Long lists of tags in a skin

[mgpw4me@yahoo.com]

With very long lists of tags, I often find it difficult to find relevant tags.  Alphabetically sorting of the tags would make this easier.  It would also be nice to be able to specify the number of tags per line.  As long as I'm dreaming, it would also be nice to have the tags in a scrolling list box so they could be contained within a small area.

Dare I dream further...grids, could be used in a number of areas such as actors when control over the number of display columns is desirable.  It would be nice to be able to configure a grid to include data (say images of the cast) on a movie skin and have their name correctly associated (I've tried custom fields for this, but it gets ugly since the screen shot order isn't static and I end up with extra copies of the same images in the database).

I know the present formatting is the most efficient use of space, but it's like trying to find a specific word in paragraph.

---------------------------------

<grid collapsedlines=5 columns=4>
 <cell>
   <row>
     <column width="120">
       <human category="0" field="picture"/>
    </column>
   </row>
   <row>
     <column width="120">
       <human category="0" collapsedlines="15" field="name"/>
    </column>
   </row>
 </cell>
</grid>

[nostra]

Alphabetically sorting of the tags would make this easier.

I'll add it to my TODO list

It would also be nice to be able to specify the number of tags per line.

You can. Take a look at the new skins manual: http://www.videodb.info/help/hlp_skins.html#attribs

As long as I'm dreaming, it would also be nice to have the tags in a scrolling list box so they could be contained within a small area.

I do not think it is a good idea 

Dare I dream further...grids, could be used in a number of areas such as actors when control over the number of display columns is desirable.  It would be nice to be able to configure a grid to include data (say images of the cast) on a movie skin and have their name correctly associated (I've tried custom fields for this, but it gets ugly since the screen shot order isn't static and I end up with extra copies of the same images in the database).

Yes, I have already thought about grids to display complex data structures, but it is pretty much work so I never got to implement it. Who knows maybe sometime later.

[mgpw4me@yahoo.com]

Hey look at that!  Documentation!  It looks great.

[nostra]

Hey look at that!  Documentation!  It looks great.

You know, pretty the last thing a programmer wants to do , so it delayed a couple of months

[rick.ca]

The documentation looks so great you're now going to have to keep it up-to-date.

[Hyomil]

Maybe the tags could work like the list of Actors above it--when there's an actor you want to make note of, you click on them and they're set to 'Always show' in People view. (You could CTRL+click on a tag to get to Tag view instead of displaying all the movies with that tag.)   Thereafter, the actor's name is colored orange in Movies view.  There could be a Tag view as well, with the tags colored orange in similar fashion.

In such a Tag view, you might not want to automatically download all movies on IMDb that have that particular tag, as it might grow your database too much, but you could scrape data from the IMDb Wikia http://imdb.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page to automatically get descriptions/definitions of the tags.  Many tags are ambiguous or have a more extensive or specific meaning than would first appear.  On AniDB http://www.anidb.net, you get descriptions of a movie's tags just by hovering over them.

Actors have their 'Alternative Names' field and tags could as well (ex. cop, motorcycle cop, undercover cop, undercover agent, undercover operative, female undercover, detective, policeman, policewoman, police officer) and they could be linkified if they already existed in your tag database.  If the tags were grouped together in this way, then you could quickly do an Advanced Search for all of them without having to remember all the alternative names.  They could even have pictures. (ex. Using a picture of the first movie where you encountered a tag and became interested in using it.)

[rick.ca]

Any information that is to handled in the relational way movies and people are requires a fundamental change to the structure of the database and how the program functions. There would not only have to be a compelling need for such a change, there would also have to be a reliable and comprehensive source for the information. That includes not just the information about the tags, but the relationship of the tags to movies (e.g., IMDb not only has information about people and movies, but also reliable data about people-movie relations). It's not worthwhile providing for relational data solely on the basis some users may want to try to record it on their own.

Having said that, the idea is interesting to ponder. Consider this: Who cares about producers? Perhaps the role meant something is the past, but now it seems everyone's a producer—and they're just cluttering-up my database! If I chose to stop tracking them, what might I use the field for? I suppose I could use it for anything, including things that are not people. In other words, there's nothing stopping me from using Producers to record some sort of tag. In the "people" record for each tag, I could record information about the tag. I'll have to do so using the standard people fields, but that's okay. Translated name, AKA, URL and Comments might be directly applicable. Biography and dates might take on slightly different meanings. The program would automatically maintain a tag filmography.

Where would I get the data? I suppose I could ask nostra to provide for an IMDb plugin option to write some other tag to Producers, but he'd probably just think I was off my medication again. No matter. I actually prefer some of the Allmovie tags (Genres, Types, Themes), and I can modify my Allmovie script to put one of those into Producers (and, of course, I'll stop downloading producers from IMDb). For the tags I'm thinking of, Allmovie has a short commentary (a "Biography"!) and list of top movies (Comments) for most of them. This information would have to be recorded manually (i.e., by cut & paste), so I might what to choose one that doesn't have a huge number of values. Or maybe someone who likes this idea will write a script for me...

[mgpw4me@yahoo.com]

IMDB has a published list of keywords, so all we have to do is relate them in logical groups: http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Keywords/   

Any volunteers?

[Hyomil]

Its hard to know what to do with IMDb’s plot keywords.  There was once a site, now down, that would do statistics that showed which keywords showed up most frequently in movies you rated highly.  If the plot keyword “water bottle” shows up as occuring frequently, does this mean you should start looking for movies tagged “water bottle” because you have some subconscious attraction to them?   Hard to believe its not a conincidence and hard to be motivated to add “water bottle” to a movie’s tags every time you come across one.  Of course, users have started using the system to add genre or theme keywords or things like "scene during end credits", but mostly you get long lists of things like "door knob," "oven mitt," "rice cooker," etc.

Ordinary things do take on some special meaning in the context of a film and plot keywords are a way to remember some cool moment in the film (If you could associate it with a screenshot, that would be better).  Maybe if there was some data mining done, you could find a correlation where the kinds of movies you like tend to feature similar plot elements (ex.  Dynamite, smoke, elevators, keyholes), but it seems like it would mostly be weak correlations, even with the more descriptive plot keywords like “door kicked in” or “light shot out.” 

Initially, I was very excited about plot keywords in PVD as a movie discovery tool, but it seems now more intended as a memory trigger and going through long lists of tags of even my favorite movies is a bit of a headscratching experience.  It seems like only a site like Jinni.com could really make good use of them to assist in movie recommendations.  I do use the 'IMDb Movie Collection Mananger - by Futuros' Greasemonkey script so I can peruse IMDb's MoKA (Movie Keywords Analyzer) for movies I haven't seen; I just don't have much confidence in it.

Allmovie is interesting with its distinction between Genres, Types, Themes, Moods, and Tones, but it has a limited database (Only two and a half pages of results for “Romantic Comedy” Type, two pages of results for “Romantic Drama” Type, one page of results for “Action Thriller” Type, etc.)  Same problem with Jinni.com.

[rick.ca]

Its hard to know what to do with IMDb’s plot keywords.

I've always considered them completely useless—in the context of my personal database—for the reasons you describe. They're fine when used in a tool like MoKA, where they can easily be added/excluded on-the-fly along with other criteria.

BTW, just to make sure we're not confusing anyone... There is no "keyword" field in PVD. I believe IMDb keywords are downloaded to Tags.

I prefer Allmovie "Keywords" and "Tones", which I download to a custom field named Keywords and Tags respectively. Allmovie keywords seem to reflect some measure of editorial control—they seem less far-flung and more relevant to the movies to which they're applied. Even so, I don't find them of much use. "Tones" are something entirely different—more like Genre in that there are not a huge number of them, each has a specific meaning and they're consistently applied. I like them because they accurately describe the mood of a movie.

Ordinary things do take on some special meaning in the context of a film and plot keywords...

Agreed, but again, I don't believe the data (especially the correlation to specific scenes) exists. If one were serious about this sort of thing, I think the way to do it would be to collect movie scripts (also easier said than done). Since PVD doesn't do search summaries or show where hits are within a field, they would best be saved outside the database. There, a Windows or other search tool could be used and the hits associated to the movies via the file names (i.e., the scripts would be named something like [Title] ([Year]) Script.doc). I'm doing this now with subtitles (because they're readily available for all movies), but, of course, they include only dialog—and not even who spoke the words. They do, however, include time codes which would allow the exact spot in the movie to be found.

So here's another wacky feature suggestion: Find the given search term in the subtitle files located beside the currently displayed movies. Launch the screenshot maker and grab X shots from the time interval from the end of the previous dialog to the start of the next. Tag the screenshots (another new feature) with "[hh:mm:ss] [search term]" and save them in their respective movie records.

Initially, I was very excited about plot keywords in PVD as a movie discovery tool...

Just because it's the best movie database software on the planet doesn't mean it should be used for everything. MoKA seems to work reasonably well, especially when My Movies and the "Movie Collection Manager" Greasemonkey script are used. Jinnie also looks very interesting. I wish there was a way to upload movies and ratings to sites like this. I use Web search to integrate PVD with sites like this (I haven't yet figured out how to do so for Jinni).

[Hyomil]

First, I should mention there's the IMDb Plot Keywords alphabetizer Greasemonkey script that can be used until alphabetization is implemented in PVD.  (PVD just downloads keywords as they occur on IMDb, which is the order in which they were added.)

I prefer Allmovie "Keywords" and "Tones", ...

I downloaded your script and decided to dump Tones and Moods into Genres and Themes into Categories to append to IMDb data; this way I can look at all the movies in my database by clicking on the Tone/Mood/Theme names to get a sense of them, unlike with custom fields.  Looks promising; I'll see what how it goes.

Agreed, but again, I don't believe the data (especially the correlation to specific scenes) exists. If one were serious about this sort of thing, I think the way to do it would be to collect movie scripts (also easier said than done). Since PVD doesn't do search summaries or show where hits are within a field, they would best be saved outside the database. There, a Windows or other search tool could be used and the hits associated to the movies via the file names (i.e., the scripts would be named something like [Title] ([Year]) Script.doc). I'm doing this now with subtitles (because they're readily available for all movies), but, of course, they include only dialog—and not even who spoke the words. They do, however, include time codes which would allow the exact spot in the movie to be found.

So here's another wacky feature suggestion: Find the given search term in the subtitle files located beside the currently displayed movies. Launch the screenshot maker and grab X shots from the time interval from the end of the previous dialog to the start of the next. Tag the screenshots (another new feature) with "[hh:mm:ss] [search term]" and save them in their respective movie records.

  Never imagined such a thing.  I might use it, but it sounds very difficult.

Jinni also looks very interesting. I wish there was a way to upload movies and ratings to sites like this.

According to Likeminds, sites like IMDb actively try to prevent people from uploading their movie ratings in order to keep people from creating multiple accounts and changing the average rating of a movie by rating it multiple times.  Jinni says they're working on a way to upload your ratings.  We'll see.  Jinni does at least take title requests here and if you look at the past requests, they really are adding them to their database.

Many sites like Criticker, Listal, and Flixster have requests for this on their forums.  It takes a tremendous amount of time to upload 2000 ratings, so I usually just do my 5-star rated films.  I've yet to pick a 'go-to' site, but Criticker doesn't support TV series, doesn't have covers, and only a has a single microscopic image for each movie.  Listal I'm liking for its extensive database, social features, and it not only has screenshots but lets you upload your own and covers too.  You can even set which of the available covers you want to use as your default.  I'm very tired of going to IMDb and not even seeing a poster for a title due to IMDb charging to add them.  Also, if a movie isn't in their database, just input the IMDb URL and its added instantly.  No need to request it or fill out a form like with Criticker.  Even better, there's a RSS feed for every page on the site, rather than a few general ones.  I like Flixster's ability for each movie for users to make their own 'Other movies similar to...' lists and for other users to give a thumbs up or down for these.  Anime-Planet is similar, but they both count up votes and make users actually write out exactly how the 2 movies are similar (although voting on keywords/tones might be sufficient in most cases).

I use Web search to integrate PVD with sites like this (I haven't yet figured out how to do so for Jinni).

Web search doesn't work for Jinni probably because the site uses Flash for the search box.  I submitted it for Firefox's Web Search Pro addon; once its validated, you may be able to copy the javascript link from that and convert it for PVD.

[rick.ca]

I might use it, but it sounds very difficult.

Difficult for nostra, maybe, but not for users. And that's good—we need to spice-up his TODO list so he doesn't get bored.

I submitted it for Firefox's Web Search Pro addon...

I did too. Although it occurred to me it was not really a request for validation, it was a request to create a new search. Hopefully, he knows how to do that, and we'll learn something from the result.

[Hyomil]

IMDb Plot Keywords alphabetizer has been updated to be faster but also a feature has been added to enable you to enter the IMDb Plot Keywords that you care about into an array in the script so that those keywords will always be highlighted when you're on an IMDb Plot Keywords page.  See here for how to do it.

I submitted it for Firefox's Web Search Pro addon...

...but he wasn't able to get Jinni's search box to work with it.  Darn that Flash!  Jinni does say adding a search plugin for browsers is on their product roadmap.  You can vote to give it priority if you like on their GetSatisfaction page.

One other update, Listal now supports importing movies and ratings from the Vote History page of My Movies on IMDb here.  I just imported 800 movies in an instant and it got almost all of them except some ratings on individual episodes of TV shows, which it informs you that it didn't import.  They also support importing from Delicious Library and DVDprofiler.  Maybe next they'll support importing tags like PVD.  Tags on their site can be used as a way to help browse through other users' collections--one of the ways you can filter their movie list is by tag.  You can see all the tags that that user has assigned to movies and filter so that you only see the movies that they've given a certain tag.

[rick.ca]

One other update, Listal  now supports importing movies and ratings from the Vote History page of My Movies on IMDb here.  I just imported 800 movies in an instant...

Thanks—cool site! I did the same (coincidentally, 801 items), and it really was just an instant. I wonder if it can be updated by just uploading the same list again. I wonder if nostra can be persuaded to move up My Movies integration on his TODO list.