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[filupmarley]

I'm trying to figure out how to best set this up. My dilemma is this: For Movies such as Planet of the Apes it has the following titles released in this order:

Planet of the Apes
Beneath the Planet of the Apes
Escape from The Planet of the Apes
Conguest of The Planet of the Apes
Battle for The Planet of the Apes
Planet of the Apes (Remake)
Rise of The Planet of the Apes

I want these titles all listed together and sorted properly based on when they were released (like they are listed above). I was thinking of creating a sort title field and populating it like this: Planet of the Apes: 01, Planet of the Apes: 02, etc. Is there an easier or better way to do this or is this my best option?

[kensn]

There are a number of ways to do this... All with there Pros and cons.

If you make a custom field and use it to sort your movies by, all your movies will need this field populated.

One way you can do it it Populate the Artist field with "Planet Of The Apes" and use the Album field to populate the movie title and then sort by year. Again you will have to use this scheme with all your movies. You can then set up your movie view by Artist - Album. I have done this to get grouping of movies in TheaterView like Star Wars, Star Trek, and others. There are other ways also, I just found this to be easy. It will add one more "Enter" step on Movies that are a single, but not a big deal breaker for me.

Ken

[MrC]

If you make a custom field and use it to sort your movies by, all your movies will need this field populated.

A way around this is to create a calculated user field which you can use as a sort field.  So, for these Planet of the Apes movies, you could set Series to be Planet of the Apes, and set Date to be the released date.  Then, the calculated user field would be something like:

  _Sort_Series_by_DateName:

      if(!isempty([Series]),[Date (year)] [Name], [Name])

Now, Group By [Series] and Sort within groups by _Sort_Series_by_DateName.

Then, your series will be sorted correctly and grouped, and all non-series will be sorted alphabetically.  See attached image (note: the dates in the screenshot are not accurate).

[fitbrit]

Thanks, MrC, for I was going to ask about such an expression myself. Currently I put the series name in [series] and also in [album]. Non series movies also have an album - just [name] ([year]). I also populate the [episode] number for the series movies. I was eventually going to ask about using this metadata to create a sensible viewscheme, and now you've equipped me to be able to do so.

[filupmarley]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. MrC I will give that script a try. That's a great idea. I currently use Mymovies to create the metadata in the sidecar XML file. I then just add a sort title in that file. JRiver reads it fine and it works well, but I knew there were other options.

[rick.ca]

Note that you can do just about anything you like using MrC's approach of constructing sort keys with expression fields. If you preferred not to group, for example, use [Movie.sort] =  if(!isempty([Series]), [Series][Year][Name], [Name]). As a general rule, keep fields as simple an consistent as possible. If something more is required (like a movie series or franchise name), record that in a separate field. Then use expressions and expression fields to combine these fields to get the captions and sorting you want. If you do want grouping, you can also group by an expression field to produce a more informative group heading than possible using a single field.

[DanielBMe]

I got around it by adding a new field in the library called "Main Sort".  Then I highlighted all files in the library and copied the title name to the new field.  I then went to each of my shows that I wanted to group together, Planet of the Apes was one of them, and changed the Main Sort field to read as follows

Title                                                         Main Sort
Planet of the Apes                                      Planet of the Apes 1   
Beneath the Planet of the Apes                     Planet of the Apes 2
Escape from The Planet of the Apes               Planet of the Apes 3
Conguest of The Planet of the Apes
Battle for The Planet of the Apes
Planet of the Apes (Remake)
Rise of The Planet of the Apes

I then changed the sort field to sort by "Main Sort'.  So now when I browse my movies they are in order and the display name is still the correct Title name.

[filupmarley]

Note that you can do just about anything you like using MrC's approach of constructing sort keys with expression fields. If you preferred not to group, for example, use [Movie.sort] =  if(!isempty([Series]), [Series][Year][Name], [Name]). As a general rule, keep fields as simple an consistent as possible. If something more is required (like a movie series or franchise name), record that in a separate field. Then use expressions and expression fields to combine these fields to get the captions and sorting you want. If you do want grouping, you can also group by an expression field to produce a more informative group heading than possible using a single field.

This sounds great. I'm going to mess around with this a bit. Admittedly I don't fully understand the power of these expressions. I've been wanting to learn more about them. My next project looks like .

[filupmarley]

A way around this is to create a calculated user field which you can use as a sort field.  So, for these Planet of the Apes movies, you could set Series to be Planet of the Apes, and set Date to be the released date.  Then, the calculated user field would be something like:

  _Sort_Series_by_DateName:

      if(!isempty([Series]),[Date (year)] [Name], [Name])

Now, Group By [Series] and Sort within groups by _Sort_Series_by_DateName.

Then, your series will be sorted correctly and grouped, and all non-series will be sorted alphabetically.  See attached image (note: the dates in the screenshot are not accurate).

Note that you can do just about anything you like using MrC's approach of constructing sort keys with expression fields. If you preferred not to group, for example, use [Movie.sort] =  if(!isempty([Series]), [Series][Year][Name], [Name]). As a general rule, keep fields as simple an consistent as possible. If something more is required (like a movie series or franchise name), record that in a separate field. Then use expressions and expression fields to combine these fields to get the captions and sorting you want. If you do want grouping, you can also group by an expression field to produce a more informative group heading than possible using a single field.

Thanks so much guys. The slight mod that Rick did to the expression is doing exactly what I wanted it to. The great thing is that there's no additional work needed on my end. It's all done automatically. Thanks for the help.

[kensn]

I now see the error of my ways....

Knowledge is good..

Ken

[InflatableMouse]

I don't like bringing in other programs but sometimes they do have good ideas too . XBMC allows you to store movie collections in a folder, showing a random or chosen cover from the Star Trek movie collection. When enabled, it creates a folder for Star Trek, The Matrix, Die Hard, Bourne, etc. Within collections, I like to sort movies by year (desc).

This might even be possible with MC with calculated fields and expressions although I'm not sure about conditional sub items for the movie collection folders (could be similar to seasons I suppose?).