step, to another view or task, I wouldn't know how to do so.  Especially as it relates to the original purpose of my post. Which was to have Genre in the Theater View display ONLY the primary movie, with bonus features etc., sub-tiered (if you will) behind it. 

Lastly, I have what probably is an easily answered question.  After successfully implementing glynor's video instructions, artwork/images are seemingly randomly displayed upfront before opening the movie to drill down into its bonus features.  In other words, the images are oftentimes different for bonus features, than their movie.  Seeing the bonus features images up front, rather than the movie's, makes for disconcerting surfing.  How would I force the movie's image to take up-front display priority.  The inelegant work-around would be to also attach the movie's image to its bonus features. But I'm sure that's unnecessary.  What say you guys?

   Tools <selected>
   Options <selected>
   Theater View <selected>
   Movies <selected>
Ok   In the "Items To Show" section menu, "Movies" are <selected> and the Edit Search Menu is Shown with the following user's note:
LOST   "My Filters are applied to the "parent" Movies view"
Ok   Ok is <selected> to get out of the Edit Search Menu
Ok, sort of   On the "Items To Show" section: "By Name" is <selected>
Ok   In the Details Menu the ADD button next to the "Items To Show" is selected
LOST   In the pop-up menu "Library Item" is <selected>
Ok, sort of   The UNNEST button is <selected>
LOST   "New Library Item" Appears in the "Details"/"Name" menu>
Ok   In the "Details"_Name" menu "New Library Item" is replaced by entering "By Fancy Name"
Ok   Add button to the right is <selected>
Ok   From the pop-up menu, the "Expression" radio button is <selected>
Ok   In the "Expression box, the IF(IsEmpty([Series]),[Name],[Series]) expression is <entered>
LOST   The "Expression_Name": address bar is clicked and the Name: is changed from "Expression" to "SmartName"
Ok   OK <clicked> which takes one back to the "Theather View"_"By Fancy Name" screen
Ok   ADD button <selected>
Ok   "Episode" is <selected> from the drop-down menu
Ok   OK <selected> which reverts back to the original Theater View menu
   "SmartName" with "Episode" beneath it (which were previously entered) are seen in the "Details" Section

[glynor]

You effectively have to do the same thing: those episode and series fields for Alien movies aren't getting set for you automatically by get movie and tv info when media sub type=movie. I get what you're saying about pane tagging. Actually I don't keep that on; I find it too easy to make a mistake unnoticed!

It's true: there are as many "best" ways to do things as there are people to do them. Being able to sort exactly the way _I_ wanted to was what drew me to MC in the first place. You have to put some work into it, but at least you can organize how you want.

Oh for sure! I completely agree.

And, you're right, I do have to hand-tag those fields when I need them (but can leave them blank when I don't). I just do it by clicking a checkbox, or typing three letters in a combobox and then picking one of the suggestions. And I can do it for all 4 movies in the series at the same time when adding a new series. For me, that's less typo prone. I could, I suppose, still mass-tag them your way by typing the Series' name once and using Counter() to auto-add the numbers for me. That would also work, but I'm often missing "episodes" in a movie series (like James Bond) so it would be hard to mass-tag them with the counter. So creating the James Bond "series" using that system would have, in the end, probably required typing the word "James Bond" at least a handful of times (to account for gaps in the sequence). And you need the Tag on Import rule, though that's no huge undertaking.

I do also like the ability to do what I just described above separately, which would be ever-so-slightly more difficult to do with your system cleanly.

But, yeah I completely agree. Your system works for your workflow, and mine works for me!

[wer]

You've been awfully agreeable ever since I told you about rubbing steaks with ancho!   

[glynor]

Well, I'm delightful. And you're also correct, which helps. 

PS. I intend to put your ancho suggestion to use tomorrow evening. The family will be having bugs, and I don't eat the bugs, so it is my yum time.

[wer]

A wise decision.  Don't forget the garlic. Ancho AND garlic, to go with the salt and pepper. Also, you had expressed some support for a 1-in steak. That is too thin. 1.25 is the minimum, 1.5in is recommended (but no thicker), to preserve the center whilst achieving a nice char.

Let me know how it turns out for you...  Are you grilling, or French technique?

[glynor]

Also, you had expressed some support for a 1-in steak. That is too thin. 1.25 is the minimum, 1.5in is recommended (but no thicker), to preserve the center whilst achieving a nice char.

That was only because I was quoting Letterkenny. You are, of course, correct.