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[forbigd]

I have spent several days looking through the wiki on expressions, and I don't see how to do what I want, but I bet there is a way. Perhaps one of you experts can point me the right way?
I have about 130 TV Series on my NAS for the family to watch, and for me to add episodes to as they become available. There are four members of my family who watch TV Shows on MC. But we don't watch all at once, and not the same Series. Where Mom and Dad watch show X, Mom and Son1 watch Show Y, and Dad and Son 2 Watch show Z. And all the other permutations. With 130 shows it is difficult to remember who watches what, and, the list is too long, it makes it hard to even decide on a show.
I had solved it in the past by simply building sub directories for each "set" of viewers, and then tell MC to "show Series whose path INCLUDES [Series].
But now I use a different method of collecting episodes and it really wants all shows to be hanging off of one main directory. That ruins my sort method.
There is no reliable way to make the new collector of shows to use the special directories, so I need to get MC to help me.
Ideally, I would like a pick list for my family to see and choose which shows each viewing group wants. What I have done for now is use this parameter in the customization page for the Viewing Groups "View". [Series] =; this gives me a pick list to choose which series are assigned. But, with all the other material I have the series pick list is many hundreds of "series" long. Hard to set up as I have to visit each groups view customization page to add or remove a show from their view. No way they can figure out how to do it themselves. So the list is huge, and there is no way to see if I have assigned all Series to a group. There are series lost in the pile because no group "claimed it", because they didn't know it existed.
Here is what I see as a solution, if there is no elegant way to do it with a list..... Let me place an empty file named for the viewing group in the Series folder, then (here is the tricky part), "If MomDad file" exists in Series Directory, sort all episodes in that directory to the MomDad View.
I don't know how to assign the MomDad attribute to all files in the main series directory based on just one file being there.
Anyone have any better ideas? There has to be others out there with too many shows in the main view, and want subsets for different groups of folks.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and give it some thought. Happy Cinco De Mayo all!
Don

[6233638]

Probably the easiest solution for this, is to use the [People] tag, if you aren't wanting to restrict people from viewing certain shows.
I'm suggesting this because it's unlikely to be a tag which is currently in use with video files, but you could really use any field or create your own.
 
Tools → Options → Theater View
 
In your "TV Shows" view, in the "Details" pane on the right, add another item - select People from the list, and drag it to the top.
You probably want to enable the "Display 'All' as a choice" option at the bottom of that window as well.
 
Now you should be able to tag a show as "Mom", "Dad", "Son 1", "Son 2" in the People field, and they will be listed separately from the other shows. Shows can have any number of people assigned to them.
You will also have the option to "Display all" to list everything or "Unassigned" to view shows which have no person assigned to them.

[forbigd]

That's great, I understand the idea.. I hadn't thought of making it a choice, but,
Let's say I decide "24" is a Mom and Dad show. I can make all the episodes I have of 24 have the [people] field have the right audience member, but how do I make it tag NEW episodes with the same people? That is one of the main issues, new episodes will be blank in the people field, right? The only way I know to make something get a tag on purpose (in a non scraped field) is to force it on autoimport, but I can't set up one for every show...

Thanks!

Don

[Hendrik]

You could create a new field, and make it a Relational field, set to "Store one value for each series". That way  when you set it up for a series, any and all episodes in that series get the same value assigned. You only have to take care that new eps get the proper Series field.
You can manage the fields under Options -> Library & Folders -> Manage Library Fields

[connersw]

Edit: Hendrik types faster.  The only thing I would add is you can also designate semicolon delimited Acceptable Values.  Enter acceptable tag names (ie Mom works, Mon won't) to avoid typos.  Similar to Data Validation in Excel. 

[6233638]

Even better - I hadn't considered that, as I just buy boxsets and rip everything at once.

[forbigd]

Thanks a lot, I can't wait to try it all out. First stab with People as a choice looks good. How cool...

Don