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Invelos Forums->Posts by mediadogg Page: 1 2 3 4  Previous   Next
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What is often overlooked in these discussions is the fundamental difference between the Invelos data model and most (all?) other collection programs. DVD Profiler considers to be unique any variation of a packaged "DVD" where any one of these things are different: UPC, Locality, Country of Origin, Release date, Cast / Crew, and the list goes on. Each variation is assigned a unique profile ID and there are several ways that Profiler provides so that a user can synthesize a profile ID to accommodate almost any variation. 

So, for any given "movie" that might have only one IMDB locator, DVD Profiler could have dozens of profiles that point to that same movie.

Any import or export that overlooks this fundamental difference cannot possibly satisfy a user who expects some sort of one to one conversion. A perfect conversion in either direction will almost always require user interaction to complete the task, once the automated conversion is done.
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Topic Replies: 92, Topic Views: 15188
Oh how many of us have missed this one! Clever tip.
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Topic Replies: 3, Topic Views: 2824
Quoting GSyren:
Quote:
Quoting mediadogg:
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I think HTTPJolie passes thru the most important Events via UDP messages if you want to do something for the easy scenarios.

I don't think it passes on DVD Refreshed.

Easy to fix. Once you decide what other stuff you need added, let me know.
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Topic Replies: 18, Topic Views: 13870
Just for grins, I dug up that old file and here is a list of what I was trying to capture. Maybe not necessary.

I saw some other code that was trying to automatically capture when certain cast / crew changes were being made. I don't remember why I thought that was necessary.

                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDAdded):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDDueDateChanged):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDHistoryEdited):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDImagesChanged):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDLoaned):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDMovedToCustom0):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDMovedToCustom1):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDMovedToCustom2):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDMovedToCustom3):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDMovedToCustom4):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDMovedToCustom5):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDMovedToCustom6):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDMovedToCustom7):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDMovedToCustom8):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDMovedToCustom9):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDMovedToOrdered):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDMovedToOwned):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDMovedToWishList):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDPersonalized):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDPersonalizedAddition):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDRemoved):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDReturned):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDTagsChanged):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDWatched):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_RestoreFinished):
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTTYPE_Returned):    (Bug!!!)
                    case ((int)PluginConstants.EVENTID_DVDEditSave):
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Topic Replies: 18, Topic Views: 13870
I think HTTPJolie passes thru the most important Events via UDP messages if you want to do something for the easy scenarios.
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Topic Replies: 18, Topic Views: 13870
Oh we had a real slug fest. I think we even had DJ Doena in the ring. But again, perhaps we were shooting for an impossible perfection. The scenario that sba presented would be dead easy, as there are Events fired for changing a profile using the Edit menu.
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Topic Replies: 18, Topic Views: 13870
Quoting GSyren:
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Given that it's well over three years since Lars visited the forum (and way longer since he posted anything), it's unlikely that he'll read this thread any time soon.

Quoting sba:
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I had found about the GSyren tools, but they require a manual action (even if that's launching DVD Profiler with the /commandfile argument) to ensure the export is up-to-date.

DvdpScheduler can run the export automatically at a specific time. Personally I use it to run the export every night. DVD Profiler does not have to be running. DvdpScheduler will start it if it is not running, and can be configured to close DVD Profiler after the export. But, this does require that you are logged on in Windows.

Incremental export sounds intriguing. I'll have to look into that.

It is more than intriguing. It is hard, unless Lars discovered some magic. Remember "XmlSpy"? If you decide to take a shot at it, I would be happy to PM you a summary of the snags I hit trying to determine when things had changed. I might have overcomplicated things.

I thimk with XmlSpy, I was trying to detect not just profile changes, but database changes in the ways profiles were organized. I vaguely remember that there were some things that could change without notification, or an official "Event" associated with the change.
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Topic Replies: 18, Topic Views: 13870
Quoting sba:
Quote:
The kind of error I get is that it cannot find some item ID.xml file. 95% of the time, deactivating / reactivating the plugin via the checkbox in its UI solves the problem (so that can't be linked to an issue e.g. with the database schema).

I'm not sure the export is incremental.

I had found about the GSyren tools, but they require a manual action (even if that's launching DVD Profiler with the /commandfile argument) to ensure the export is up-to-date.

I don't want to have to remember to run the export every time I change something to the database (adding a record, marking a movie as watched...).

Ok, good information. The fact that it is looking for an "ID.XML" almost reveals how the plugin works. And it seems incremental. The "ID" is profile ID. It seems that the plugin keeps a repository of xml organized by ID. Maybe separate files, maybe as blobs in an SQL file, I don't know. When a profile changes, that ID.XML is replaced. When time comes for the xml export, you collect the files, or blobs and build the xml collection file. Every plugin developer knows how to do this. I have this code in several of my plugins. So it is not a schema issue, as you said, but it could still be a synchronization issue. Take a look to see if there an index file, and whether he is using SQL or simply a folder of ID.XL files, where there a file for each profile ID in your collection.

The clever part of the plugin is correctly determining when there has been a change. I wrote a plugin like this a few years ago, but I was never satisfied that I could automatically detect all changes. So I respect the plugin that you have been using for years, if that author got it right. Props!
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Topic Replies: 18, Topic Views: 13870
I'm not sure how the plugin works, but if it is doing an incremental update, it is possible that it has gotten corrupted due to the recent Invelos database issues. Maybe try starting from scratch and suffer the time penalty to rebuild the plugin database.

If it is not incremental. and you get the full export each time, there are a number of other ways to automate XML export. For example, take a look at GSyren tools. And there are others.

Hopefully you will get lucky and get an answer. It would be nice to get his plugin fixed if that is the problem.
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Topic Replies: 18, Topic Views: 13870
Ok, next time I will read the Help.

"Edit Profile" is an option if you simply use the HTTPJolie functions. Takes only milliseconds to detect whether a profile exists locally, and then to issue the edit command if it does. I mean, unless you prefer not to do it. I thought it would be a nice addition to the other convenience options, such as IMDB, etc. on the context menu.
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Topic Replies: 69, Topic Views: 13378
I was just messing with the latest version trying to fix a bug in HTTPJolie, and man what an amazing awesome tool is TurboCLT. What a joy to use!

Loving the Display Profile. Maybe someday add "Edit Profile" to pop up the Profiler dialogue?   

By the way, the front and back cover tabs don't work on my version. Is that functionality in the works?

I have decided to sunset CLTBoss. I just can't get the new scraping to work insde my plugin. TurboCLT is so much faster than the old version of CLTBoss, and the new version is broken, and I really don't see a need to try and fix it. Agreed?
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Topic Replies: 69, Topic Views: 13378


Or ... you could just write cool code.
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Topic Replies: 69, Topic Views: 13378
Quoting GSyren:
Quote:
Quoting marcelb7:
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My suggestion would be to start with titles that have the word "Disc" in them, and see where it goes.

... It's hard to evaluate the effectiveness of filtering in TurboCLT. I would suggest that you use ProfilerQuery against your own collection to test the effectiveness of some words. In my collection I found that selecting titles that contain "Series" or "Season" seemed to be fairly effective. But that's just for English titles. ...

Definitely the way to go. We are fortunate that you have given us such an array of tools. Once users find a reasonable collection of queries, they could be then encoded into TurboCLT. The right combination of words and use of profile attributes could be the solution if it results in an accuracy above, say 90%.
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Topic Replies: 69, Topic Views: 13378
Quoting GSyren:
Quote:
Quoting mediadogg:
Quote:
Look for episode dividers or the word "episode"?

I considered that, but there are plenty of anthology movies that contain episodes. Amicus released a bunch of such films back in the day, such as Vault of Horror, Tales from the Crypt and others. And there many other examples.

In cases like this, my approach is to knock off as many exceptions as possible and forget the rest. Not to sacrifice the large majority of correct hits trying to make it perfect. Of course, we each have our own ways of doing things. Just my 2 cents.
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Topic Replies: 69, Topic Views: 13378
Look for episode dividers or the word "episode"?
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Topic Replies: 69, Topic Views: 13378
Quoting GSyren:
Quote:
Quoting mediadogg:
Quote:
Oh my, seems I totally missed this goodie, even though you have using HTTPJolie. Nice work.

Thank you! HTTPJolie has opened so many possibilities without me having to create a plugin for each of them. It lets me concentrate on the new functionality instead. It has been a game changer for me! 

I had envisioned such a collaboration for some time. When you agreed to help me figure it out, I was really excited and even more so now.
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Topic Replies: 18, Topic Views: 24197
Oh my, seems I totally missed this goodie, even though you have using HTTPJolie. Nice work.
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Topic Replies: 18, Topic Views: 24197
Quoting GSyren:
Quote:
TurboCLT 1.3.1

I had to do some dirty programming to work around that hyphen problem. It seems to work fine now, but please report any anomalies that you find.

Dropdowns turned off. Required a little guesswork, so hopefully this will work as intended.

Ha! As usual, what is good for the goose may not satisfy the gander. I have found the dropdown history to be useful. This is just a comment for grins, not a request for change or complaint. 
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Topic Replies: 69, Topic Views: 13378
Quoting hryser:
Quote:
Hi, I am new in this forum and having problems to create a playlist, by selecting CDs (or slot numbers).  I found the way to create a playlist by selecting track by track of a particular CD.  However, this is very time consuming and tiring.  Instead, I would like to select let's say 5 or 6 specific CDs for a playlist.

Can somebody help me here?

I thank you in advance for getting back with me.
Hans

Check the plugin LoadDVD
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Topic Replies: 5, Topic Views: 8093
Have been recently (re) enjoying Big Bang Theory and The Office.
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Topic Replies: 99, Topic Views: 26365
Quoting Sgt Steiner:
Quote:
Is there any issue with Uninstalling and re-installing DVD Profiler on Win 10 PC (I assume Online Database allows you to restore collection) ??

Please don't make the fatal error that some people make and start deleting things and changing things before you have a good idea of what is going on. Profiler doesn't just stop working for no good reason. Reboot your machine, run some anti virus and just kind of kick the tires first. Is your hard drive full or did you recently install a new program, etc?

DVD Profiler is one of the most stable software I have ever used. If you mess with it, make sure that you have backed up your collection, and checked your network and your system for other issues (reboot usually helps).
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Topic Replies: 11, Topic Views: 8359
Quoting RogiervanS:
Quote:
Maybe I did not make myself clear:
In the box content there is  a column called Title
In that column one gets a little square, but some boxes get left of that little square a + and when you click on that you get the DVD's belonging to that box
So I have this Screen Icons box Romy Schneider downloaded from DVD Profile and it includes all the DVD's, but no + sign.
The Pink Panther box profile downloaded shows the + and all the DVD's are shown when one clicks on that + sign.

But still thanks for your advices and nanoron I think I go struggle in the help and try to find the Box chapter that gives me the answer I need. 42 chapters to be exact.

With all due respect, I find the answers quite good, to the point and quite simple - far from requiring you to read 42 chapters.

Did you try this?
Quoting nanoron:
Quote:
...  Just open up the parent and select "Box Set Contents". Double clicking an item will add it to or subtract it from the parent. Just make sure to save before exiting ...
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Topic Replies: 5, Topic Views: 4762
Good news.
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Topic Replies: 7, Topic Views: 6216
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Topic Replies: 69, Topic Views: 13378
We must not forget what Ken did, how he functioned, and how abruptly that changed. In my opinion, Ken is doing everything he can do, and what he is not doing could be for any number of reasons that make no sense to speculate on, because we are likely never to know more than what Invelos tells us. But in my opinion, the answer is not simple or obvious.
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Topic Replies: 9, Topic Views: 6778
Invelos Forums->Posts by mediadogg Page: 1 2 3 4  Previous   Next