INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => JRiver Media Center 19 for Windows => Topic started by: 6233638 on May 11, 2014, 05:09:14 am
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While I do like Theater View, I often find myself avoiding it because it's simply easier to find what I'm looking for in Standard View.
It doesn't get much clearer than this:
(http://abload.de/img/standard-viewimb6q.png)
I look at this list, and I immediately know what episode I'm up to, and if I have an episode that has only been partially watched.
By default, in Theater View you just get a large grid of thumbnails which does not remember your position (a problem when you have shows that have 150 episodes) or indicate your progress at all.
I have customized my view a bit to make this easier, but it can still require a lot of scrolling for some titles, and it's only really obvious where you last were if you stopped mid-show, rather than finishing an episode:
(http://abload.de/img/1-currentqojx0.jpg) (http://abload.de/img/1-currentqojx0.jpg)
Something which would help make this easier to read, would be the option of using line breaks in your expressions for Theater View.
It currently displays two lines (I might prefer three) but only when text won't fit.
This would really help clean up the presentation:
(http://abload.de/img/2-labelsukjyg.jpg) (http://abload.de/img/2-labelsukjyg.jpg)
But it doesn't really help solve the problem of navigating through a list of episodes to quickly find the last one that you were up to.
If you could optionally dim episodes which have been watched, it would be a lot easier to find which episodes you haven't seen yet.
(http://abload.de/img/3-blanking4yjcc.jpg) (http://abload.de/img/3-blanking4yjcc.jpg)
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In addition, I'd like to see what season it is. No reason to keep it a secret.
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In addition, I'd like to see what season it is. No reason to keep it a secret.
You should be presented with the choice of season before the episode listings.
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My TV Show display in Theaterview does show the viewed status as shown below. I don't remember doing anything special to get this view.
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l74/RussellS_2006/JRiver/Screenshotat2014-05-11173236Cropped.jpg) (http://s93.photobucket.com/user/RussellS_2006/media/JRiver/Screenshotat2014-05-11173236Cropped.jpg.html)
I has the tick next to episodes 4 & 5 to show they have been viewed. I don't know if this would show your percentage viewed though. I haven't got that even in standard view. In fact I can't even find the 'Played' tag in my list. Is that a custom tag you have created.
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My TV Show display in Theaterview does show the viewed status as shown below. I don't remember doing anything special to get this view.
It's not particularly clear at a glance though, is it?
When I use Theater View, it's usually because I am at quite a distance from the screen, and in your example, to see which shows have been watched requires you to read the list.
It might be fine when there are only six episodes, but it starts to become a problem when you are watching US shows with 22 episodes in a season, and I have one series which has about 150 episodes in the list, where most of the thumbnails all look very similar.
Scrolling through a list that size - and I prefer the thumbnails view to the list you're using - means that I'm often left hunting around to find which episode I was up to last.
If previously watched episodes could be dimmed in the thumbnail view, it would be immediately obvious where I was up to in the list.
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l74/RussellS_2006/JRiver/Screenshotat2014-05-11173236Cropped.jpg~original (http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l74/RussellS_2006/JRiver/Screenshotat2014-05-11173236Cropped.jpg~original)
I has the tick next to episodes 4 & 5 to show they have been viewed. I don't know if this would show your percentage viewed though. I haven't got that even in standard view. In fact I can't even find the 'Played' tag in my list. Is that a custom tag you have created.
Yes, it's a custom field. This topic goes into detail on how to create it: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=85974.msg587883 (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=85974.msg587883)
You could display that in Theater View as well (and it's the basis for the expression I'm using to change the label colors) but I find that there's not enough space for text for it to be useful, and as I said before, when I'm using Theater View I'm often at the other side of a room.
I did actually experiment with different progress markers, and while it looks fine here when there are only 12 episodes being displayed, they don't stand out enough when scrolling through a list of 150 items.
(http://abload.de/img/4-progress-marker1dkqd.jpg) (http://abload.de/img/4-progress-marker1dkqd.jpg)
Edit: actually, I think this quick change I just made is more obvious than the indicators I had been using before, but it's still difficult to scroll through a large list and find the current episode - at least in the thumbnail view.
In the list view, this actually looks quite good (http://abload.de/img/5-list-viewfncz7.jpg) - it's just that I don't really like using the list view for TV episodes.
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I totally agree with you. I wasn't trying to say that what you want is already possible, I was just pointing out what is available.
I agree with your idea of dimming the episodes that have been viewed. It would be instantly visible from any distance and in any view whether list or thumbnails.
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I use a list view and use colours to denote watched not watched and include the season in the display-see screenshot
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It is possible to dim the text depending on the watched status right now, though not the episode screenshots.
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It is possible to dim the text depending on the watched status right now, though not the episode screenshots.
Yes, you will see that I'm doing that in the first screenshots.
In a list it can be reasonably effective, but it's not that effective in the thumbnail views.
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I'd go one step further. By having a progress bar so i can see how much i've watched of each episode.
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I'd go one step further. By having a progress bar so i can see how much i've watched of each episode.
It's easy enough display progress as a percentage (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=85974.0) if that's what you want, but honestly I just care about knowing which episode I was previously watching, rather than my progress in it.
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It's not particularly clear at a glance though, is it?
When I use Theater View, it's usually because I am at quite a distance from the screen, and in your example, to see which shows have been watched requires you to read the list.
It might be fine when there are only six episodes, but it starts to become a problem when you are watching US shows with 22 episodes in a season, and I have one series which has about 150 episodes in the list, where most of the thumbnails all look very similar.
Scrolling through a list that size - and I prefer the thumbnails view to the list you're using - means that I'm often left hunting around to find which episode I was up to last.
If previously watched episodes could be dimmed in the thumbnail view, it would be immediately obvious where I was up to in the list.
Yes, it's a custom field. This topic goes into detail on how to create it: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=85974.msg587883 (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=85974.msg587883)
You could display that in Theater View as well (and it's the basis for the expression I'm using to change the label colors) but I find that there's not enough space for text for it to be useful, and as I said before, when I'm using Theater View I'm often at the other side of a room.
I did actually experiment with different progress markers, and while it looks fine here when there are only 12 episodes being displayed, they don't stand out enough when scrolling through a list of 150 items.
(http://abload.de/img/4-progress-marker1dkqd.jpg) (http://abload.de/img/4-progress-marker1dkqd.jpg)
Edit: actually, I think this quick change I just made is more obvious than the indicators I had been using before, but it's still difficult to scroll through a large list and find the current episode - at least in the thumbnail view.
In the list view, this actually looks quite good (http://abload.de/img/5-list-viewfncz7.jpg) - it's just that I don't really like using the list view for TV episodes.
Can you provide the code to make the text color change for "watched" shows and explain how to make the watched indicator ("dot" or "check mark") show in front of the text?
Also, Developers, why not build this (or glynor's code) into MC. It's much nicer like this, and new Users should be able get this view "out-of-the-box" without having to know how to write code/expressions, IMO.