Always Show Problem

[Laraman]

I have a problem with always show. 0.9.9.5 was the last version were I could right click on a movie title and click always show. Has this option been removed or do I have a problem. Also the always show icon will not show on the toolbar even though other buttons will, this has been on all versions I have tried. This problems exist on two machines running both 32bit and 64bit vista ultimate respectiveley. Hope someone can help. Thanks in advance

[nostra]

Are you sure that selected record is invisible when you try to use this feature?

[Laraman]

Ah! I presume that the functionality has changed since 0.9.9.5 because you could right click a visible film, click always show, and make it invisible. Question then how do you make the film invisible now. Thanks for speedy response

[nostra]

Just delete it.

[Laraman]

Hi, I don't want to remove the entry from the database just want to hide it as you could in 0.9.9.5 this especially useful in Kroozbox were it means you can hide stuff that maybe you have watched before, cuts down on the screen clutter and enables you to just look at the stuff you want. Just wondered why it worked in the earlier version and not in newer versions ?

[Laraman]

If the facility to make a film not visible is no longer avaliable then why is there an advanced filter to show visible or not visible films. I for one would like this reinstated if it has been removed. Thanks

[Laraman]

Ive just read the section on delete and undelete in the manual and so I tested to see if it would give me the same functionality that was present in 0.9.9.5 and I found that sure it does make the film not visible, but if you then try to undelete it comes back but with stuff missing i.e. the poster is missing. So you cannot achieve the same result as you could in 0.9.9.5

[nostra]

I was not aware that someone using using record visibility like this. I think I can make a "Hide record" function pretty easily.

[Laraman]

Thats Magic Nostra, can't wait to get the functionality back. Thanks   

[rick.ca]

Now I'm curious about what this Aways Show feature is/was.

What has been described sounds like a filter to me. I use the Loan filter to hide movies I don't what to see on a regular basis (e.g., for some movies series, I want a record for each movie in the series, but I don't want to see the bad ones unless I'm interested in seeing information about whole series). The same thing could be done by Bookmarking, but then this wouldn't be available for other uses.

There are three different ways this could be implemented as a filter:

1. Exactly like bookmarking. It would just have to have a different name, like Flagging. The Flag filter would show only or hide all flagged records, or be off.

2. Rather than be a filter itself, it could be a means to override the affect of other filters. In other words, tagging a record with Always show would result in it showing even if hidden by other filters. Always hide, of course, would work as expected (serving Laraman's purpose). This setting would have to be unaffected by Reset filters.

3. My preferred option: Both 1 and 2.

None of this has anything to do with invisible records—only visible ones are affected.

BTW, if any new filters are added, it will become really obvious we need some way to save and recall filter settings. Ironically, I have programmed my remote to do this (e.g., so I can switch between "unseen movies available for viewing" and "unseen episodes available for viewing"), but there is no way to do this in the program. Perhaps this could be implemented by having a Save settings command on the filter menu. This would save the current settings and prompt for a name (e.g. "unseen available movies"). This would then appear on the menu (or perhaps a submenu, along with Reset filters). Or, it might be preferable just to provide for the configuration of such a "filter preset" submenu in Preferences (since there would have to be a way to delete, edit and rearrange the menu items anyway).

[Laraman]

I am not an expert on Kroozbox but as I understand it the program looks at the PVD database in its entirity and plucks the visible films out and uses that subset to make up HTML pages. It does not recognise filters or the seen flag to alter its content. Just the visible/ not visible flag to populate those pages. Thus it is critical to be able to mark the films you wish to appear as visible and the ones you dont as invisible. I suppose a use would be if the interface was being used by a family and you did not want all content to be available to say children.

[rick.ca]

That's fine, but you have to appreciate "visibility" doesn't have the meaning you want it to have. It cannot function according to the database design and what you want at the same time—that has to be implemented as a separate function. As such, perhaps we should give more thought as to how the new feature might function effectively as sort of a "parental control." For example, a "hide record" function might not be good enough if it is easily turned off in the interface (I suspect this is one reason why you prefer the ability to make such records "invisible"). However it is implemented, you're going to be left with the issue of Kroozbox showing all movies, regardless of how existing or new filters are set. But that's a Kroozbox issue—one which I'm sure can easily be resolved with a change to Kroozbox.

Always hide, of course, would work as expected (serving Laraman's purpose). This setting would have to be unaffected by Reset filters.

It seems I didn't think this this one through. If is worked this way, it would be a very effective parental control. No one would ever be able to make a hidden record visible! I suppose a Show hidden records command is necessary. This could be put in the "advanced filters" submenu (where a casual/child user may not notice it) and be disabled in read-only mode.

[Laraman]

I'm not sure about this it all seems to be getting a bit complicated. The ability to make films visible and not visible was part of the 0.9.9.5 build and I have been using it as such quite happily with kroozbox which presumably was being designed alongside the development of PVD and it used the facilities available to it within PVD. It was only making always show only available when the record is not visible that seems to have caused the loss of functionality and I was just using parental control as an example I do not use it for that myself. Just the ability to make sure only the films I want too appear in kroozbox.

[rick.ca]

I'm not sure about this it all seems to be getting a bit complicated.

That's okay. That's often the price paid to come up with a feature or modification that's useful to more than just one user.

In the meantime, it seems to me you still "delete" movies to make them invisible. And you might ask Nono if there's a way Kroozbox could exclude movies based on a bookmark or custom flag being set.

[Laraman]

The problem with using delete to hide a record is you do not get it back in it's entirety when you undelete. I woulnt have a problem with doing that if it came back with all the info when it was deleted. The poster seems to disappear at first glance and I am not sure if it affects other things. I will stick to 0.9.9.5 for the time being and hope the facility comes back. Thanks for your inputs

[patch]

If the facility to make a film not visible is no longer avaliable then why is there an advanced filter to show visible or not visible films.

I believe it is how delete works in PVD. The issue is PVD runs as a relational database with links between records so when you "delete" a record, PVD just hides it, rather than deleting it and it's associated links. When you then re-add the movie PVD un-hides it with all the prior links. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing but does appear to be how PVD works.

As such show / hide invisible is a way of looking at the inner workings of PVD. I assume that is why it is an advanced filter. Might be better called Show/hide "deleted record remnants ".

This also means requests to change show / hide invisible record functionality, is actually a request to change the inner workings of PVD. No something I would do lightly.

ask Nono if there's a way Kroozbox could exclude movies based on a bookmark or custom flag being set.

I agree with this approach. If Kroozbox works better with a subset of possible movies, then adding that facility to the Kroozbox interface is logical.

[Laraman]

I dont wish to labour this point I am not asking for a fundamental change in the way PVD works. I am using 0.9.9.5 with this very functionality of being able to always show to hide a film and always show to unhide a film, this is the very reason why I have not progressed on to the later builds, because that functionality has now been changed to operate in a different way and I would think it would be faily easy to reinstate it.

[rick.ca]

I dont wish to labour this point I am not asking for a fundamental change in the way PVD works.

That's good, because it's not going to happen. If 0.9.9.5 was not not deleting posters, user data and custom fields when "deleting" a record, then this was a bug. Nostra has suggested he might easily add a "hide record" feature—but I'm sure he wasn't thinking of  reintroducing a bug. If he was thinking of something that would simple "hide" rather than "delete" a record (i.e., so all its information is retained), however, it seems to me there's still a problem... How do we find a record once it has been hidden? In my database, it would be lost in a sea of over 200,000 records. I'm sorry, but the "feature" you would like to see "reinstated" would be of poor design and likely to cause problems for other users.

If a "hide record" feature is going to be of any general use, it has to be implemented as a filter. Once implemented, Kroozbox can be updated to ignore hidden records, just as it now ignores invisible records. I suspect the Kroozbox configuration could also be modified to ignore records with a custom flag set—a more practical solution to your issue that could be implemented right now.

[Laraman]

Hi, I feel as if we are at cross purposes here with what I am asking. In 0.9.9.5 when a film was visible if you right clicked on it the always show menu item was present. If you pressed it the film would become grey instead of light blue and would only be invisible if the visible filter was set. Once the All Advanced filter was set then all films present in the database would be shown including the ones that were not visible with the visible flag set. The delete was never used. The data was never lost or hidden no changes were made to the data and the film data was immediately made visible again if the film was right clicked on again and always show clicked again. With the all flag set all films in the database were present not difficult to find as you suggest.

Whether it was intentional or not that is the way it worked. But now when you right click a film the always show is only there if the film is hidden not if it is visible. I think that Nostra understood what I was saying and that is why he saw the reason behind what I was asking could be made available again quite easily. It is very confusing with all the visible and invisible or hidden or unhidden.
I am quite prepared to except that the way it was not intentional but there had to have been some reason in the first place for it to have been programmed that way.

It is just the simple act of removing the always show menu item being made only available when the film is hidden that has caused the lack of functionality and is no way me requesting that programming be changed by my request to meet the individual needs of kroozbox users.

I think if you tried 0.9.9.5 and presumably builds before it and tried to use the facility you would see what I mean. I can see your point of view that filters will do the same thing, but for whatever reason that an end user might have as a reason for making a film hidden, be it based on religion, parental control, already watched, not available on a certain device within a home cinema system, then I think the ability as it was to make a film hidden is a good facility to have at the disposal of the person maintaining the database.

[rick.ca]

I think the ability as it was to make a film hidden is a good facility to have at the disposal of the person maintaining the database.

So if I were using the unsupported beta version 0.9.9.5, and I made 100 of my movies "hidden," how would I distinguish them from my 200,000 "invisible" records so that I might "unhide" them?

Would the filter I suggested not be a better facility? Perhaps it could even be implemented in a way that Kroozbox would see hidden records as invisible, but there would still be a separate "hidden" status flag so the state could be controlled as a filter. But I wouldn't expect nostra to out of his way to do that just to accommodate Kroozbox—especially when it's perfectly reasonable to expect your need can be satisfied with a change to the Kroozbox configuration.