Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[nwboater]

I have imported a bunch of recorded TV series and movies from SageTV. In MC17 Display and Theater Views it does not give a listing for Series that I could then click on to then see the individual series listings. Right now it shows every single episode I have for all the series interspersed with movies.

Not sure how to best deal with this right now. There is Carnac that supposedly fetches more data for the shows. Do I need to enable it, or tell it to do something?

Do I need to do some tagging. Or do some setup to structure a proper listing sequence?

I know that all this is changing and evolving as we speak so I don't want to spend a lot of time doing something here that may soon become automatic. Or setup something that may hinder forthcoming automatic stuff.

Also could the fact that these recording were done in Sage be presenting an issue?

Thanks for any suggestions or explanations.

Rod

[CountryBumkin]

You may need to setup Theater View to display TV series. MC comes preset, but if it is not the way you want it, it is generally easy to configure. It sounds like you don't have the Movies and TV Series separated into Media Sub Types.

First step go to Standard View and click on Video>Files. Is the category "Series" shown. If not, click on column header and scroll down the list until you see it (click on it). Also add Episode, if it's not already shown.
Is the name of the Series shown? If not, you may want to try the Library tool "add field properites from File Name".

If the Series is there. Go to Tools>Options>Theater View. Under the Televsion category check the "Set Rules for File Display". It should have Media Type = Video, and MediaSub Type = TV Shows. Under sort you can add "Series (a-z)" or whatever you prefer.

The key is the filename and data that gets pulled in with the Sage file. If the File name and meta-data is there, MC does a good job of putting it in the right places. If the data is missing or garbled, you have to add it, or fix it, yourself.

Your Standard View should be something like this:

[nwboater]

Country Bumkin,

Thanks a lot for your very helpful and informative post.

I added Series and Episode in Standard View. Unfortunately nothing there, even after Fill Fiel Properties from File Name. Looks like the problem is that under Name it shows the Series Name and then a dash and then the episode name. Like this:  "As Time Goes By-The Cruise-7677276-0". Looks like I'll have to deal with each of them individually to put the episode name under Episode. Bummer.

Thanks again.

Rod

[Bill S]

If your tv files are named as 'series'-'epsisode' then the "Fill Properties From Filename" should work.  Did you remember to modify the value in 'Filename' box to correspond to your filename? 

For instance if the TV series is 'As Time Goes By' and the episode's name is 'The Cruise' and the filename is As Time Goes By-The Cruise, then you would want something like this for the filename box in "Fill Properties From Filename":

[Series]-[Episode]

If above doesn't work for you, I recommend posting your exact filename (and any directory name above it if that directory name is relevant) and the values that you tried in the Fill Properties box.

[CountryBumkin]

Jus to add to what Bill said,
I name my series like this "Lost s1.e01 Pilot.mkv, so when I get a bunch of episodes ripped, I go to Standard View and select all the rips at the same time (hold Cntrl key down and click on each row/file) then I do the "Fill Properties frrm File Name" just one time and it fills in all the rips I selected. The Fill Properties "formula" for me is then [Series] [Season].[Episode] [Name]. Note how the space and period in my naming matches with a space and period in the Fill Properties formula. If I did not want the "s" in Season nor "e" in episode to be included in the Properties, I could do [Series] s[Season].e[Episode] [Name]. There are lots of ways to use this feature.

[nwboater]

Bill S & Country Bumkin,

Thanks again for your helpful posts. It will be tonight or tomorrow before I can get time to work on this.

Almost all of the series I have are imported from Sage. Think I only have a couple of DVD series. Future Series will hopefully come from MC17 TV Recordings. I would like to have this structured in a way that will be compatible with MC recording. Hopefully I don't have to mess with their recordings to get it to display properly.

Rod

[nwboater]

You may need to setup Theater View to display TV series. MC comes preset, but if it is not the way you want it, it is generally easy to configure. It sounds like you don't have the Movies and TV Series separated into Media Sub Types.

First step go to Standard View and click on Video>Files. Is the category "Series" shown. If not, click on column header and scroll down the list until you see it (click on it). Also add Episode, if it's not already shown.
Is the name of the Series shown? If not, you may want to try the Library tool "add field properites from File Name".

If the Series is there. Go to Tools>Options>Theater View. Under the Televsion category check the "Set Rules for File Display". It should have Media Type = Video, and MediaSub Type = TV Shows. Under sort you can add "Series (a-z)" or whatever you prefer.

The key is the filename and data that gets pulled in with the Sage file. If the File name and meta-data is there, MC does a good job of putting it in the right places. If the data is missing or garbled, you have to add it, or fix it, yourself.

Your Standard View should be something like this:

Finally got a chance to work on this. Series & Episode were not there in Standard View so I added those columns. Nothing showed up in them.

Please go to my next post for continuation.

Thanks Country Bumkin for the good information.

Rod

[nwboater]

If your tv files are named as 'series'-'epsisode' then the "Fill Properties From Filename" should work.  Did you remember to modify the value in 'Filename' box to correspond to your filename? 

For instance if the TV series is 'As Time Goes By' and the episode's name is 'The Cruise' and the filename is As Time Goes By-The Cruise, then you would want something like this for the filename box in "Fill Properties From Filename":

[Series]-[Episode]

If above doesn't work for you, I recommend posting your exact filename (and any directory name above it if that directory name is relevant) and the values that you tried in the Fill Properties box.

When I first tried this I checked Automatic in the Fill Properties From Filename. Did nothing.

Next time I went to Fill Properties From Filename I checked Template instead of automatic. Filled in the correct Directory name and Filename and got it to work. So it now shows the correct Series and Episode for the Series I've selected to try it on.

Progress.

Thanks very much for your help Bill.

Rod

[nwboater]

You may need to setup Theater View to display TV series. MC comes preset, but if it is not the way you want it, it is generally easy to configure. It sounds like you don't have the Movies and TV Series separated into Media Sub Types.

First step go to Standard View and click on Video>Files. Is the category "Series" shown. If not, click on column header and scroll down the list until you see it (click on it). Also add Episode, if it's not already shown.
Is the name of the Series shown? If not, you may want to try the Library tool "add field properites from File Name".

If the Series is there. Go to Tools>Options>Theater View. Under the Televsion category check the "Set Rules for File Display". It should have Media Type = Video, and MediaSub Type = TV Shows. Under sort you can add "Series (a-z)" or whatever you prefer.

The key is the filename and data that gets pulled in with the Sage file. If the File name and meta-data is there, MC does a good job of putting it in the right places. If the data is missing or garbled, you have to add it, or fix it, yourself.

Your Standard View should be something like this:

So now that the Series and Episode display properly in Standard View I'm trying to get it to display properly in Theater View. I followed your instructions for Tools/Options/Theater View. Except for the next selection it doesn't list 'Television' but does list 'Shows' under 'Video' which is what I selected. I followed your instructions for 'Set rules for file display' with 'Media Type Is Video and Media Sub Type is TV Show.

Unfortunately it still shows one big long list in Theater View for Murdoch Mysteries which is the Series I'm trying this on.

Any ideas on what to try or to look for now.

Thanks very much.

Rod

[CountryBumkin]

You are correct to be in the "Shows" setup. I renamed the title on my system to "Television" (and forgot).
It sounds like you have all your TV shows grouped properly by Media Sub Type now. In the Tools>Options>Theater View>Shows setup there are addtional ways to group by Series, Season, and sort by Episode. If this is what your asking.

What do you mean you have "one long list" displaying? What do you want to see?

In the Theater View display for Shows, there is a way to change views. Click on the box "More" and then on "Toggle List Views".

If this is not what you are looking for, post back and maybe I can help.

[nwboater]

You are correct to be in the "Shows" setup. I renamed the title on my system to "Television" (and forgot).
It sounds like you have all your TV shows grouped properly by Media Sub Type now. In the Tools>Options>Theater View>Shows setup there are addtional ways to group by Series, Season, and sort by Episode. If this is what your asking.

What do you mean you have "one long list" displaying? What do you want to see?

In the Theater View display for Shows, there is a way to change views. Click on the box "More" and then on "Toggle List Views".

If this is not what you are looking for, post back and maybe I can help.

What we presently have is about 200 TV recordings imported from SageTV. These are a combination of movies, individual TV programs and Series. When we look in Theater View/Video/Shows we normally use the List style and it is just one big long listing of everything alphabetically.

What we would like is to scroll through the alphabetical list and when it comes to a Series to just have the Series named, such as Murdoch Mysteries. If we want to watch Murdoch Mysteries we would then click on it and be presented a listing of all the Murdoch Mysteries we have. We can then select the particular one we want to watch.

This presentation cleans up the primary listing a lot. Instead of our main list being 200 recordings, it is shrunk to say 30 or 40. Sage operated basically this way and we found it very user friendly.

I did toggle the List Views and it did not do what we want. So is there a way to display in Theater View the way I described?

Thanks very much.

Rod

[CountryBumkin]

What you ask for is easy to do - but you have to have a "Series" assigned to each file. Sometimes the TV Show imports with this info autoamtically. I'm not sure about the way Sage tags its files. So you go to the Standard View and (if not already shown) add the column for "Series". You may have to manually add the Series name if its not there.
Then go to Tools>Options>Theater View and click on the Shows>Series label. Add sort by Series.

The screen shot below is the default setup (minus some of the "items to show" that I deleted) - so My guess is that you just need to add the "Series name" to the properties for each episode you have.

[nwboater]

Country Bumkin,

Thanks for the explanation. It's still not working but I probably misunderstood something.

From your previous posts I added the Series & Episode Fields to the files.

In Theater View you show the default which is what is there now. You then say "Then go to Tools>Options>Theater View and click on the Shows>Series label. Add sort by Series." How do I add Sort By Series?

I've never worked with Expressions so am quite lost in this area.

Thanks very much for all your help and patience.

Rod

[JustinChase]

Jus to add to what Bill said,
I name my series like this "Lost s1.e01 Pilot.mkv, so when I get a bunch of episodes ripped, I go to Standard View and select all the rips at the same time (hold Cntrl key down and click on each row/file) then I do the "Fill Properties frrm File Name" just one time and it fills in all the rips I selected. The Fill Properties "formula" for me is then [Series] [Season].[Episode] [Name]. Note how the space and period in my naming matches with a space and period in the Fill Properties formula. If I did not want the "s" in Season nor "e" in episode to be included in the Properties, I could do [Series] s[Season].e[Episode] [Name]. There are lots of ways to use this feature.

I suggest you change this method.

if you use a single space as your method to specify the separation between fields/tags, you will get Series = "The " when you have a series with any spaces in the name.

I suggest you use a period or underscore (or anything you want) to diferentiate between fields.

The fact that your formula is actually setting " s" (with a space) will probably give you the proper series, and since episode will likely never contain a space, this works out well also, for this specific example.

However, the comments above should be considered, since it's basically luck that has this working for you, but other situations are likely to give you unexpected results if you aren't more specific.

So, your series should probably be named like [Series].[Season].[Episode].[Name] so you can designate more effectively where the fields get split apart.

[CountryBumkin]

Country Bumkin,

Thanks for the explanation. It's still not working but I probably misunderstood something.

From your previous posts I added the Series & Episode Fields to the files.

In Theater View you show the default which is what is there now. You then say "Then go to Tools>Options>Theater View and click on the Shows>Series label. Add sort by Series." How do I add Sort By Series?

I've never worked with Expressions so am quite lost in this area.

Thanks very much for all your help and patience.

Rod

I like to post screen shots because this stuff is hard to explain. In the screen shot above (from Tools>Options>Theater View), you should be seeing exactly what I show - because this is built into MC. You don't have to do anything. If you have all your episodes Tagged with a Series name (see earlier screen shoot. Notice the TV Show "All Creatures Great And Small". You should have something similar for your shows. If you do, Theater View will group them all into a Series Icon. Then when you click on that Icon, all the related shows will be available.
Are you not getting this?

And don't worry about not understanding it yet. You'll get it soon enough. Keep posting your questions. 

[CountryBumkin]

I should have shown this step too. If your TV Shows are grouping (one Icon per Series in Theater View) but they are not in order, you can add a sort funtion like below. However, I'm pretty sure this is already setup for you as a default setting.




I hope JRiver doesn't mind me using up all their Server space posting pictures. 

[JimH]

I hope JRiver doesn't mind me using up all their Server space posting pictures.  

We'll build a new one for you if we need to.  Thanks a lot for helping out.

[nwboater]

Thanks again Country Bumkin for all your efforts to try t get this working for me. So far still unsuccessful though. I'm posting some screenshots that hopefully will help.

This is my Theater View settings which I think are the same as yours:




This is my listing in Standard View. Notice the 6 last ones - that's how they came in from Sage. Notice the 4 starting with BigMurderonCampus-8008443-0. I eliminated 'MurdochMysteries from the Name Field.




And finally this is my Theater View presentation. In the whole list (much more than what's show here) I don't see a single icon for Murdoch Mysteries that when hit would list the various episodes. Notice the 4 Episodes where I eliminated MurdochMysteries from the filename.



As an aside, for some while now all our TV Show listings are showing in reverse alphabetical order for some reason. Perhaps that's at least an easy one to solve.

I'm trying to understand what in the setup you have given me would make a single MurdochMysteries icon with episodes shown when clicking on it.

Hope these screenshots help to make sense out of this.

Thanks again.

Rod

[nwboater]

I neglected to include my setup of the Expression with the others.




Rod

[Matt]

Hi Rod,

Could you email me a library backup?  I'm matt at jriver dot com.

Also, are names like "BigMurderonCampus-8008443-0" standard from SageTV?  If so, we should make Carnac understand them.  What do all the numbers mean?

Thanks.

[glynor]

Also, are names like "BigMurderonCampus-8008443-0" standard from SageTV?  If so, we should make Carnac understand them.  What do all the numbers mean?

Yes.

I can give you all sorts of examples if you need when I get home.

The 8008443 part of the name is, I believe, either a random number to make sure it doesn't ever get filename conflicts, OR some airing-specific "episode ID", I'm not sure.  It is NOT a "traditional" episode ID though, because if you record two different airings of the same exact episode, this number doesn't match.  As far as I'm concerned, it is junk.

The "-0" part is the number of "pieces" for the file.  Usually, there is only one.  However, if you switch channels mid-playback, or otherwise interrupt the stream (maybe by turning your HD-PVR off and then on again, for example, or shutting down Sage for a minute in the middle of a recording), the next "hunk" of the recording gets a "-1" and then a "-2" and so on and so forth.

I don't want any divided recordings (with missing content), so if I ever get these, I delete the whole lot and re-record it later.

For Movies and TV Shows without season/episode info (news programs and stuff like that, usually), Sage formats the filename like the above example.  However, for a more traditional TV Show, the filename will often look like this: Enlightened-S01E03-SomeoneElsesLife-6319571-0.ts

It should be pretty clear, but that's season 1, episode 3, the episode title is "Someone Else's Life" and the Series is "Enlightened".  Carnac already parses the S01E03 part right, most of the time... However, I found last night that Carnac barfs up if the S07E13 thing contains three digit episode numbers, as is the case for The Colbert Report and The Daily Show, since they air so many episodes each "season".

[glynor]

I haven't finished reading this full thread, but I was dealing with my new SageTV recordings and my Theater View setup last night, and I think I may have been running into the same sort of issues.

We need a way to specify the Theater View Caption on a per-View basis.

So, I have a Theater View under Video called "New Shows".  It sorts the newest recordings to the top, and filters to only show [Media Sub Type]=TV Show, but it doesn't have any "drill down" categories.  It is just a flat list.  This is useful for going and picking out something recently recorded quickly.

However, now that Carnac auto-detects the series, season, and episode for most of my new recordings, the [Name] field (which I'd always used for the Theater View caption) is pretty useless on this kind of "mixed list".  I can't tell what shows they are from the Episode Titles, which is all that's left in [Name] now!  With MC16, it was easy.  My new stuff was usually untagged, but the file names contained most of the info I needed to just find and play that latest episode of The Office that just aired last night or an hour ago.  So, leaving Caption set to [Name] just worked.  They had the full filename for untagged, new, files; and I set them properly for my tagged files (which I usually browse for using my other more normal drill-down views).

So, Carnac is helping, but also making my "New Shows" list useless.

What I want, is for the "New Shows" view to use this caption [Series] - [Name] (or maybe even [Series] - [Season]e[Episode] - [Name]).  I can do that by using an expression in the Caption setup under Options -> Theater View -> Advanced.  But, since this applies across the board, it applies to all my other different views of shows.  I don't want that caption used on my "regular" drill-down TV Shows view in Theater View, because it is redundant.  When I drill down into The X-Files, then Season 6, to look at the file list, I'd have a big list of files all starting with "The X-Files - 06..." over and over (sometimes causing the relvant part of the caption, the episode name, to be cut off if the series name happens to be too long).

So... I need one caption for one type of view, and another for another type of view.  The only way to accomplish this is to move the Caption into the setup for the individual views in Theater View.

Otherwise, I can't use Carnac at all.

[nwboater]

Hi Rod,

Could you email me a library backup?  I'm matt at jriver dot com.

Also, are names like "BigMurderonCampus-8008443-0" standard from SageTV?  If so, we should make Carnac understand them.  What do all the numbers mean?

Thanks.

Hi Matt,

Library Backup emailed.

I was going to suggest checking with glynor on the SageTV filenames but I see he's already explained it. Thanks for chiming in Glynor.

And thanks Matt for looking into this.

Rod

[Matt]

Thanks for the backup.  I think I can explain what you're seeing.

The stock Theater View view Video > Shows > Season probably looks more like what you want?  It only shows an entry for a series if the series field is filled, and any files with an empty series go to 'Unassigned'.

If you instead use the default view Video > Shows > Series, we use the name of the program when the series is empty (the expression TVInfo(SeriesDisplay)).  The reason for this is that it makes it possible to find one-off shows (say, a recording of a football game) in the stock Series view.  This approach gets messy when there are 2000 recordings without a series like your library has.

I'm going to try to make Carnac better understand Sage naming, and that should clean your library up to the point where this isn't really an issue.  You will have to run Fill Properties From Filename in automatic mode once a new build is available.

Does that make sense?

[nwboater]

Re importing SageTV recording in MC I came across this which was created by babgvant. http://babgvant.com/blogs/andyvt/archive/2011/10/19/migratesagetvtojmc.aspx  I'm not sure what it takes to run, but wondering if it might be helpful for those of us with old SageTV recordings?

Rod

[rick.ca]

We need a way to specify the Theater View Caption on a per-View basis.

Be careful what you wish for. I don't disagree. My caption is a hopelessly complicated conditional expression that adapts to many different situations. It's a PITA to maintain. But it would be even worse to have to have to maintain a unique caption for each and every view (I have LOTS of them).

I think it would be better to have a separate default caption (i.e., as it is now) for each media type. Then an optional per-View caption that would override the default (including ignoring the media type). I would still use conditional expressions in each of the defaults. Those will work in most views, and using a default ensures some consistency. I don't want captions to change without very good reason. Where there is such a reason, being able to override the default just for the view in question is the perfect solution.

I have a Theater View under Video called "New Shows".  It sorts the newest recordings to the top, and filters to only show [Media Sub Type]=TV Show, but it doesn't have any "drill down" categories.  It is just a flat list.  This is useful for going and picking out something recently recorded quickly.

In this situation where you don't want to "drill down" anyway, use an Expression Category to turn the category into whatever caption you find informative in the circumstances. For example, I use...

[Series] /(Right([s.Started],4)/) Mid(★★★★★,0,[Rating]) RemoveRight(Right([Filename],7),4) If(IsEqual([Season], 1), premiering, returning) [s.Returning]

...as the Category in a view that tells me when series on break are returning. Selecting a category will show a file list of one series, but what I'm primarily interested in is an ordered list of when series are returning.

[glynor]

I think it would be better to have a separate default caption (i.e., as it is now) for each media type. Then an optional per-View caption that would override the default (including ignoring the media type). I would still use conditional expressions in each of the defaults. Those will work in most views, and using a default ensures some consistency. I don't want captions to change without very good reason. Where there is such a reason, being able to override the default just for the view in question is the perfect solution.

Yes.  This would be even better.

I'm not sure how the Expression Category would work to solve my problem.  I'll probably post later on tonight with more details and a screenshot, so you can see what I'm talking about.

I don't really know what an Expression Category is at all, or how they work, so perhaps it would solve my problem.  If so, I'd love some help, rick.  Thanks!  I know you're a better wizard at that stuff than me.

Right now, I am using a semi-complex Caption expression.  I did it by making a [Theater View Caption] calculated field, and designing my expression there.  It works, but it creates that clunkiness in my other Video views.

[glynor]

Actually, on second thought, you don't need separate defaults for each media type.  You can accomplish that with an expression, I'd think.

What I really need is the ability to override the default on a per-view basis, if necessary.  For me, the [Name] default is fine for most views.  I'm not trying to accomplish anything crazy.  But, when [Name] doesn't work, it really doesn't work.

PS.  Not to say your suggestion wouldn't work, rick.  It sure would, and that would be easier if you do want to customize it per-media type (which seems like a common need with the setup).  But, if they want to avoid that UI complexity, a single default Caption with the ability to override it per-view would work as well.

[rick.ca]

I don't really know what an Expression Category is at all, or how they work, so perhaps it would solve my problem.

It may help to accept it's not a particularly intuitive solution. But it is simple. It's just using Categories as a list instead of file captions. A Category can be an expression (thus, "Expression Category") and an expression can be anything you want it to be. In Theatre View, Toggle List Style to list, and you have a list of Categories—exactly as you specified them.

Actually, on second thought, you don't need separate defaults for each media type.  You can accomplish that with an expression, I'd think.

Of course. That's what I'm already doing. But since media types are fundamentally different, it would be helpful to be able to separate them. It's no big deal—just one less condition to have to deal with. It would actually be more helpful to be able to deal with Series separately, but I don't think all agree on how series should be identified or what the consequences of setting [Media Sub Type]=[TV Series] should be. There wouldn't be the same sort of issue with [Media Type].

[glynor]

It may help to accept it's not a particularly intuitive solution. But it is simple. It's just using Categories as a list instead of file captions. A Category can be an expression (thus, "Expression Category") and an expression can be anything you want it to be. In Theatre View, Toggle List Style to list, and you have a list of Categories—exactly as you specified them.

Ah, ah, ah... I see.  Yes, of course.

That would be way too clunky for me, I'm afraid.  You wouldn't be able to have a different Theater View style for the "file level" than you do for other tiers in the view, though right?  (Since you'd never actually use the file level part of the view directly.)  Also, is there a way to prevent the view from even displaying the File Level view?  Or do you just deal with the fact that you have to "enter twice" on the last level of the view, in order to play a particular file?

If the latter, then I'd lose my "Play All" ability for TV Shows (play episode 3 of season 4 first, but then continue to episode 4, and 5, and so on when done), which wouldn't fly at all.

But since media types are fundamentally different, it would be helpful to be able to separate them. It's no big deal—just one less condition to have to deal with. It would actually be more helpful to be able to deal with Series separately, but I don't think all agree on how series should be identified or what the consequences of setting [Media Sub Type]=[TV Series] should be. There wouldn't be the same sort of issue with [Media Type].

I agree.  I think separate defaults by media type and the ability to override on a per-view basis would be the best solution.

But, you really don't need it, necessarily.  If the current option is used as the overall default for Theater View, and then they add per-view "overrides", you could accomplish the same thing yourself with extreme ease if (and this is a big if) the override setting was available for all of the "levels" of Theater View and was inheritable (the one applied last "wins" style).

So, then you could just add an explicit Caption rule to your Video top-level View in Theater View, one for Audio, and one for Images.  Then, if you need to change the Video one for just one specific view down below in the hierarchy (probably usually in a "mixed list" situation like I described), you just add the Caption to that specific view too.  You wouldn't need to apply the same rule over and over to all of your complex views... Only to the top one in the hierarchy where you want some differences, and then override it down below if you need for a one-off view.

It'd be the same thing, but they wouldn't have to add three similar boxes to the Options -> Theater View -> Advanced section.

[glynor]

By the way... On a completely different note:  nwboater, if you didn't see it yet, you're going to love the new FixSpacing() expression and the new Sage-aware Carnac stuff.

I'm very happy.  MC17 is already SO awesome.

[nwboater]

Thanks for the backup.  I think I can explain what you're seeing.

The stock Theater View view Video > Shows > Season probably looks more like what you want?  It only shows an entry for a series if the series field is filled, and any files with an empty series go to 'Unassigned'.

If you instead use the default view Video > Shows > Series, we use the name of the program when the series is empty (the expression TVInfo(SeriesDisplay)).  The reason for this is that it makes it possible to find one-off shows (say, a recording of a football game) in the stock Series view.  This approach gets messy when there are 2000 recordings without a series like your library has.

I'm going to try to make Carnac better understand Sage naming, and that should clean your library up to the point where this isn't really an issue.  You will have to run Fill Properties From Filename in automatic mode once a new build is available.

Does that make sense?

Hi Matt,

Thanks very much for checking out my Library Backup and for your explanations here. I'm a little confused though about what you said. It sounds like the existing default should have done what I want. But it didn't. Or did I misunderstand you?

By the way... On a completely different note:  nwboater, if you didn't see it yet, you're going to love the new FixSpacing() expression and the new Sage-aware Carnac stuff.

I'm very happy.  MC17 is already SO awesome.

Matt & Glynor - It is looking like perhaps I should just wait for this next build. Seems like a lot of progress, and perhaps it will do what I want, besides a lot of other great stuff. If so I'll need to get mine back to default I guess for things to work properly. Or will that not be an issue? BTW my library has about 200 recordings, not 2,000. And at present besides all the TV Series there are a bunch of movies that I would at some point like to get listed under Movies. I could do that now with tagging I believe, but will some of the new version stuff perhaps do it for me? Can't wait to get it now - you really whetted my appetite glynor!

Compared to what Rick & glynor have been discussing I think our needs are quite simple.

Thanks again for all the help.

Rod

[glynor]

It is looking like perhaps I should just wait for this next build. Seems like a lot of progress, and perhaps it will do what I want, besides a lot of other great stuff. If so I'll need to get mine back to default I guess for things to work properly. Or will that not be an issue?

If you're looking to add tags to a bunch of recordings from SageTV, then definitely wait for the next build.

You won't need to reset anything back to the defaults to benefit, though you may end up wanting to re-think your Theater View setup afterwards.

[nwboater]

glynor you do know how to build up anxiety!  Think I'm going to just sit tight on this whole thing - we'll live with 'one big long list' for awhile longer.

Thanks,
Rod

[rick.ca]

That would be way too clunky for me, I'm afraid.  You wouldn't be able to have a different Theater View style for the "file level" than you do for other tiers in the view, though right?  (Since you'd never actually use the file level part of the view directly.)

I only use this "trick" for some special-purpose lists, as described. They're typically on a sub menu (i.e., a second roller item) along with one or more "working views" (e.g., Pending - Recently Imported - Current - Ended). I wouldn't normally go to the file view, unless I wanted to see the file info. If I wanted to play, I would press <Play> (although I wouldn't normally do that, and for my "Pending Series" example, there's nothing to play). If I wanted to "Play All," I'd do so from a working view.

This isn't the only possible use of "Expression Categories." It can be used to simply make the category values more informative, but still for use as categories (e.g., [Series] • [Studio]). Or to combine what would otherwise be two categories into one (e.g., [Series] • [Season]).

If the current option is used as the overall default for Theater View, and then they add per-view "overrides", you could accomplish the same thing yourself with extreme ease if (and this is a big if) the override setting was available for all of the "levels" of Theater View and was inheritable (the one applied last "wins" style).

Inheritance is a nice idea, but I think the result too complicated for the need. As I mentioned, I prefer the captions done change unless they have to. When jumping around in large collection of views, a changing caption is just one more thing for the brain to keep track of. If the same caption can be used, the view is much faster to comprehend. So I find most of them can be handled nicely in one conditional expression. It's the exceptions that would be much easier to deal with on a per-view basis. It's a PITA to have to shoehorn one simple caption expression into the one humongous expression I'm currently using.

[glynor]

Both ways would work, rick, for sure.  I'm just trying to give them options, because the current way doesn't work very well for me right now.

[CountryBumkin]

Thanks again Country Bumkin for all your efforts to try t get this working for me. So far still unsuccessful though. I'm posting some screenshots that hopefully will help.

This is my Theater View settings which I think are the same as you


This is my listing in Standard View. Notice the 6 last ones - that's how they came in from Sage. Notice the 4 starting with BigMurderonCampus-8008443-0. I eliminated 'MurdochMysteries from the Name Fi


And finally this is my Theater View presentation. In the whole list (much more than what's show here) I don't see a single icon for Murdoch Mysteries that when hit would list the various episodes. Notice the 4 Episodes where I eliminated MurdochMysteries from the filename.



As an aside, for some while now all our TV Show listings are showing in reverse alphabetical order for some reason. Perhaps that's at least an easy one to solve.

I'm trying to understand what in the setup you have given me would make a single MurdochMysteries icon with episodes shown when clicking on it.

Hope these screenshots help to make sense out of this.

Thanks again.

Rod

You should be getting this Theater View (under Shows > Series).
I think this is your goal.



Then when you click/open one of the series you will get a list of episodes - like this:



Your episode names "will be displayed like in your last post. Since that is the "name" you have in that field. There are ways to clean up the episode name, but first i want to confirm
a) you want the series listed like above.
b) you are not getting the view above.

PS. I deleted Genre and Season in the default "Shows" view. I list all the episodes (all seasons) in one list. I use "Recent" for TV Shows I record and plan to delete after watching. So if I understand what you want - you should be seeing it under "Series" view.

[nwboater]

You should be getting this Theater View (under Shows > Series).
I think this is your goal.



Then when you click/open one of the series you will get a list of episodes - like this:



Your episode names "will be displayed like in your last post. Since that is the "name" you have in that field. There are ways to clean up the episode name, but first i want to confirm
a) you want the series listed like above.
b) you are not getting the view above.

PS. I deleted Genre and Season in the default "Shows" view. I list all the episodes (all seasons) in one list. I use "Recent" for TV Shows I record and plan to delete after watching. So if I understand what you want - you should be seeing it under "Series" view.

Country Bumkin,

 Thanks very much for pursuing this.

It's interesting what I'm getting. In Theater View/Series the screen is blank. But I do get the proper display in Season.



Then when I click on Murdoch Mysteries I get the listing of individual shows just as wanted.



So it is working as desired, just that for some reason I have to go to Season instead of Series for the parent listing.

I think I'll hold off working more on this right now and wait to see if new builds ease the pain of importing from Sage. If so it may save a lot of file manipulation and tagging.

I really appreciate all you have done here. It's been a good education.

Rod