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[HTPC4ME]

when i goto theaterview, movies, keywords (that's my genres) and then chose for example keyword kids and family. it list all movies A-Z, and i have them named all properly, and all movies have dates(years filled in)

how can i make it so i see keywords, chose kids and family, and it lists all movies in Alphabetical order, but once it comes across 6 harry potter movies, it puts them in order of oldest to newest?

Can i maybe stack all the harry potters, friday the 13th's, rocky's into a series name? then when scrolling through, and i got to H's harry potter, it would show there are 4 movies inside harry potter, and they are in order of release date?

thanks for any help.

[rick.ca]

Just record [Series] for those that are part of a series (e.g., "Harry Potter"). Then use [Series] in a new view—just like you now use [Keywords].

The fact that you want the movies sorted by date if in a series and otherwise by Name suggests you need to use separate views (so they can have different sort criteria). If you feel it's important to have just one movie view, you could create an expression field that provides the required sort criteria. Something like: If(IsEmpty([Series]), [Name] [Year], [Series] [Year]). You can then select "all series," a specific series or "unassigned," and in each case movies will be sorted by title or series alphabetically, and within series by date.

It's up to you whether selecting Keywords or Series first works better. I would say Keywords. If you know what Series you want, but are unsure of it's Keywords, just select "All Keywords," then the Series.

[HTPC4ME]

So its not possible to have all movies show alphabetically, and then have series be an entry... like audio, when you chose artists it puts all there albums under that artist?

[kensn]

I fill in the [Artist] field in my movies for this. If it is not part of a "series" then just the Title of the movie goes in the Artist field. If it is part of a series then I put "Harry Potter" as the artist on all the harry potter movies. That way if I sort by artist they will still be in order, but the series will be group... ie harry potter, stacked liked albums. Then if Harry Potter is selected it will open the group and they are sorted by year.. It is a good work around in my case. Works just like albums....

Hope I explained it well... Works great in theater view....

Ken

[kensn]

PS.. If you use the Library tool to copy fields, Then you could just copy the Name to the Artist field, saves some time... Then go and edit the Artist Field for the Series movies to the same Artist.


Make sure you change the view to sort by Artist also. In Theater View I sort by Genre, then Artist...

Ken

[HTPC4ME]

EXACTLY what i wanted thanks guys
Kensen out of curioisty. once i chose movies/keywords(now NAMED artist) and then chose  aseries it shows YEARS for filename. can i have it sort it in years but show the dvd's title name instead of year name?

[kensn]

For my view, in TheaterView, I have "Movies" set as a Catagory with the rule set for "Media Sub Type" set to movies. Then a Library Item named Genre, which then I set "Genre" then "Artist" to. Under the set rules for file display I have Artist set to Sort By Year (a - z). Works Great. I also use other library items set up under movies. I just insert Artist instead of name when using them...

Ken

[HTPC4ME]

correct but does yours show it as years, or sort them in years and show the filename? mine sorts them in years but shows year as filename.

[kensn]

Mine is by Filename.... Which is really the Artist field.. Set it to Artist...

ken

[HTPC4ME]

how do i get mine to show filename instead of year please?

[rick.ca]

So its not possible to have all movies show alphabetically, and then have series be an entry... like audio, when you chose artists it puts all there albums under that artist?

That's not what an audio view does. kensn has suggested is something similar—in that every file belongs to a group (like every album belongs to an artist). But not every movie belongs to a series. So doing it that way results in every movie that's not a member of a series being assigned to a group consisting of itself. That's fine if you don't mind having to go through a long list of categories (i.e., [Artist] representing Series), and not seeing any movie details until one of those is selected.

Using my suggestion, your [Series] categories would consist only of actual series. Selecting one of those, you would get a list of the movies in that series, sorted by release. If you didn't want to select a particular series first, you would select "All Series." That would give you a list of all movies sorted by Title/Series, and members of a series would be sorted by release within the series. Like this...

[JustinChase]

Clever.  I'm going to play with this with the wifey gives up the HTPC.  Is this the suggestion you refer to, or the expression part of that post that results in that screenshot?

Just record [Series] for those that are part of a series (e.g., "Harry Potter"). Then use [Series] in a new view—just like you now use [Keywords].

Quick question, would the series movies still show in this order if the title of each series didn't also follow alphabetically.

What i mean is, "Harry Potter and the ..." falls within the list the same as the series Harry Potter, obviously, and I can see that the titles themselves are not alphabetical, so I assume that if you took the "Harry Potter and the" part off of the title name of those files (leaving only "The Chamber of Secrets" for example) would that title still fall in the same place in your screenshot, because of the series?

does that make Sense?

If so, is there a way to have it show the series information prior to the title, like Harry Potter: The Chamber of Secrets ([Series]: [Title]) but only where series is not null?  is that what the expression would do?

Basically, I ask because (for example)

The Lord of the Rings is the Series
The Fellowship of the Ring is the title of 2 movies (how to handle disc1/2?)

So, would "The Fellowship ..." show up in the L's or the F's?  I assume the L's, which is correct, but this...

Live Free or Die Hard
Logan's Run
The Fellowship of the Ring
The Fellowship of the Ring
Lovely Bones
The Matrix

...might be a bit confusing to some, and to guests.

Live Free or Die Hard
Logan's Run
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Lovely Bones
The Matrix

may be better, but I don't know how hard/possible it would be.

thanks.

[kensn]

In my case, when you select the series, they are sorted by year so they are chronological order.

[rick.ca]

Is this the suggestion you refer to, or the expression part of that post that results in that screenshot?

The expression is part of the suggestion; specifically, an expression field to use as a sort key.

Understand this is just a suggestion. While I was trying to answer a specific need, a more valuable point you might get from it is that you can configure a view to produce just about any result you want. The catch is, you have to decide what you want. As you seem to be realizing, that can be more challenging than you might expect.

Quick question, would the series movies still show in this order if the title of each series didn't also follow alphabetically.

The clearest answer to that is the expression itself...

If(IsEmpty([Series]), [Name] [Year], [Series] [Year])

If there is a value in [Series], it will sort by [Year] within [Series]. If not, it will sort "normally" by [Name] (and I added [Year] for the possibility of a remake with the same title—as is usually the case with remakes). So if you removed the leading series name (e.g., "Harry Potter and the ") from [Name], the sorting would be unaffected. You probably don't want to do that unless [Series] is otherwise present. A better illustration of the consequences is a series like "James Bond." The series name is not present in the titles, so unless viewing them along in their series category, it might be off-putting to see these titles sorted in with other "J" titles.

So, yes, changing the caption to [Series]: [Name] and removing the series name from the title is another possibility. If I wanted to do that, I would create a custom field (e.g., [Name.series removed]) for the purpose, or use an expression—so [Name] can remain the proper full title likely needed in other views. As you can see from my screen shot, I favour the less complicated approach. My file caption shows the proper title. For clarity—in any view—[Series] (if it belongs to one) appears prominently in the Info Panel. I prefer that to a wordy caption like "Harry Potter: Harry Potter and the..."

I should point out this is just one of many views I use. If chosen, it's probably because I am specifically interested in movie series. I'm therefore not likely to be confused if I choose to view "All series" and then see "odd" things like James Bond titles appearing together in a group. A glance at the Info Panel confirms why that is so. I would probably handle things differently if I were trying to design one view for movies.

[JustinChase]

thanks, I'm really tired right now, so I didn't read thoroughly, but it reminded me that this is another great instance where 'user sharable customizations' would come in handy!!

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=24255.0

I'll write back if I still have questions, thanks again.