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[nwboater]

We use MyMovies to generate movie data. It will put multiple genre's on movies where appropriate, separated by semicolons. Our difficulty is that MC displays every combination of genre - in our case 94 genre's. This is way too many to sort through when looking for a movie to watch. An example would be a movie that MM has tagged as drama & romance & action: MC displays a Genre that has all three.

What we would like would be for Genre to display just the single genre, especially in Theater View. Thus the example movie from above would show up when looking in drama, romance and action genre's. This would make the genre list short enough to be usable.

Is there a way this can be done? How do most of you handle this issue?

Thanks,
Rod

[rick.ca]

MC's standard Genre is a string-type field which, as you've discovered, is not appropriate for video. Create your own list-type field Genres, and use that instead. I don't know if you can configure MyMovies to use the same field. If not, create a list-type expression field that converts Genre to a list.

[nwboater]

Rick.Ca - Thanks for your prompt response.

I don't have a clue what you are talking about, but is sounds like database terminology. So looks like I am going to have to learn a bunch here and try to figure out how to make this work.

I wonder why JRiver uses something that as you say is "Not appropriate for videos". Doesn't seem like I should have to do a bunch of researching and learning to make it appropriate!

I'm still curious what others do about this?

[rick.ca]

I'm still curious what others do about this?

They create their own Genres field, as I suggested. Just go to Options - Library - Manage Library Fields and click Add New Field. It won't bite, and you might even find it self-explanatory.

Maybe someone using MyMovies can explain what needs to be done to get it's genre into a list field.

I wonder why JRiver uses something that as you say is "Not appropriate for videos". Doesn't seem like I should have to do a bunch of researching and learning to make it appropriate!

Genre is the same field used for Audio, where a track (arguably) is a member of only one genre. Either the developers thought it was good enough for video, or they decided we could add our own field if it mattered.

I strongly suggest taking the time to learn how to add fields, including expression fields. You're missing out on too much of the power and flexibility of the program by ignoring such things.

[nwboater]

Thanks again for the response rick.ca and for trying to help.

I went to Manage Library Fields and added a new field 'Genres'. Made Data Type = List (semicolon delimited). Under Search keywords I put genre= which is the same as what is in the original Genre field. And it returned the same results as 'Genre'. I guess I need to put something else there, but no idea what!

I must admit that I'm frustrated by this. I'm willing to try to learn how to do this but just don't know how to begin. I searched the Wiki and didn't figure it out.

Much of the terminology is foreign. It's like I have a non boater aboard our boat and I use a bunch of salty talk to ask them to do something. I have almost 60 years of boating experience and can sure use the salty talk. But they wont have a clue what I'm talking about.

Do I need to take a database course to learn? Expressions apparently use Excel commands, which I've never used. How do I start this learning process? Also I'm wondering how much time this is going to take to learn.

Perhaps I should take this to a more general thread on MC usage where others may respond to my learning dilemma.

I can certainly see that there is great power and flexibility in MC, but am certainly wondering how much of it I will be able to tap into.

Rod

[rick.ca]

The first step in learning is to remove the obstacles. Stop looking for reasons the boat is going to sink. Put on your live jacket. Release the moorings. In the extremely unlikely event this boat sinks, you can raise it effortlessly with File - Library - Restore Library.

Under Search keywords I put genre= which is the same as what is in the original Genre field.

Search keywords are optional. They're like a shorthand reference to the field you can use in searches. If you want do that, you'll have to use a keyword that's different from ones already used. Genres or mg (for "movie genre") should work fine. Note a keyword is used to restrict the search to a particular field. If Default search field is selected, the field will be included in all searches where a keyword is not specified. So a search for "drama" may work as well as one for "genres=drama".

Expression syntax is rather arcane. Like knot tying. It makes little sense and if you don't do it just right it probably won't work. But the first step is just to recognize the possibility of what might be done with an expression. If you can do that, then you can ask here how to do it. And someone might even tie the knot for you.

To illustrate—although I still don't know if this what needs to be done to handle MyMovies data—the expression to convert your Genre string field into a Genres list field is [Genre]&datatype=[ list] (without the space before "list"). Creating the expression field must be done in two steps. First, Add a new field named Genres, set the Data type to "List (semicolon delimited)" and click OK to save the record. Then select the record again, change the type to Calculated data and enter the expression.

[raldo]

The first step in learning is to remove the obstacles. Stop looking for reasons the boat is going to sink.[...]

Yup, I guess most of us that use MC with movie metadata have at some point been pained to some extent by the genre datatype...

[nwboater]

The first step in learning is to remove the obstacles. Stop looking for reasons the boat is going to sink. Put on your live jacket. Release the moorings. In the extremely unlikely event this boat sinks, you can raise it effortlessly with File - Library - Restore Library.

I really am not afraid of the boat sinking! It's just that this is all Greek to me and I'm trying to figure out how to begin to learn to use this capability. The obstacles are my lack of knowledge - I don't think my attitude is sour on this. But as I expressed earlier it is frustrating!

Search keywords are optional. They're like a shorthand reference to the field you can use in searches. If you want do that, you'll have to use a keyword that's different from ones already used. Genres or mg (for "movie genre") should work fine. Note a keyword is used to restrict the search to a particular field. If Default search field is selected, the field will be included in all searches where a keyword is not specified. So a search for "drama" may work as well as one for "genres=drama".

Expression syntax is rather arcane. Like knot tying. It makes little sense and if you don't do it just right it probably won't work. But the first step is just to recognize the possibility of what might be done with an expression. If you can do that, then you can ask here how to do it. And someone might even tie the knot for you. ;

To illustrate—although I still don't know if this what needs to be done to handle MyMovies data—the expression to convert your Genre string field into a Genres list field is [Genre]&datatype=[ list] (without the space before "list"). Creating the expression field must be done in two steps. First, Add a new field named Genres, set the Data type to "List (semicolon delimited)" and click OK to save the record. Then select the record again, change the type to Calculated data and enter the expression.

As you said the "Expression syntax is arcane". How would I know without some kind of database search knowledge to use "[Genre]&datatype=[ list] (without the space before "list")". I feel like a total landlubber taking a boat out in the fog - and one who doesn't even know how to start the engine!

I certainly appreciate your trying to help, and I do see some of the possibilities when one can utilize the power of this program. I also appreciate your suggestion that others may be willing to help. It just seems that I need some kind of basic understanding here unless I am going to always have to ask others to fill in all the blanks for me. And that doesn't seem like a fair way of doing things.

I will do some experimenting with your suggestions, and again do appreciate all the effort you have put in.

I'm also going to start a new thread asking for direction in how to learn this stuff. It may also be helpful to others. I'm pretty sure that a lot of people will take one look at this and not bother at all going further.

Thanks again.

Rod

[raym]

Hard or easy, right or wrong, this is how I do it and it works great.

Define a new expression field and whack this into it to limit the number of MyMovies Genres shown to 2:

Code: [Select]

ListItem([genre],0,;);ListItem([genre],1,;)&datatype=[list]

[nwboater]

Hard or easy, right or wrong, this is how I do it and it works great.

Define a new expression field and whack this into it to limit the number of MyMovies Genres shown to 2:

Code: [Select]

ListItem([genre],0,;);ListItem([genre],1,;)&datatype=[list]

raym,  Thanks very much for sharing your approach.  Here's what I did, but unfortunately it didn't work:

Options, Manage Library Fields. It wouldn't let me add a new field "Genre" since one already exists. So I made a new field called Genre Test. Data Type = String, Edit Type = Standard, Expression = The raym expression, Search Keywords = blank.

After doing this I made a pane that would show Genre Test. It showed the old multiple Genres, up to four. Perhaps I need to change something in your expression to "Genre Test"? But I'm also curious why you said to name the field Genre, when that's already used? Should I Remove the existing Genre Field?

Hopefully we can make this work. Thanks again very much.

Rod

[raym]

Are we talking about Theater View or the Standard View interface? There's several ways of accomplishing this and I was describing the Theater View "file info panel" approach.

In other words:

1. Tools > Options > Theater View > Customize File Info Panel...
2. Select your video template from the dop down list
3. Remove the current "Genre" field
4. Click the "Add..." button and choose "Add custom..."
5. In the right hand side of this dialog, under "Selected Field" fill in the "Name" field with Genre and "Value" with my expression above.
6. Click OK to save your changes.

Now go into theater view, select a movie and you should see just 2 genres listed for each movie.

The process you went through in your last post is not just for Theater View and no, not a good idea to delete the Genre field globally. You were on the right track though:

1. Create a NEW genre field (as you had done)
2. Click the "Calculated Data" radio button and paste the expression in the available field. No need to populate all those other fields under "User Data".
3. To use this in the Theater View file info panel, follow the process above but instead of doing step 4, select your newly created genre field.

Cheers.

[Bobalou044]

nwboater -

I use mymovies to get all my video info... it works or me at this time.  The way I get the genres to be more useful (or organized) is to change them in Mymovies.  I click on the genre button and add/remove the genres that I want listed.  Right-click on the movie title on the left side of the screen and save the title.  This seems to change the .xml file that MC15 reads.  I've gotten my genre listing down to around 12-14.

Hope this works for you.

[nwboater]

Are we talking about Theater View or the Standard View interface? There's several ways of accomplishing this and I was describing the Theater View "file info panel" approach.

In other words:

1. Tools > Options > Theater View > Customize File Info Panel...
2. Select your video template from the dop down list
3. Remove the current "Genre" field
4. Click the "Add..." button and choose "Add custom..."
5. In the right hand side of this dialog, under "Selected Field" fill in the "Name" field with Genre and "Value" with my expression above.
6. Click OK to save your changes.

Now go into theater view, select a movie and you should see just 2 genres listed for each movie.

The process you went through in your last post is not just for Theater View and no, not a good idea to delete the Genre field globally. You were on the right track though:

1. Create a NEW genre field (as you had done)
2. Click the "Calculated Data" radio button and paste the expression in the available field. No need to populate all those other fields under "User Data".
3. To use this in the Theater View file info panel, follow the process above but instead of doing step 4, select your newly created genre field.

Cheers.

raym - Thanks for the fully detailed instructions. Hopefully tonight I'll get some time to try it out.

It's Theater View that I'm most interested in as that's what we are now using to watch our movies. I like the idea of using Genre to help select a movie. It would also be helpful though to have this feature available in Standard View to help in checking out the system and organizing.

Thanks again for all your help and thoughtfulness.

Rod

[nwboater]

nwboater -

I use mymovies to get all my video info... it works or me at this time.  The way I get the genres to be more useful (or organized) is to change them in Mymovies.  I click on the genre button and add/remove the genres that I want listed.  Right-click on the movie title on the left side of the screen and save the title.  This seems to change the .xml file that MC15 reads.  I've gotten my genre listing down to around 12-14.

Hope this works for you.

What has given us so many Genre's is that many movies have several Genre's. So when MC lists them it shows a Genre for each of the combination's. Quote from my first post: "An example would be a movie that MM has tagged as drama & romance & action: MC displays a Genre that has all three.

What we would like would be for Genre to display just the single genre, especially in Theater View. Thus the example movie from above would show up when looking in drama, romance and action genre's. This would make the genre list short enough to be usable."

How does your approach handle this? Do you change them for each movie or just in the Master Genre List of MyMovies?

Thanks very much for presenting another option.

Rod

[Bobalou044]

From the way MC15 uses Mymovies (at least from my interaction), MC will read the genres the .xml file generated by Mymovies alphabetically - say for example I have a movie that is listed in Mymovies as "Comedy" and "Romance" in the genre listings.  MC15 shows that movie listed as "Comedy";"Romance"... it does not also show it as "Romance";"Comedy".  At least for me, it is listed only once in my drop-down pane.

I have not really dug into it as of yet, but I wish that the genres in Mymovies could be user listed, not automatically listed by alphabet.  I know I have gone into the .xml files of some of my movies to change the genres... that could also be an option - unless you have hundreds of videos in your library...

You've got me intrigued now... I'll have to do some digging around.  My problem is that I need to get "Production Year" tagged from Mymovies into MC15... plus the genres not being user-friendly.

Let me know what you find out.

[nwboater]

Are we talking about Theater View or the Standard View interface? There's several ways of accomplishing this and I was describing the Theater View "file info panel" approach.

In other words:

1. Tools > Options > Theater View > Customize File Info Panel...
2. Select your video template from the dop down list
3. Remove the current "Genre" field
4. Click the "Add..." button and choose "Add custom..."
5. In the right hand side of this dialog, under "Selected Field" fill in the "Name" field with Genre and "Value" with my expression above.
6. Click OK to save your changes.

Now go into theater view, select a movie and you should see just 2 genres listed for each movie.

I followed your instructions above - which were very well described BTW - and it did do what you said it would. The problem is it's not quite what we are looking for. I'll try to re-desribe that in my next post.

The process you went through in your last post is not just for Theater View and no, not a good idea to delete the Genre field globally. You were on the right track though:

1. Create a NEW genre field (as you had done)
2. Click the "Calculated Data" radio button and paste the expression in the available field. No need to populate all those other fields under "User Data".
3. To use this in the Theater View file info panel, follow the process above but instead of doing step 4, select your newly created genre field.

Cheers.

I think the above is an alternate way of doing what I was originally experimenting with, but perhaps not. I haven't tried it yet though as I think it does do the same as the instruction I followed of yours. Right?

Thanks again Raym.

Rod

[raym]

Glad to hear it works for you now.

[nwboater]

I may not have previously described very well the problem we are having with Genres. I'll try to give some better examples and the results we are getting. Below are 14 movies which will return 14 Genres. (It's not always this bad, but I'm illustrating what can happen.)

1.  Movie #1  Genres = Romance, action, war, drama. (Yes we have several movies that have that many Genres.)
2.  Movie #2  Genres = Romance, action, war.
3.  Movie #3   Genres = Romance, Action, Drama
4.  Movie #4   Genres = Romance, War, Drama
5.  Move #5   Genres = Action, War, Drama
6.  Movie #6  Genres = Romance, action.
7.  Movie #7  Genres = Romance, Drama
8.  Movie #8  Genres = Romance, War
9.  Movie #9  Genres = Action, War
10.Movie #10 Genres = Action, Drama
11.Movie #11 Genres = Romance.
12. Movie #12 Genre   = Action
13. Movie #13 Genre   = War
14. Movie #14 Genre   = Drama

As a result of all these combination Genres being created our 265 (and growing) list of movies have over 90 Genres. That is so many that it's totally impractical to sift through to select a movie!

What we would like is for all the above movies to be listed under the last four individual genres. So any of the movies that contained Romance would show in the romance Genre. If that movie also contained Drama it would also show up under the Drama Genre, Etc. The above 14 Genres will now be condensed to only 4.

In Theater View we would like to select a movie to watch by first narrowing down to the Genre we would like. When we chose a movie from the Genre list, it would be ideal if, with the info for that movie, it listed all of the Genres applicable to that movie. If doing this part is not possible that's not a big issue.

Hopefully our problem and what we would like to accomplish now makes more sense. But can it be done?

Thanks to each of you for trying to help with this. Judging from the number of views this thread has, it sure seems there is a good bit of interest in the issue.

Rod

[nwboater]

From the way MC15 uses Mymovies (at least from my interaction), MC will read the genres the .xml file generated by Mymovies alphabetically - say for example I have a movie that is listed in Mymovies as "Comedy" and "Romance" in the genre listings.  MC15 shows that movie listed as "Comedy";"Romance"... it does not also show it as "Romance";"Comedy".  At least for me, it is listed only once in my drop-down pane.

I have not really dug into it as of yet, but I wish that the genres in Mymovies could be user listed, not automatically listed by alphabet.  I know I have gone into the .xml files of some of my movies to change the genres... that could also be an option - unless you have hundreds of videos in your library...

You've got me intrigued now... I'll have to do some digging around.  My problem is that I need to get "Production Year" tagged from Mymovies into MC15... plus the genres not being user-friendly.

Let me know what you find out.

Thanks very much for both of your posts, and sorry for ignoring them thus far.

What you said in the first paragraph is correct, ie, how MC read the MM data. That's not my problem. Please see my lengthy post with the 14 example movies for what is happening.

I also appreciate your telling me, in your earlier post, about how you edit the Genre data in MM. I would like to avoid having to do that if at all possible, but good to know how.

Good luck in your 'Production Year' issue. I will also be watching that with interest.

Rod

[crisnee]

Hi Newboater,

I get your frustration. I'm a computer tech and some of this stuff is way too arcane to deal with in any kind of a hurry. Having said that, how about a temporary work around, until you figure out the arcane--if you still choose to.

I don't deal with movies, just audio, but from what I can tell from a quick look, it seems like something like the following should work.

Take a field like custom for example, and use it as your new genres. Fill it in with the genres you want for whatever movies, and then search on that. It would take only minutes to set up--ok maybe an hour, and sounds like a good interim solution, if nothing else.

You don't have to fill in each movie individually. Line up all the movies with the same genre, select them, choose rename while hovering over the custom column; fill in the genre; all selected will be filled. Now you can search under custom, or set custom as a default search item--you could deselect default in the real genre setting, so that there's no confusion.

Now, I haven't tried this in video, but it definitely works in audio, so....

-Chris

[crisnee]

RE my previous post, I decided to try out what I think you want.

In videos under custom I input "Cat Dog Fish" for five videos, "Dog" for five videos, and "Fish" for 5 videos, just as shown but without the quotes. I then did a search on the terms individually and then all three. I got 10 Dog, 10 Fish, 5 Cat, and 5 Cat Dog Fish videos. So, it should work just as I understand that you want it to.
-Chris

[rick.ca]

I may not have previously described very well the problem we are having with Genres.

It was perfectly clear, as were my replies to your original posts. I appreciate your view is this solution is too complicated for you to implement. But for the sake of others reading this, I should reiterate the solution is to use a custom list field (which could be named "Genres"). Since I don't know how to configure MyMovies to use this field instead of Genre, I suggest making the custom field an expression field...

The expression to convert your Genre string field into a Genres list field is [Genre]&datatype=[ list] (without the space before "list"). Creating the expression field must be done in two steps. First, Add a new field named Genres, set the Data type to "List (semicolon delimited)" and click OK to save the record. Then select the record again, change the type to Calculated data and enter the expression.

[MrHaugen]

nwboater, you can also try the Metadata plugin. You'll have everything you need in MC15, AND the plugin seems to do a really good job at getting good data. This plugin also automatically creates the genre in list fields. So it should help you with some of the things discussed here.

[raym]

What we would like is for all the above movies to be listed under the last four individual genres. So any of the movies that contained Romance would show in the romance Genre. If that movie also contained Drama it would also show up under the Drama Genre, Etc. The above 14 Genres will now be condensed to only 4.

...But can it be done?

Of course! This is MC where anything's possible! 

Try this:

1. Tools > Options > Theater View
2. At the left of the dialog, under "Items to Show", select the "Video" category item
3. Click the "Add..." button and choose "Library Item" to create a new empty view
4. With this new view created, to the right under the "Details" section, give the view a name (eg "Movie Genres")
5. In the same area, select the second "Add..." button and choose the "Expression" radio button to the left of the 2nd dialog
6. Give the Expression a name (optional) and then paste the following code in the space provided:

Code: [Select]

If(IsEmpty(ListItem([genre],0,;);ListItem([genre],1,;);ListItem([genre],2,;);ListItem([genre],3,;)&datatype=[list]),,[genre])7. Click "Ok" and "Ok" again.

What this view will do is exactly what you described. It will group your videos by one of the first 4 (max) genres. Eg, If a given movie has 2 genres (say Action and Adventure), the movie will be grouped by the genre "Action" and also "Adventure". Drill down into either of these will reveal the same movie (and any others sharing the same genre of course).

Yes, this stuff can be tricky but I wasn't kidding before, anything is possible and I rarely encounter a problem that this program cannot solve.

Good luck!

[nwboater]

Of course! This is MC where anything's possible! 

Try this:

1. Tools > Options > Theater View
2. At the left of the dialog, under "Items to Show", select the "Video" category item
3. Click the "Add..." button and choose "Library Item" to create a new empty view

raym -  Thanks again for your thorough explanation. If I select "Video" as in step 2, no "Add" button shows. If I select Genres it does - should I select "Genres"?

Also should I remove the Expression you had me previously put in Genre since that limits the returns to 2?

I really appreciate all the effort you have put into trying to get it to do what we want.


crisnee and rick.ca - Thanks also for your efforts. Since I don't multi-task very well I'm going to continue working for now with raym's approach.

Rod

[rick.ca]

What this view will do is exactly what you described.

At this point, I'm really not sure, but I don't think so. I think he was just giving an illustration where there happened to be four unique genres. I believe his complaint is the standard Genre (string) field results in every combination of genres being a different value. The problem is the field needs to be a list-type. Then each single genre will be a separate category, and all movies with that genre will appear in that category. And all movies will appear in all genres in which they are members. So, for example, an action-adventure movie will appear under Action and it will appear under Adventure, but there will be no "Action-Adventure" category.

There is nothing special or complicated about this. It's simply a matter of using the correct field-type for the data in question. By converting the string data (in the standard Genre field) to a list field (the custom Genres field), it will be available in the desired form in any Standard and Theatre View views the field is used in, as well as the Theatre View file information pane.

[nwboater]

nwboater, you can also try the Metadata plugin. You'll have everything you need in MC15, AND the plugin seems to do a really good job at getting good data. This plugin also automatically creates the genre in list fields. So it should help you with some of the things discussed here.

Is this the PVD Import Metadata Plug-in? Since I've paid for MyMovies and am fairly happy with it's data I'll probably stick with it for now. That's assuming I can get the mutliple Genre issue worked out. Or does PVD also work with MyMovies data?

Thanks for the suggestion.

Rod

[raym]

Hey Rick,

those steps I provided produce exactly what you've described (but better than me :-)) and is the way I've managed multiple MyMovies genres in MC for quite some time. The expression adds each individual genre into a virtual list. There's no need to create a physical field/data type. I like this approach since you can leave the inbuilt genre field alone and manipulate it as required on the fly.

Nwboater,

The steps look ok to me. On that theater view dialog, there are 2 add buttons which may be causing some confusion. Take another look. And yes, paste the latest expression I've provided. It's a variation on the original one to pull out up to 4 movie genres for each video rather than 2.

[raym]

Nwboater, alternatively as someone else has already suggested, you could always just limit the genre field in MyMovies BEFORE importing into MC. You might want to consider this approach.

[rick.ca]

There's no need to create a physical field/data type.

I understood your solution, but I doubt it's appropriate to the circumstances. You seem to me ignoring my main concern...

By converting the string data (in the standard Genre field) to a list field (the custom Genres field), it will be available in the desired form in any Standard and Theatre View views the field is used in, as well as the Theatre View file information pane.

What OP apparently wants and needs is the behaviour of a list field. He's struggling with the simple task of configuring it so. It doesn't seem realistic to expect he will be able to "manipulate it as required on the fly." Instead of simply using the Genres list field wherever it's required, he would have to struggle with such an expression every time. Like you (and very unlike OP), I'm fond of using expressions to work around problems. But they do make view configurations harder to understand and maintain. It should be avoided where it's unnecessary—like where the wrong field type is being used.

Nwboater, alternatively as someone else has already suggested, you could always just limit the genre field in MyMovies BEFORE importing into MC. You might want to consider this approach.

You seem to be hanging on to the assumption OP wants to arbitrarily limit the number genres. I really don't think that's the case. He just wants to avoid the "compound genres" that result from putting a list in a string field. Please see my reply #25 above.

[MrHaugen]

Is this the PVD Import Metadata Plug-in? Since I've paid for MyMovies and am fairly happy with it's data I'll probably stick with it for now. That's assuming I can get the multiple Genre issue worked out. Or does PVD also work with MyMovies data?

Thanks for the suggestion.

Rod

No, this is not a PVD plugin I think. It's a plugin created by a MC user, which gets it's data from themoviedb.org and thetvdb.com. It's kind of basic, but it have all the meta data that I would ever use I think. And I've been using DVD Profiler for quite some time. Check it out in the 3'rd party plugin forums if you're interested.

[nwboater]

Nwboater,

The steps look ok to me. On that theater view dialog, there are 2 add buttons which may be causing some confusion. Take another look. And yes, paste the latest expression I've provided. It's a variation on the original one to pull out up to 4 movie genres for each video rather than 2.

I'm using version 15.0.46. Wonder if there are differences between your and mine? Here's what I'm doing:

Tools, Options, Theater View.
Under the Items To Show is a scrollable list. I select "Video", not Genres.  There is no "Add" button visible.

Oh my gosh - I just maximized the Options window and the Add button shows! If I return it to the smaller window the Add button goes away. And there are no scroll bars viewable. Just found that if I enlarge the window in the vertical direction, several buttons including Add appear. This doesn't seem like normal Windows behavior, does it?

So I followed the rest of your instructions and NOW IT WORKS PERFECTLY! Just like you said it would and exactly as we wanted! We now have 24 Genres, instead of 94. And when we click on an individual movie it still shows all the applicable Genres under the movie details. So now my wife can pick a Romance movie and if she sees War under the Movie Details she might move onto something else.

Only change I think I need to make now it to eliminate your original Expression under Geres. I seem to only be getting a max of 2 Genres under the Movie Details. Just need to figure out how to get it back to original.

Raym, I can't thank you enough for all your help and patience with my lack of knowledge.

To JRiver, I don't believe I'm alone in wanting what we now have. It really makes movie genres usable. Might you consider making this, or something like it, a standard part of MC? I truly don't think that the average user is going to go through what I just did. What do others think?

Rod

[nwboater]

I just showed the new Movies Genres feature to my Wife. She is very, very happy: Therefore I am too. WAF just went up a bunch!

Rod

[rick.ca]

To JRiver, I don't believe I'm alone in wanting what we now have. It really makes movie genres usable. Might you consider making this, or something like it, a standard part of MC? I truly don't think that the average user is going to go through what I just did. What do others think?

There's nothing for JRiver to do. The default Genre field is a string field because that is what is appropriate for music. Movies use multiple genres which require a list field—which is easily added by the user if required. The problem you ran into is that MyMovies uses a field named "Genre" for its genre list data. This conflicts with the Genre string field which does not handle list data like a list. There are two solutions to this problem...

1. Create a list-type Genres field, and configure MyMovies to use this field name when it outputs its XML files.

2. Create a list-type Genres field, and use an expression to copy the data from the Genre field as list data.

You've chosen to use a workaround that uses an expression to convert the data from Genre to a list format as required. Instead of just using a Genres list-type field that always behaves exactly the way you expect it to, you'll have to use an expression to convert the data from Genre—whenever and wherever you want to use it (e.g., in another view, in a Theatre View file info pane). That's not difficult, but it's inefficient and potentially confusing. How many times are you going to be able to employ this technique before you begin to forget which data must be manipulated with an expression and which doesn't?

I'm glad you're happy with the expression you're using, but it's not doing what you originally asked for. It is, of course, doing the same thing the expression I suggested you use in an expression field—it's converting the string data to a list. But it's also arbitrarily limiting the number of genres to four. I don't see any legitimate reason for doing so. If the data source assigns a movie to five genres (which is quite common), why would you want to discard one—especially when you have no control over which one is discarded?

It would be possible for the program to map the genre data in the MyMovie XML file to a provided Genres list-type field. But that would be dangerous path to take. It may seem the obvious thing to do in this case, but, generally, making those kinds of decisions about third party data is going to be problematic. To illustrate: I import 40 fields from Personal Video Database using PvdImport. 19 of those go into custom fields, and some of those are expression fields that convert the data to a form or type that can be used effectively in MC. That wasn't particularly difficult to do, but there wasn't anything JRiver could have done to make it easier. Many of those fields are custom fields in PVD, so there's no way JRiver what the data is or it's type.

[raym]

Raym, I can't thank you enough for all your help and patience with my lack of knowledge.

My pleasure. Glad we got there in the end :-)

[nwboater]

There's nothing for JRiver to do. The default Genre field is a string field because that is what is appropriate for music. Movies use multiple genres which require a list field—which is easily added by the user if required. The problem you ran into is that MyMovies uses a field named "Genre" for its genre list data. This conflicts with the Genre string field which does not handle list data like a list. There are two solutions to this problem...

1. Create a list-type Genres field, and configure MyMovies to use this field name when it outputs its XML files.

2. Create a list-type Genres field, and use an expression to copy the data from the Genre field as list data.

You've chosen to use a workaround that uses an expression to convert the data from Genre to a list format as required. Instead of just using a Genres list-type field that always behaves exactly the way you expect it to, you'll have to use an expression to convert the data from Genre—whenever and wherever you want to use it (e.g., in another view, in a Theatre View file info pane). That's not difficult, but it's inefficient and potentially confusing. How many times are you going to be able to employ this technique before you begin to forget which data must be manipulated with an expression and which doesn't?

I'm glad you're happy with the expression you're using, but it's not doing what you originally asked for. It is, of course, doing the same thing the expression I suggested you use in an expression field—it's converting the string data to a list. But it's also arbitrarily limiting the number of genres to four. I don't see any legitimate reason for doing so. If the data source assigns a movie to five genres (which is quite common), why would you want to discard one—especially when you have no control over which one is discarded?

It would be possible for the program to map the genre data in the MyMovie XML file to a provided Genres list-type field. But that would be dangerous path to take. It may seem the obvious thing to do in this case, but, generally, making those kinds of decisions about third party data is going to be problematic. To illustrate: I import 40 fields from Personal Video Database using PvdImport. 19 of those go into custom fields, and some of those are expression fields that convert the data to a form or type that can be used effectively in MC. That wasn't particularly difficult to do, but there wasn't anything JRiver could have done to make it easier. Many of those fields are custom fields in PVD, so there's no way JRiver what the data is or it's type.

rick.ca

I appreciate your perseverance in pushing people to do what is the totally proper way to solve this problem. When  I get some extra time - and I think a good deal of it will be needed - I may use your approach as a learning tool.

My difficulty is that I have limited time to devote to this endeavor. I want a program that functions in a logical manner and not one that needs to be tweaked to do what is appropriate. You said in your very first post that the way JRiver handles Video Genre is not appropriate. Why should I have to learn some arcane language to make it so?

You and many of the very helpful posters on this forum are 'Power Users'. You either have the background to understand this stuff, or have devoted a lot of time to learn it. And believe me your assistance is greatly appreciated! But if JRiver wants to expand it's user base I think expecting people to do this kind of process to make something appropriate will be very limiting.

raym offered me a step by step approach to solve the problem. That, and the fact that it seemed like it would solve the problem is why I went with it. Now you are correct that it is limited to four genres, but still it is 95% appropriate for us. And I didn't have to put a ton of time into the problem. So now I can watch more movies with my Happy Wife!

Rod

[rick.ca]

I appreciate your perseverance in pushing people to do what is the totally proper way to solve this problem. When  I get some extra time - and I think a good deal of it will be needed - I may use your approach as a learning tool.

You do not understand my motives. I really don't care what other people do. The main thing I appreciate about this application is that it's power and flexibility allow it to be adapted to just about any need or preference. But taking advantage of that requires some investment in time and learning. My primary means to doing so it participating in this forum. So while it's nice to think I might be of help to others, that's my reason for being here. My perseverance has more with my desire not to be associated with false or misleading information. I have no problem with others disagreeing with me or choosing to do their things their own way. But if they deliberately misinterpret what I say and imply what I've said is false, I'm not going to let it pass.

I want a program that functions in a logical manner and not one that needs to be tweaked to do what is appropriate. You said in your very first post that the way JRiver handles Video Genre is not appropriate. Why should I have to learn some arcane language to make it so?

The program does function in a logical manner. I did not say the way JRiver handles video was inappropriate. I said your use of a string field to handle list data was inappropriate. I advised you how to remedy your error. And what arcane language? "Field," "string," "list," "expression"?

But if JRiver wants to expand it's user base I think expecting people to do this kind of process to make something appropriate will be very limiting.

As I demonstrated, the solution to your "problem" is simple, straightforward, and can be implemented in minutes. Furthermore, I've explained why the situation exists, and why it will likely remain. "This kind of process" is something entirely born out of your own misconception of how things should be and your refusal to consider straightforward explanations and instructions. There surely are things that could be done to make the program more intuitive and easier to use. Suggestions of how to do so are not going to flow out of your flawed premise.

Making the program easier to use—so it will better attract and retain new users—while continuously making it more powerful and flexible is a dilemma. I'm sure the developers lose sleep over it. But it's obvious the gap between these often competing objectives with never be bridged completely. Users will always be faced with the fundamental choice that exists for most applications. On one hand will be the software that spoon-feeds them, doesn't require much time or effort, and gives them some kind of inflexible but usable result. On the other will be the one that does everything feasible to remove barriers to whatever its users may reasonably want to do with it. This software will be for those who appreciate that design objective, and are happy to make use of it.

[Matt]

Closing this now.

Thanks to nwboater for an interesting topic, and thanks to everyone else for trying to help.