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[BartMan01]

I have a few views in Theater View that are a mix of items that are series and non-series.  One example would be my 'music videos' view.  This is a mix of concerts, music videos, and TV shows (like Crossroads or Live from Daryl's House).  The only way to get it to show the series cover art is to make the Series the first selection but then you get all series items listed as separate entries and everything else is under a separate 'unassigned' selection.

Is it possible to get series items to show the series cover art instead of a fan of all of the episode images in a mixed view?

If not, that would be a wish list item.

[BartMan01]

Anyone?  The only way I have found to get series cover art to show is to have the 'Series' as an explicit level. A level with 'Series' in the calculation (where it shows series if there is one and name if not) does not show the series cover art for series items.

[Hendrik]

Cover Art for categories only work in views that are setup to only show this category.

[BartMan01]

Thanks for the confirmation - I can stop trying to get it to work and implement some workarounds (assign series tags to  everything in mixed views) instead.  Of course the workaround totally kills my 'movie series' logic so I have to rethink that too.

Is that a design decision or a limitation in the current code base?  Any thoughts on changing that behavior?

[csimon]

Is that a design decision or a limitation in the current code base?  Any thoughts on changing that behavior?

Cover Art currently works in very limited circumstances, on specific tags (Artist, Series...) and where it's not used in an expression. There are already requests to allow it to work on any tag or expression so you could devise your own folder level images or, in your specific case, use existing Series cover art generated from an expression.

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=73519.msg499459;topicseen#msg499459 (from 2012!)
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=87722.msg600763;topicseen#msg600763
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=94193.msg649505;topicseen#msg649505
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=90662.msg657756#msg657756 (please support this with a +1. This is the most recent offical request thread I think and several people have asked for it since, but unless it gets +1s...)

:-)

[MrHaugen]

Always wanted to create box sets for movie series. But there is not really any good way to do this today.

Best solution I found was to group movies into box set groups, and the single items was shown as they normally do. The problem with this is that you'll get no info pane. Not even for the single item movies.

In my opinion, there should be some logic to also show the small info pane on a higher level if there is a mix of categories/groups of items and single items. Best way I see would be for JRiver to add a field called "boxset title" or similar, and start populate this with data from the users. Use this category to group movies in theater view. Add a few info fields for grouped items, like number of movies, how many you've not watched. From and to year etc. Just for the grouped item's. And then the regular Small info pane for the single items. This would require another customization page for the category info pane. And it would be sweet with a box set image to represent the movies as well.

It would take some time to implement. Not a quick fix. But you could use this for SO many things. Like Album summary, Artist info, Series info and so on. It would look professional as well, and would give you good and useful information at a glance.

[csimon]

<bump?
Request to develop category images.

[ferday]

+1

Not really a necessity but would be great fun to be able to use images with more than just series (and artist)

[Ashfall]

I created a Music Videos category in theater view and used Artist as the sort field.  As long as you have artist images saved in the covers directory, and the videos are tagged with the Artist field, it will work.  Here are some screenshots.

Add the Music Videos library item under Videos, and add the Artist library item under Music Videos.


On Music Videos, "set rules for file display" shows only the Music Video and Concert media sub types.  You may want to do something different here, and you may need to fix up the Sub Type tags on your videos to get desired results.  I keep my music videos and concerts in a separate folder and apply this sub type tag during autoimport.  Also, you may want to set rules on your other video categories to prevent them from also showing any music videos or concerts.


On the Artist library item, add Artist as a category. I removed "Display All as a choice" from Options here.  Also, there are no rules for file display here.



Results:



Background art isn't working in this view, not sure why.  But that's ok for me right now.

[csimon]

Yes, see my post #5 above, it works when the category is the Artist or Series field, however this is simplistic and very limiting and this request is to able to use it on other fields and expressions. For example, when your music fields are correctly tagged, this cover art facillity is meaningless because the track/contributing Artist isn't the image you want to display - it's Album Artist that you want.  It would also be useful for Genres, boxed sets, etc as described in this thread, as well as any other custom categories you might have. It would go a long way to making MC look like a slick and professional media browsing facility, rather than screen after screen of empty folder icons.

[Arindelle]

I created a Music Videos category in theater view and used Artist as the sort field.  As long as you have artist images saved in the covers directory, and the videos are tagged with the Artist field, it will work.  Here are some screenshots.

What you posted could be very helpful to others. Good effort! nice easy-to-follow screen shots ... 

Thanks Ashfall

[csimon]

it works when the category is the Artist or Series field, however this is simplistic and very limiting and this request is to able to use it on other fields and expressions.

This fairly recent post is something that scuppers the Artist images facility:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=92092.0

(Artist field replaced by a custom field in views for sorting purposes)

[csimon]

<bump>

[jmhsb]

I agree, there should be more images in theater view rather than all the text or fanned out art.  There was a post a while ago with something as simple as using an arrow for back.  That would be an easy fix and much better presentation.  The ability to show images/logos for codecs, studios, etc like you can in Kodi would also go a long way in breaking up the wall of text.

For an easy short term fix, it would be nice to see:
1. Series art should always be the default art for TV Shows unless you are at the season or episode level of a view.  Right now it defaults to episode art.  This would solve the OP's problem in mixed views.  I have the same issue in my genre view--it just shows a random episode's art for a series.  It isn't until you drill down to the series level that you get the series art. 

2. You should be able to create a new folder in your cover art folder and name it after any field.  MC would then use the images in that folder if their name matches the tag in that field.  At a minimum we could start with some basic predefined fields like genre, actor, director, etc.  There are db's that could eventually be used to auto-populate some of these folders, but for now at least have the option to set it up manually to see how it works.  That's how it started with series cover art. 

[csimon]

2. You should be able to create a new folder in your cover art folder and name it after any field.  MC would then use the images in that folder if their name matches the tag in that field.  At a minimum we could start with some basic predefined fields like genre, actor, director, etc.  There are db's that could eventually be used to auto-populate some of these folders, but for now at least have the option to set it up manually to see how it works.  That's how it started with series cover art. 

Absolutely right - this request has been going back to 2010!

See http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=94907.msg653610;topicseen#msg653610