Selecting actors from a movie

[AimHere]

Hi,

I thought of a feature that I would find useful. When looking at a movie record in Movie View, I'd like the ability to switch to People View with the list on the left filtered to only show the actors in that movie. (Then I can work with just those people when doing updates from plugins, reviewing their details, etc.)

I can pretty much get the same thing by selecting and copying the movie title, switching to People View manually, pasting into the search box, and choosing "Filmography" as the field to search. But it would be nice to be able to do it all in a single step, without having to copy-and-paste anything.

The reverse would also be useful: when viewing a person's record, switching to Movie View filtered to show only that person's titles.

This could be implemented as an item on the context menu you see when right-clicking the "Title" field on a movie record, or the "Name" field on a Person record.

Comments?

Aimhere

[rick.ca]

Great idea. I often wish synchronized movie and people panes could be shown at the same time. If this is not to be, synchronized panes not shown at the same time would be the next best thing.

It should be noted the simple solution of running the necessary search in the other view is not going to work. A filmography search is much too slow. And then anything done in the view that requires a refresh results in the search being run again. No, the people in the movie record would have to be programmatically selected in the people list. For simplicity, it should probably select all credits, rather than be restricted to actors or applied to each type separately.

The reverse function isn't as important. It's not much trouble to switch to a particular movie using a link in a person's filmography. From there, a search can be run from the person's context menu—and those searches are reasonably fast. What would be handy is a simple search (also available on the context menu) for searching a person for any credit type (i.e., producer, director, actor..., just like there is for titles).

[nostra]

Yes, such functionality would be handy. It is already on the TODO list.

[AimHere]

Great idea. I often wish synchronized movie and people panes could be shown at the same time. If this is not to be, synchronized panes not shown at the same time would be the next best thing.

It should be noted the simple solution of running the necessary search in the other view is not going to work. A filmography search is much too slow. And then anything done in the view that requires a refresh results in the search being run again. No, the people in the movie record would have to be programmatically selected in the people list. For simplicity, it should probably select all credits, rather than be restricted to actors or applied to each type separately.

Agreed. The filmography search IS slow, but it's all I have available right now. Still, on a reasonably modern system, it only takes a few seconds.

I'd still prefer for the people list to be "boiled down" to the ones associated with the chosen movie (filtering out irrelevant ones), rather than merely selecting the records. That way, I can see at a glance exactly which people and how many I'm dealing with, rather than scrolling through my entire people list and looking for highlighted records.

Also, most of the time I only want just the actors. But having the option to show other credited people too would be a plus.

The reverse function isn't as important. It's not much trouble to switch to a particular movie using a link in a person's filmography. From there, a search can be run from the person's context menu—and those searches are reasonably fast.

Maybe so, but again, it'd be nice to be able to do it in a single step.

What would be handy is a simple search (also available on the context menu) for searching a person for any credit type (i.e., producer, director, actor..., just like there is for titles).

True.

Aimhere

[AimHere]

Yes, such functionality would be handy. It is already on the TODO list.

Once again: nostra is da man.

Aimhere

[rick.ca]

Still, on a reasonably modern system, it only takes a few seconds.

Not with the number of people in my database. It's too slow.

I'd still prefer for the people list to be "boiled down" to the ones associated with the chosen movie (filtering out irrelevant ones), rather than merely selecting the records.

You misunderstood what I meant by "programmatically selected." That means the program would get the people associated with the selected movie and display them and only them in People View. The point is to access the people records directly—without the need for a filmography search.

Also, most of the time I only want just the actors.

That you want it only for actors is not a good reason to restrict the feature. It should work for all people. It could be enhanced by including the option to restrict it to a particular career, but I don't think the case for that is very compelling.