Author Topic: Problem with advanced search  (Read 13786 times)

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Offline deazo

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Problem with advanced search
« on: March 31, 2009, 10:22:21 pm »

 Hi all, I have many Shorts in my collection and sometimes I want to filter out the shorts of the view, so I use Advanced search for this.
I create a condition like Genre Not Containing Short
And I still see tons of shorts in the list... Am I doing anything wrong?
By the way, I am not using the beta version, but the 9.8.20 one.

Also, a small thing but still a pain, I find names of actors in the "Genre" section. I have cleared and corrected the movies that displayed actors in the Genre field, but I can still see these names in the list of genres available... Is there a trick that can make them disappear?

Another thing while I am at it, when I view a movie that I have searched using keywords, let's say "eyes wide shut", then I click on Kubrick, navigate to People section, see another film like "Full metal jacket" in his list of movies, click on it and instead of giving me the Full Metal Jacket page, it goes back to the Eyes wide shut one because I was on it with my keyword search... was that clear enough? I guess this behaviour can't be corrected?

Thanks for your help, and again, that great software.

D.

Offline rick.ca

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Re: Problem with advanced search
« Reply #1 on: April 01, 2009, 01:47:48 am »
Quote
And I still see tons of shorts in the list... Am I doing anything wrong?

You're not doing anything wrong. I'm not sure whether to call this behavior a bug, limitation or "that's just how it works." It seems the search condition applies to each item in a multiselect list field. So a movie that you think should not be included because one Genre list item contains "short" is included because other Genre list items do not contain "short." :P

Here's a quick and dirty fix: "Loan" your Shorts to a borrower named "Shorts," then use the loan filter to exclude them. If you don't use the filter, they will also be colored differently, which you might also find useful.

A less goofy solution is to use a custom select list field (where only one item can be chosen) to differentiate such items. I use one called "Work type." It's populated by AllMovies, but that's beside the point. It categorizes items into Animated, Documentary, Feature (film), Performance (concert video), Series, and Television. So, I can use it in Advanced search to show only Features, or to exclude Documentaries.

Quote
I find names of actors in the "Genre" section.

This, of course, is not right. I hope the error that caused this is not something likely to recur. Tools - Optimize database should remove the names from Genres. Or, you can remove them manually using Preferences - Lists.

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when I view a movie that I have searched using keywords

In general, if the any filter or search set in movie view is hiding the movie you are selecting using a link, then it can't be displayed (and effectively defaults to the movie last selected). Yes, this can be frustrating—especially since it's simultaneously doing what you told it to do, and not doing what you want it to do. ;) 

It would be nice if the behaviour would be more "forgiving" in this situation—and display the movie selected by the link anyway. It could put it at the top of the list so it's clear it's outside current filter/search settings—just like the behaviour for a newly added movie.

Offline deazo

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Re: Problem with advanced search
« Reply #2 on: April 01, 2009, 08:04:01 am »

 Ok thanks for your answers, they all make sense.
 I am optimizing my database right now, a little cleaning will do some good.
 
 One more question, is there any plan to implement a personal rating system that is easy to imput?
 By easy to imput I mean like the IMDB rating system, click on a star or half a star and you're done.
 Extreme Movie Manager had that option, and I kind of miss it (I think this is the only option I miss from this software!)...

 Thanks!

Offline rick.ca

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Re: Problem with advanced search
« Reply #3 on: April 01, 2009, 10:40:43 am »
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click on a star or half a star and you're done

Enable that behavior in Preferences - Miscellaneous and you're done! ;)

Offline deazo

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Re: Problem with advanced search
« Reply #4 on: April 03, 2009, 11:21:13 am »

 OMFG I didn't know that!!!!!!
I could have been using it for ages, now I need to go back in time... :'(
Thanks anyway that's great news.

buah

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Re: Problem with advanced search
« Reply #5 on: February 09, 2010, 11:38:12 am »
Maybe I'm doing something wrong now, but I noticed two additional issues now regarding Advanced Search:

1. ID is not any more comparable like:">, <, >=, <=" etc? Like it was now defined as a text field? It now contains conditions:"containing, not containing, like, not like" and not aboves.

2. This one is rather general, but further explained through an example. I have a custom text field "To Download Data" that could be "No" or "NULL". When I set filter "To Download Data" containing "No", I got like 50 results, and that's ok. But I want to get a list of other 5450 entries in order to download data. When I set filter "To Download Data" not containing "No", I got zero results? And, if i set it "To Download Data" IS NULL I got desirable 5450 results. Why is that, and is it how it supposed to be?

All in all, first issue is rather important, IMHO!

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Offline nostra

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Re: Problem with advanced search
« Reply #6 on: February 09, 2010, 12:36:47 pm »
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1. ID is not any more comparable like:">, <, >=, <=" etc? Like it was now defined as a text field? It now contains conditions:"containing, not containing, like, not like" and not aboves.

ID is now a field that can contained letters + numbers combination that is why you do not get >, <, >=, <= operators, but I agree it is no good, so I will try to think smth out for users who do not add letters to IDs

Quote
2. This one is rather general, but further explained through an example. I have a custom text field "To Download Data" that could be "No" or "NULL". When I set filter "To Download Data" containing "No", I got like 50 results, and that's ok. But I want to get a list of other 5450 entries in order to download data. When I set filter "To Download Data" not containing "No", I got zero results? And, if i set it "To Download Data" IS NULL I got desirable 5450 results. Why is that, and is it how it supposed to be?

NULL Fields are always treated a bit differently by the database engine. containing, not containing operators only check fields with  smth in them and ignore NULL values.
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buah

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Re: Problem with advanced search
« Reply #7 on: February 09, 2010, 04:16:14 pm »
NULL Fields are always treated a bit differently by the database engine. containing, not containing operators only check fields with  smth in them and ignore NULL values.

Thank you for clearing that to me! Now everything is perfectly logical.

ID is now a field that can contained letters + numbers combination that is why you do not get >, <, >=, <= operators, but I agree it is no good, so I will try to think smth out for users who do not add letters to IDs.

If I'm allowed to practice brainstorming, I would say that ID could be contained of two fields, displayed as one: text field and number field. Additional checkbox (checked in, or not) in Preferences named for instance "Use letters for ID, too" would cause adequate advanced search operators to be triggered?

If am not that clear, I'd like to elaborate further.

Cheers

Offline nostra

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Re: Problem with advanced search
« Reply #8 on: February 09, 2010, 07:47:26 pm »
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If I'm allowed to practice brainstorming, I would say that ID could be contained of two fields, displayed as one: text field and number field.

It is exactly the case now.

Quote
Additional checkbox (checked in, or not) in Preferences named for instance "Use letters for ID, too" would cause adequate advanced search operators to be triggered?

It seems like you are right
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Offline rick.ca

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Re: Problem with advanced search
« Reply #9 on: February 09, 2010, 09:59:56 pm »
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NULL Fields are always treated a bit differently by the database engine.

See Expressions Involving NULL in this reference. I've found the tip of thinking of NULL as UNKNOWN particularly helpful.

buah

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Re: Problem with advanced search
« Reply #10 on: February 09, 2010, 11:04:33 pm »
See Expressions Involving NULL in this reference. I've found the tip of thinking of NULL as UNKNOWN particularly helpful.

Indeed helpful, if not provoking! Thank you on this one.

It seems like you are right

That sounds promising. And somehow I anticipated that while localized (not just translated) PVD: instead of "ID", which is also common in here but mostly taken as an integer, I rather used Serbian term "Indeks" (Index) which, as such, represents letters and Roman numerals as well as integers down here. That is perfectly fitted now, I think.

I already see a lot of users using this option instead of defining a bunch of custom fields in order to closer determining of their entries.

buah

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Re: Problem with advanced search
« Reply #11 on: February 15, 2010, 10:14:53 pm »
I set IDs as numbers with PVD 0.9.9.14. Any idea how to get any set of movies with subsequent IDs with operators given in 0.9.9.16, for instance movies from ID=1123 to ID=1544?

Offline rick.ca

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Re: Problem with advanced search
« Reply #12 on: February 16, 2010, 12:06:47 am »
The way it is now, Advanced search doesn't seem to be able to do anything you couldn't do with a simple search (e.g., isolate those with a particular prefix—but you're not using those anyway). You can sort on ID, however. It appears to ignore the prefix and sort on the numerical part, so there should be no problem in isolating a particular range. You could then select and bookmark them, and then proceed using the bookmark filter instead of Advanced search.

buah

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Re: Problem with advanced search
« Reply #13 on: February 16, 2010, 12:11:32 am »
Thx!