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[tjobbins]

Hey all,

Thanks to the simply superb "Get Movie and TV info" feature I now have wonderfully complete metadata for all my shows and movies.

I'm loving all the info I can now get on my shows.  But this new info has raised a limitation in Theater View (or at least, its skins) that I'd love to improve on.  I often have more description info than the default size (four lines) will show - and I usually have extra space available in which it could expand, if there's a way to do that.

In general I'd also appreciate any info or links guiding me on how to skin Theater View - and showing what can be changed and what can't.  I've read the Wiki entry but it's rather old (refers to MC 12!) and somewhat sparse.  Is there a more complete guide/reference anywhere?

But on this specific issue, the screenshot below demonstrates it.  The description is truncated at four lines, and in many cases - as in the shot - I have more Description that I'd like to see, but can't.  I usually have more vertical space available, so there's room for expansion.

How can I allow Description to use more space?  I'm using the Obsidian theme.  I've read through the Skins\Theater View\ XML files, but don't really follow them yet - I can tell though that they don't mention specific fields, so perhaps the size limitation is generic for all fields?  That'd be OK though, I don't have any other long fields so it'd be fine to generically make all fields bigger.

Thanks in advance!

[MrHaugen]

I don't think this kind of Info Pane manipulation is possible at all. It's not a part of the skin engine. I've never seen it in the skin files and I've never seen any skin examples with variations here. I hope such things will be part of the skins one day. It would open up a lot of possibilities.

The only thing you can do today is to enter the item. The big info pane (full screen) will give you more description. In the cases where this is not enough, you can navigate down to the description field and hit enter on the description. This will open give you access to a larger one that you're able to scroll (I think).

Not what you wanted, I know. But the closest you'll get I'm afraid.

[Grenache]

The description is truncated at four lines, and in many cases - as in the shot - I have more Description that I'd like to see, but can't.  I usually have more vertical space available, so there's room for expansion.

+1

For now, I'm doing like MrHaugen and it's working ok. But when browsing movies I'd prefer if it was possible to have the full movie description (and the possibility to scroll if it's long) on the right and just have all other information about the movie on the big info pane.

[MrHaugen]

This was possible in yearly MC17(?) versions. The reason that it's removed is that the right arrow action at the right side of the list was changed to go to the next item in the list intead og going into the Info Pane. So it's not possible to expand these fields any more. Some like that you can move through items sequentially, others don't care. For those that don't care, or use other list types it might be better to be able to select items in the info pane. That's why I asked for the right arrow action to be configurable. But, no. The behavior was just changed. Not made configurable.

[Grenache]

This was possible in yearly MC17(?) versions. The reason that it's removed is that the right arrow action at the right side of the list was changed to go to the next item in the list intead og going into the Info Pane. [...] The behavior was just changed. Not made configurable.

I know, and I can understand why they changed it (even if I'd also prefer it to be configurable). But as it is now (I think?), to see more than four lines of the movie description, I have to click on the video cover to get to the big info pane, then arrow down from the menu to move into the description field (which then automatically expands four more lines only), and finally click to expand it again. That seems a bit tedious just to see the full text, especially when many of my movies have longer descriptions. But maybe I've overlooked something?

[MrHaugen]

You haven't overlooked a thing.

[Grenache]

Now that you've made this change...

8. Changed: When going into a Theater View library item that only contains a single file, the file will be 'zoomed' automatically.

...which is great, it reminded me of this thread.

It would speed up the browsing even more if somehow the description wouldn't be truncated at four lines. Most of my videoes have longer descriptions and I have to navigate down to the description field and hit enter to see the full text.

[gappie]

It would speed up the browsing even more if somehow the description wouldn't be truncated at four lines. Most of my videoes have longer descriptions and I have to navigate down to the description field and hit enter to see the full text.

not only with videos, but yep. 

[DanielBMe]

+1