Deleting from People View

[mumin]

Hi! 

I deleted an actor from People View because I didn't want to read about him again and I have too many persons listed there already. Too late I realized he also disappeared from the actors list for the movies he was in and I didn't manage to get him back.

Is there a way to get rid of people in People View without deleting them from Movies View?

Sorry if this has been discussed already, I suspect it has, but I didn't manage to find anything with the search.

[nostra]

did you hold ctrl while deleting the person? If yes, then just do not do it next time , if no then I will need to take a look at the code...

[rick.ca]

Deleting people doesn't just make them invisible, it actually deletes the record. This doesn't surprise me, as normally there are no "invisible" people. But I don't think this is the way it should be. If a person is no longer associated with any visible movies, then it would be logical to make them invisible. Conversely, if the user "deletes" a person who is still associated with visible movies, then the record should be make invisible, not actually deleted. Deleting people should be a way of stripping a record of all the information from the record, except for the links to existing visible movies. In other words, the same behaviour as for deleting movies.

To fix the situation where a person has been accidentally deleted, update the movie they were previously associated with. Then update the person's record as well—that will restore them to any other movies they might have been associated with.

[rick.ca]

It seems the behaviour is fundamentally different depending on the setting of Show people added from movie credits. Selecting this setting causes all invisible movies to become visible, and then the delete behaviour is as I describe above. If the setting is not selected, then, according to Anson's testing, the behaviour is analogous to how delete and ctrl-delete work for movies.

Mumin, I suspect you have checked Show people added from movie credits (at Preferences - People). If you're not interested in recording information about any people (other than their name and which movies in your collection they appear in), you could deselect this option. It won't change change any of the records already recorded, but will new people (from new movies added) will be invisible and no unnecessary information will be added. You'll be able to "delete" existing people to make them invisible, but that won't change any of the information already recorded.

I do not recommend you do this, however. It's easy to feel PVD is collecting information about too many people. But if you want the information (particularly the filmographies) for anyone, there's really no choice but to let the program get the information for all of them. You can limit the number of people by selecting ...Except actors (from main page only) in the plugin configuration and Do not add people from awards... on the plugins page.

Nostra, I think you should consider changing the delete behaviour, but I haven't thought it through. I suspect you knew what you were doing when you originally coded this, and nothing has changed.

[mumin]

nostra, I don't remember if I held down CTRL. But I remember that updating the record from IMDB did nothing.

rick.ca, that option is not checked. It says "Warning: These changes can not be undone easily", so I never dared to try it since I don't fully understand all the features of the program yet. OK, I take it I should not try to tidy up the people records. If I have created invisible people how do I make them visible again though? It's it the same option as for invisible movies - Filter | Advanced filter | Show All/Not Visible?


Thank you.  

[rick.ca]

I don't remember if I held down CTRL.

If you didn't Ctrl-Delete before, you may have Deleted twice—the first would make it invisible, the second would delete it.

I remember that updating the record from IMDB did nothing

Updating the movie should have added the person—as an invisible record. Maybe you just missed it, although it should have reappeared in the movie credits.

If I have created invisible people how do I make them visible again though?

Right-click on the person in the list and select Always show. Delete to hide again. Use the filter to set whether or not to display "invisible" records (yes, the terminology is confusing—but there's nothing complicated about what's happening).


To recap how people records are managed when the Show people added from movie credits is not used:

• Updating movie records adds people as invisible records. They're invisible in the sense their only purpose is to show the person's name in the movie credits. No other information is recorded, and they're therefore hidden in People View.
  
  
• Credit links will go to either the person's IMDb page, or their record in People View. The Click and Ctrl-Click behaviour is set at Preferences - Miscellaneous. So you have a choice if you want to see any information about the person. If you elect to view their PVD record, the link will take you to People view and make the record visible. You can then update the record to download the IMDb information. Now that the record is visible, its link colour (in the movie credits) and click behaviour will change.
  
  
• Once a person's record has been updated, the downloaded information cannot be removed. The record can, however, be made invisible by "deleting" it.
  
  
• To minimize the amount of people information maintained in the database, never update the records. If any information is required, use the link to go to the person's IMDb page. If any records are made visible (because their links were selected), make them invisible again by deleting them. With this approach, you would generally not use People View, and you should never see credit link of a different colour (denoting "visible" records).
  
  
• Alternatively, one might adopt an ad hoc practice of making records visible and updating them only for their "favourite" people. Once such records are made visible, they could be updated as a batch. Unfortunately, they can only be made visible one at a time—either by using their link in a movie record or selecting Always show. Also, as mentioned, once information has been downloaded, it cannot be removed from the record.