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[nwboater]

[Edit by JimH]
To access this feature, go to Theater View, then visit any section (Movies, for example).  On the top line, choose More, then Toggle List Style.  Repeat to cycle through all views until you find this one.

More pictures

Still more

[End Edit]

I spent the day trying to merge 2d and 3d list drawing in Theater View.  The goal is to make it easier to make animated 3d lists that support all the features of a standard 2d list.  There are a couple days of plumbing before it'll make it to a build, but here's a preview:

I really like the feel of this - and it does add some sex appeal! But when I look at the movie listings under 'Name' it only shows the cover; not the name or any information as your sample does. I would find it helpful to have that at a minimum.

Rod

[Matt]

I really like the feel of this - and it does add some sex appeal! But when I look at the movie listings under 'Name' it only shows the cover; not the name or any information as your sample does. I would find it helpful to have that at a minimum.

We plan to add a name at the bottom of flow views soon.

We thought the description like in the screenshot was too much.

[MrC]

It might be nice to have the long description fade-in/appear after a couple of seconds.  This would allow fast name-only browsing, and a quick read of the description upon browse-pause.

[raym]

Nice. Will we get movie backdrops too though like for tv series? I look forward to that.

Out of curiosity, is the reason we don't have movie poster backdrops yet due to some copyright or similar constraint or is it still on the radar for a future release?

I really love this feature for TV series... would look amazing for movies.

[darichman]

Very very nice

My feedback:

• I'm not convinced on the grey sidepanel on the covers. It looks like an artifact on some transitions.
• In the grid/panel view, it seems very zoomed out to me. I have a lot of space above the top row and below the bottom row and can't see much detail in the grid itself.
• It would be kind of cool to zoom in and out, or have additional rows so that the grid fills the screen
  
• I'm very happy with the cover flow view
• I agree that there is plenty of room for info here. If info is going to be shown, maybe consider moving the covers up or down to accommodate it?

Will these views find their way into standard view as well?

Rick, I'm not seeing any overwrite of coverart? Is it only when you access these views? Anything odd going on in the auto-import settings?

[Sandy B Ridge]

We plan to add a name at the bottom of flow views soon.

We thought the description like in the screenshot was too much.

I'm with glynor on this! It is very nice eye candy, but maybe not something I will necessarily use in a practical sense. When I get my PC rebuilt (if a motherboard does eventually make it to my door) I'll ask Ivy and see if it is something she prefers over the existing views.

To be honest, the name at the bottom is the least useful bit of the metadata when scrolling through big images like this, because it is on 99% of the coverart. At this size it is easily readable. In the existing views it is helpful to have a name caption because the coverart are small and less readable from 10 feet, but not really at this size.

I like the idea of the description fading in and out when you stop scrolling, but doesn't clutter (or impede the scrolling) when going quickly through the covers.

SBR

[nwboater]

.......To be honest, the name at the bottom is the least useful bit of the metadata when scrolling through big images like this, because it is on 99% of the coverart........

I like the idea of the description fading in and out when you stop scrolling, but doesn't clutter (or impede the scrolling) when going quickly through the covers.

SBR

We need the name to show for the movies we record from TV. .jtv files don't get coverart, only a screenshot.

I too like the description fading in and out. But then will you just show the description? My wife makes half her movie watching decisions based on the cast. If there is room it would be nice if you showed the rest of the info at this point and not have to click to get it.

Rod

[glynor]

(if a motherboard does eventually make it to my door)

See, now... Perfect opportunity.  You can use this incident to convince Ivy that you need a second machine (for the man cave) of equal "oomph" that can be used as a backstop should anything else happen to the HTPC.

Just like how I used my new daughter as an excuse to get my wife to let me get a nice Lian Li PC-C34F case for my HTPC (we need to be able to put it in a rack with a front door or she'll attack the pretty lights).  

[JimH]

I agree that there is plenty of room for info here. If info is going to be shown, maybe consider moving the covers up or down to accommodate it?

We're trying to avoid having to move or shrink the art when text is added.  Text that fades in after a couple of seconds might work.  But you can hit enter to get the full information.

Maybe a scrolling "ticker tape" on one line at the bottom would work.  It would be clean looking but could provide more info.

Having the title at the bottom may seem to duplicate the title on the cover, but it gives you a quick way to see where you are in the alphabet without having to search around the screen for the title.

[JimH]

Here's a screenshot from build 80.  The covers will be higher resolution and the name of the movie will appear under the cover.

[fitbrit]

See, now... Perfect opportunity.  You can use this incident to convince Ivy that you need a second machine (for the man cave) of equal "oomph" that can be used as a backstop should anything else happen to the HTPC.

Just like how I used my new daughter as an excuse to get my wife to let me get a nice Lian Li PC-C34F case for my HTPC (we need to be able to put it in a rack with a front door or she'll attack the pretty lights).  

Nice. I've got the PC-C33 for one of my HTPCs. Love it.

[rick.ca]

Rick, I'm not seeing any overwrite of coverart? Is it only when you access these views?

No, although it's easiest to spot using the cover-flow style.

Anything odd going on in the auto-import settings?

I didn't expect it to make any difference—and it didn't—but I deselected 'Get cover art'.

It's not all, just some. And it's not just the new views, but all. The original poster is displayed for a second, then replaced. That behaviour continues, even after the original image is replaced on the HDD. I'm not sure what that means—the thumbnails are not being updated even after the original image is replaced?

Is no one else seeing this? ?

[glynor]

Is no one else seeing this? ?

I haven't installed 80.  I'm afeared.

We have company this week and I'm not going to mess up Theater View right yet.

[fitbrit]

I haven't installed 80.  I'm afeared.

We have company this week and I'm not going to mess up Theater View right yet.

Pawk pawk pawk pawk-pawk 

[fitbrit]

Not much to add, except the caption thing and some of these suggestions. Not just for the [names], but any view, e.g. in a [genre] view, label each genre as its representative cover art enters the middle slot in Flow, same for [series] etc.

[JimH]

I haven't installed 80.  I'm afeared.

Pawk pawk pawk pawk-pawk  

[Sandy B Ridge]

See, now... Perfect opportunity.  You can use this incident to convince Ivy that you need a second machine (for the man cave) of equal "oomph" that can be used as a backstop should anything else happen to the HTPC.

Just like how I used my new daughter as an excuse to get my wife to let me get a nice Lian Li PC-C34F case for my HTPC (we need to be able to put it in a rack with a front door or she'll attack the pretty lights).  

Ha!
Absolutely no chance at the moment. Ivy B has put the foot down! I do like the Lian Li cases though. I quite fancy the PC C60B. Really good design I think.

I think the best bet will be when the little one (what shall I call him? Haswell I guess!), when Haswell has grown up a little and we need a TV for the bedroom for a bit of peace!
I'll probably get one of those Antec VESA cases for that though and be minimalistic.

But do you know what? This new flow view is growing on me.....maybe I will use it!

SBR

[raym]

Having the title at the bottom may seem to duplicate the title on the cover, but it gives you a quick way to see where you are in the alphabet without having to search around the screen for the title.

The name caption is not necessary IMO and may ruin the look of this. I liked it better as it was and as you said, Enter gets you more info...

[fitbrit]

Subtle, Jim.

[fitbrit]

The name caption is not necessary IMO and may ruin the look of this. I liked it better as it was and as you said, Enter gets you more info...

I completely disagree with this. In a long list of TV episodes, for example, all you would have is a series of thumbnails. If one wants to arrange one's Genres in such a view, the information displayed would be even more meaningless in Flow. There has to be a caption.

[rick.ca]

The name caption is not necessary IMO and may ruin the look of this. I liked it better as it was and as you said, Enter gets you more info...

True, but unless the list has already been filtered, it would be helpful to have some information—to provide a basis for deciding which ones to view the details for. It needs the equivalent to the small info panel (about which you could also say "enter gets you more info"). Because some will want to display less or no information here, a separate info panel is warranted.

There has to be a caption.

Yes, there needs to be something. An info panel would be more versatile than a caption. And an arbitrary caption, or the general file caption, would be an irritant as often as it might be helpful.

I suppose it depends on how much space is available and how the information is to be presented. If it's just to be a few lines at the bottom of the screen, a fully configurable caption might be the best solution. Any fields could be included, formatted with <font> tags and line breaks.

[gvanbrunt]

Here's and idea on description etc:

When you first show the flow, put up a "press down arrow for full information" that fades out. When you press it on an item, a translucent window can pop on top with the description etc. This would be the same information that normally displays on the info page. This has the following benefits:

- it keeps the screen clear which many users seem to want
- it gets information that would normally require a bunch of button presses to get
- it will look cool (I know some hate eye candy but you can always close your eyes )
- it will allow anyone to tailor what information appears.
- my guess is a lot of code can be reused from the existing display screen.

[Matt]

Out of curiosity, is the reason we don't have movie poster backdrops yet due to some copyright or similar constraint or is it still on the radar for a future release?

Tonight:
NEW: Theater View shows movie backdrops from TheMovieDB.

[raym]

Tonight:
NEW: Theater View shows movie backdrops from TheMovieDB.

Awesome! This is going to be great!!

Thank you.

[Alex B]

I completely disagree with this. In a long list of TV episodes, for example, all you would have is a series of thumbnails. If one wants to arrange one's Genres in such a view, the information displayed would be even more meaningless in Flow. There has to be a caption.

Agreed.

When you are in the middle of a 22 episode season you need to know also the episode number.

[JustinChase]

When you are a middle of a 22 episode season you need to know also the episode number.

last played or % played would also be good/useful in this situation.  I usually can't remember which episode number I last watched, so a visual indicator would be most welcome.

[raym]

I completely disagree with this. In a long list of TV episodes, for example, all you would have is a series of thumbnails. If one wants to arrange one's Genres in such a view, the information displayed would be even more meaningless in Flow. There has to be a caption.

Fair enough.. Guess I wasn't thinking TV series. Let me re-phrase then, for movies, I don't think Name is necessary.

[Alex B]

It seems that the caption should be configurable. It could have a default rule that can be edited.

Here is what I might use for TV Series: [Series] - S[Season]E[Episode] - [Name] (played: [Last Played])

A more complex expression could create a different caption for each Media Subtype.

Fair enough.. Guess I wasn't thinking TV series. Let me re-phrase then, for movies, I don't think Name is necessary.

A rule base system should be able handle that too.

[Osho]

Very nice, I like it a lot - works very well for movies.

Regarding captions, I think it will be good to have this configurable (including blank captions of course). I would want to see it for televisions but maybe not for movies.

Thanks,
Osho

[Matt]

The caption for files in Theater View is configurable in Options > Theater View.

[Osho]

The caption for files in Theater View is configurable in Options > Theater View.

This applies everywhere no matter the media type or what level of hierarchy in a view - we are looking at. Different views and different levels of hierarchy my need different kinds of captioning. I am currently doing different kind of captioning based on media type, media sub type etc. but the expressions get too big and complicated and still I cannot have different kind of captioning in one view vs. another.

Thanks,
Osho

[datdude]

Love all of the new changes.  

When using the 3D wall (3 rows) I have a lot of empty space on the top and the bottom, and the cover art is rather small. Could you 'zoom' in a bit more to make them easier to see? I think you could still squeeze in about 8 full columns as opposed to 9 with half columns on either side.

The cursor when first entering the 3D wall is also a little deceiving as I am not sure where it is. I can see the caption name for a movie, yet the cursors is sometimes not on it and still on the roller. I think either the cursor should just jump to the file, and make it obvious, or stay on the roller with no caption.

Thanks

[jmone]

All this new fangled stuff will never take off....bring back ASCII art I say 

[Hendrik]

This applies everywhere no matter the media type or what level of hierarchy in a view - we are looking at. Different views and different levels of hierarchy my need different kinds of captioning. I am currently doing different kind of captioning based on media type, media sub type etc. but the expressions get too big and complicated and still I cannot have different kind of captioning in one view vs. another.

Being able to define captions per View instead of globally would be awesome, indeed. I already have quite alot of conditions in mine to show different captions depending on media sub type and even location on disc, its getting incredibly complicated.

[Scolex]

I would like to see some sort of graphic/text to represent whether a movie/show/episode has been viewed or not.
I think this would be very valuable as it is quicker to look for a viewed/not viewed string or a graphic than reading a description.
I currently use a smartlist but this would make life simpler for the wife since she always forgets about the smartlists that are setup.
Pic shows both graphics which were found in a quick google search.

[MrHaugen]

I have to correct my self. The thread got locked, so I write it here. Earlier I thought that the Video wall style (sheet?) only consisted of a few columns. But that was of course because of my limited number of movies on my test machine. When I got up to 50+ Movies, it started to look rather good. I have one question though. Is it only me that only get square cover art here? There is a lot of the top and bottom of the covers that is removed. This makes reading the title and quickly finding a suitable movie much much harder, as the title often is cut out. Is this a bug, or part of a plan?

[darichman]

Tonight:
NEW: Theater View shows movie backdrops from TheMovieDB.

This is awesome. I love the fade in for the backdrops.

One glitch for me... I'm getting the wrong images for a lot of films which have the same names but multiple releases
  - Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Sleuth, Scrooge
I have mentioned in another thread, but once a file is matched with a TMDb lookup, is it possible to store the ID and use this for lookup? At least this would be a unique identifier.

[nwboater]

Tonight:
NEW: Theater View shows movie backdrops from TheMovieDB.

I assume that 'Backdrops' means a full screen background image related to the movie. I'm not getting them - still the same old images in the background.

Rod

[nwboater]

Great progress here!

One small suggestion - make it so you can continue to scroll from the end to the beginning and vice versa. We have a lot of movies and even with our fairly fast HTPC it takes quite awhile to go from beginning to end. If we think we want to look at a movie that's near the opposite end it would sure be quicker to just keep going in the same direction and not have to reverse direction.

Thanks,
Rod

[fitbrit]

Great progress here!

One small suggestion - make it so you can continue to scroll from the end to the beginning and vice versa. We have a lot of movies and even with our fairly fast HTPC it takes quite awhile to go from beginning to end. If we think we want to look at a movie that's near the opposite end it would sure be quicker to just keep going in the same direction and not have to reverse direction.

Thanks,
Rod

Agreed. However, one additional thing I'd like to see is a jump-to mode when you press a letter of the alphabet on a keyboard. It would be nice to jump directly to movies beginning with R simply by pressing R. This is already the case in other TheaterView views, so it should probably be included in Flow. Very good work so far!

[nwboater]

Agreed. However, one additional thing I'd like to see is a jump-to mode when you press a letter of the alphabet on a keyboard. It would be nice to jump directly to movies beginning with R simply by pressing R. This is already the case in other TheaterView views, so it should probably be included in Flow. Very good work so far!

It would be great to have a way to advance in 'chunks'. But I think a lot of effort has been made in Theater View development to keep it as keyboard-less and mouse-less as possible. So it would be helpful if a way could be done to do that advancing with something on the remote. Perhaps the up/down 'Channel Change' buttons? And then for those with keyboards use fitbrit's approach.

Rod

[fitbrit]

It would be great to have a way to advance in 'chunks'. But I think a lot of effort has been made in Theater View development to keep it as keyboard-less and mouse-less as possible. So it would be helpful if a way could be done to do that advancing with something on the remote. Perhaps the up/down 'Channel Change' buttons? And then for those with keyboards use fitbrit's approach.

Rod

How about fast forward and rewind buttons?

[Matt]

Page Up / Page Down (channel buttons on your remote) and typed navigation will both be added to 3d lists (just like they're already there with 2d lists).

It might be a couple builds depending on other things, but feel free to remind us if it doesn't happen soon.

[nwboater]

Page Up / Page Down (channel buttons on your remote) and typed navigation will both be added to 3d lists (just like they're already there with 2d lists).

It might be a couple builds depending on other things, but feel free to remind us if it doesn't happen soon.

Thank you Matt.

Rod

[fitbrit]

Page Up / Page Down (channel buttons on your remote) and typed navigation will both be added to 3d lists (just like they're already there with 2d lists).

It might be a couple builds depending on other things, but feel free to remind us if it doesn't happen soon.

I was just putting myself in your shoes earlier, wondering whether it was frustrating when we ask/demand features that are already planned but you haven't had time to implement yet?
Especially when we frame the 'request' as "THIS FEATURE IS WORSE THAN USELESS WITHOUT XYZ, JRiver SCUM!"

[gvanbrunt]

I know some have mentioned this, but in flow view the items "without focus" need to be a higher resolution. They don't look good on a larger screen. The transition to focus also is a little jerky on my computer that is relatively well powered. Anyone else seeing this?

Also the backdrops are too dark\translucent to see well. Could use a bit of polish.

Over all, looking really good though.

[glynor]

Pawk pawk pawk pawk-pawk 

I know, I know... But I'm busy cutting holes in my house, and I have to duck down under a RG6 cable right now to even type at my machine.

Next week will be more sane.  I hope.

Dear lord, I hope...

[rick.ca]

I know some have mentioned this, but in flow view the items "without focus" need to be a higher resolution. They don't look good on a larger screen. The transition to focus also is a little jerky on my computer that is relatively well powered. Anyone else seeing this?

Yes. I suppose the lower resolution is necessary for the performance of the animation, but it would be nice if something could be done about the transition jerk at the end. It detracts from an otherwise perfectly smooth animation.

Also the backdrops are too dark\translucent to see well. Could use a bit of polish.

Seems just right to me. Any less so and it would compete with the covers (and with the info panel, if that is displayed). It would also make the backdrop transitions more distracting.

[gvanbrunt]

Seems just right to me. Any less so and it would compete with the covers

I can barely see them on mine. I'll have to wait and see on my HTPC how it is.

Edit:

Just checked on my HTPC. Just my 2 cents but seems a hair too dark and or translucent on there. What is anyone else seeing?

[nwboater]

I'm still not getting Backdrops. Do they have to be enabled somewhere? Don't see anything for them in Theater View settings.

Thanks,
Rod