Over the next few posts, 8 separate users took the time to voice similar requests, noting that while DVDPedia was a well-written piece of software, it lacked proper support of Box Sets. As if sensing where the posts were headed, you, Conor, posted a follow-up response on Friday, January 14th, 2005. You wrote "The reason this change is slow in coming is that is one of the harder ones to do. It means a change to the core of DVDpedia not an addition. It means I have to change the main table to an outline view; and this table in the code of DVDpedia is the big daddy of everybody. It handles most requests, as it handles the data and lets other functions know what is selected and what is going on. So replacing it is a big task."
Link to the original thread: http://bruji.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=160
Several years later, on Sunday, October 14th, 2007, rast wrote "I remember some time ago there being a request for being able to handle box sets in DVDPedia. I've had a search and dont see anythingabout this now."
The next day, Nora responded, "There is no dedicated feature regarding box sets in DVDpedia (it's on our feature request list for the future)...". She went on to say that there was a workaround that one could use to provide a limited sense of functionality the desired feature would bring by incorporating the title of the Box Set in each item's title, followed by a dash and the actual name of the movie. This way, upon browsing or searching through the library, a search for "Stanley Kubrick" would match the name of the Box Set (Stanley Kubrick Box Set) that would have been included in each item's title field, along with the actual name of the film. She went on to talk about an even less intuitive workaround that involved linking.
Again, over the next few posts, several users voiced their desire for proper handling of Box Sets, and we were again given suggestions and assurances, and thanked for our input.
Link to the original thread: https://www.bruji.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 856&p=6635
There have been a myriad of posts made by many users over the history of these forums, all requesting (to some extent) this feature, but it has yet to genuinely implemented. Support for TV shows coming out on DVD seem to be an extremely common form of motivation behind most of these requests. There have been tips, tricks, articles, and even plugins (a la Dan's TV Rage Plugin) all designed to help users categorize, label, and deal with these new ways to watch old episodes of their favorite shows, but there hasn't been much progress on DVDPedia's front. The addition of Collections and Folders in DVDPedia was a start, but using these forms of sorting doesn't feel intuitive, and seem much more like a quick fix than a genuine solution.
I believe dtjenkins, on Wednesday, August 13th, 2008, said it best when he wrote "The ultimate [solution] would be to have a single entry in the database that had sub entries, one for each episode... [one where having] multiple entries, one for each episode, would collapse into a single displayed line." What he was describing is just your standard tree, and (aside from the list) is one of the most ubiquitous data structures in programming.
He goes on to say that as he scrolled through his collection, when he got to the entry for Stargate Atlantis (an example entry that would have many subentries/children), he could click on (say, a plus sign?) next to that entry, which would then list all the child nodes of that parent node (presumably each node would be a season of Stargate Atlantis). Then, since he wouldn't want to scroll through each entry from each Season, he would then click the plus sign next to the child node named "Season 1" and just like before, the list would then expand to show all the child nodes/subentries of that particular parent, including the episode he wanted to watch.
To make sure there was no mistake of misinterpreting his request, he (and others) included an ASCII diagram so as to be as clear as possible.
Others responded with alternative solutions that might help dtjenkins organize his media, but again, these seemed more like forced workarounds than natural and intuitive solutions. DVDPedia is meant to manage a library of DVDs, and while Collections and Folders certainly have their uses, they seem much more like Playlists one might find in iTunes, and don't feel like true representations of a Box Set. A Box Set is not a Playlist.
Link to the original thread: http://www.bruji.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2604
There have been quite a few posts asking for this feature (in some way or form), but I'm still not sure why it hasn't been added. If it's due to difficulty, lack of time, or lack of desire, then send me the source code, and I'll take care of it. I know DVDPedia isn't open source, but after having extensive experience improving the Linux/GNU kernel, I'll tell you this: you'll be amazed by how much work (even the unpleasant and mundane kind, like code re-factoring, maintaining code consistency or documentation, etc.) you can get done with even just 5 or 10 contributors.
If you're unwilling to open source the program, then please: Conor, Nora, or whoever writes code, take some time from whatever else might be on the todo list for this program, and concentrate on adding this feature, and give us a firm timeline of when it will be included.
And just to make sure I'm as explicitly clear and helpful as I can be, when I say feature, I mean the following (copied, collected, and pasted from several user's posts):
1. DVDPedia include the ability to add collapsable/expandable subentries or children to items in the Library. This way, one could create an entry for "Family Guy" and an entry for "Season 1". Then, by dragging and dropping, or whatever action you think is appropriate, one could place Season 1 under "Family Guy." Then one could create an entry for "Death Has a Shadow", and populate that entry with data about the the first episode of the first season using whatever means they find appropriate - be it manually from IMDB, or through the use of Dan's TV Rage Plugin - and then drag it under "Season 1". Thus, the resulting Library would look like this (done in code to preserve spacing):
Code: Select all
...
Face/Off
+Family Guy
Fargo
...Code: Select all
...
Face/Off
-Family Guy
|+ Season 1
Fargo
...Code: Select all
...
Face/Off
- Family Guy
|- Season 1
| |- Death Has a Shadow
| |- I Never Met the Dead Man
| |- Chitty Chitty Death Bang
| |- ... (etc)
|+ Season 2
|+ Season 3
|+ ... (etc)
Fargo
...In all other aspects, the entries would act just like any other DVD.
Please read the above carefully and consider them as helpful (if not lengthy) suggestions on how to make an otherwise superb application measurably better. Thank you for your time and attention.
-cron
