Originally posted to lost topic Where do i begin??? Help File??? in May 2008... The only difference between New Movie Master and Movies...
Or another way of putting this:
New just creates a new movie record—you then have to add the information "manually."
New Movie Master is like a script that creates a new record, then "automatically" runs all the various data gathering routines for the movie you specify. You can change any of the information obtained, or import from any of the information sources "manually" to get more control over what is downloaded.
So at this point i think here's another thing for your todo list!
I think what you want (because I had hoped nostra would have done it this way myself) is "field mapping" whereby you can match each column in your worksheet (whether it has a name or not) to a field in the database (or not, in which case the column is ignored). It's not as convenient as it is, but it does work. You have to be more focused on what you're importing and where it's going, which is perhaps a good thing.
But is there a way of importing films from IMDB by using for example a keyword?
Not directly, but you can using Excel as an intermediate step. For example, if I wanted to add all IMDb movies made in Jamaica, I would do the search...
http://www.imdb.com/List?tv=off&&countries=Jamaica&&nav=/Sections/Countries/Jamaica/include-titles...and cut and paste the resulting list into Excel. In Excel, I would parse the text into "title" and "year" columns (this requires some comfort with Excel's string manipulation formula). The resulting file would then be imported to PVD, as I've previously described.
This is more work, but is a technique worth mastering. With it, you can gather information from any source that will produce a list or table of what you want. And you're not there yet, but the Excel plugin is also very good at importing additional information for movies already in your database.
My excel database successfully imported but the Producer and Year info is the wrong way round, is there a way to correct this?
The field names and their order in the plugin configuration probably do not exactly match the columns in your Excel file. At this (early) stage, you should start a new PVD database and try the import again.
Before you do that, consider what I suggested before. Import just the movie title and year. Use PVD to download all the information you want from IMDb. Then do another import from Excel to import only the additional information you want to include in your database. This way, you can more carefully consider whether you want to overwrite an IMDb-populated field with your own data, or put it in a custom field.
not sure if excel has a search function but if there is one i don't know how to use it
Soon you are not going to need Excel, but... Select the first row of your Excel worksheet (i.e., the headings/field names) and from the menu select
Data-Filter-AutoFilter. That will create drop-down lists for filtering each field. You may find that useful until you are satisfied all your data has been properly imported into PVD. Otherwise, you're going to find searching in PVD much more convenient and powerful.
Is there a way i can scan my whole films list to get imdb info added to what i've already got?
This is one of the fundamental features of the program (and others like it). In effect, it allows you to maintain a database of IMDb information for a subset of movies that you are interested in—all of the information is downloaded from IMDb. From there, using other plugins, you might add information IMDb lacks, or replace specific IMDb information with that of a preferred source. To that, you add any "personal" information you want—date viewed, rating, comments, etc.
This is why I suggest you start with just the IMDb information for all your movies. I understand you may be very "attached" to the information you already have. But if that is the case, you should study carefully the information you can get and maintain automatically from IMDb. For each field decide whether to replace that with what you've already got (and no longer download it) or to import the information you already have to a custom field (and maintain it independent of the IMDb information). As you seem to appreciate, you need to be careful about which fields to leave alone, which to update and which to overwrite.
Note that you do not have to import all of your existing data at once. And once you're familiar with PVD, you might want to use the import feature to modify or update your database. For example, you might decide information in two or more columns of your Excel worksheet might best be combined and imported back into one memo field of your PVD database.
I know all this hurts the brain when you're just getting started, but the results are well worth while. You have found the right software. PVD is the only one out there that allows you configure your database exactly the way you want it.
how does the import function recognize where to put each piece of info...?
Each time you use the import plugin, include the movie title and year so the correct record in PVD can be identified. It won't matter what other records are in the database at the time, or what order they are in. If you change any titles in PVD, you might have to take care to make the same changes in your Excel file so any future imports will work correctly. I suppose it would be a good idea to refrain from changing titles in PVD until you have finished all your importing.
PVD is built on a robust relational database. Generally, you can be assured it will do whatever is necessary in the circumstances to identify the correct record and fields to be added or changed. The downside is, if anything does go wrong, you have to accept it is probably your fault. Make sure to keep backup of your Excel file, make backups of your PVD database (File-Backup) each step of the way, and you'll be fine.
I'm going to spend some time messing with it allThat's the best way to learn how to use it. To avoid becoming overwhelmed, it might be a good idea to start with a database of just a few movies. This is what I do when I'm beta testing. You can quickly make a backup, try something out, and see at a glance it's doing what you expect it to do. If not, restore the backup and try again. You will find you progress much faster than if your database had 1,600 movies in it. Even if you've already created your 1,600-movie database, you can still use a small "test" database to try out things that you're unsure of or would take a long time to complete on the full database.
[Question about the Field Overwrite settings]
It's a little confusing because the appearance depends on the user's Windows settings. Hopefully, this makes sense:
-If a field is unchecked (Grey/blank Box) it will not accept data at all
-If a field is checked greyed (Green Box) it will accept data only of it is clear (i.e., the field is empty/unused)
-If a field is checked/black (Green Tick) it will always be overwritten
If you are starting out with just titles and years, you probably want Green Ticks for everything except Title, which should be blank so the download doesn't change any of your titles. (Remember, you want to be sure they stay the same as in your Excel database.)
i just noticed a bug...
This has be discussed in the past, but I can't remember how it was resolved. You may very well be right, but a more sensible approach might be to run the update in silent mode, and then update the ones that "failed" manually—one-at-a-time. If a movie is not in the IMDb, there is, of course, nothing you can do. But usually the problem is the name is different, and doing it "manually" allows you to change the name to something so the correct movie does appear as a "candidate." Some users may prefer this behaviour—so it does stop, giving them the opportunity to do this.
Continued in new topic,
Importing from Excel.
