Web Interface

[buah]

Any interests, or at least thoughts on to develop web interface for PVD?

Cheers

[rick.ca]

I don't understand exactly how such things are done, but I guess it would require, as a minimum, the publication of an API—so someone else is able to create the web interface. But that in itself would be a lot of work. What would be the case for doing so? Is anyone interested in doing so? If so, what would it be used for?

Would a web interface necessarily use the program, or might it stand alone and access the database directly?

[mgpw4me@yahoo.com]

Direct access to the database is quite simple.

You can install a firebird server and PHP with interbase extensions.  If you have CPanel or other server management tools on the internet site, this should be very easy.  If not, there's probably an .rpm for it somewhere.

If all you do is 'select' statements, it would be fairly simple to program (no api required) and would keep the database from being corrupted.  The downside is that you have to upload the whole database every so often to keep it current.

On my home (windows vista) system, I'm using php as a stand-alone and a firebird server.  This works just fine...php has access to the database and to the internet.  For me, that means I can collect data from the internet and add it to the database from a command-line script.  At some point, I'll probably build a gui for this, but time isn't something I have lots of at the moment.

[buah]

Well, I thought if PVD could be accessed by Kroozbox via browser (or something like that, I tried it), I wondered if it would be great to manage PVD from within the browser. Why? Because for me, PVD is almost browser application, that's how I experienced it.
For instance, click on any link in PVD web GUI opens new tab to an external (internet) location, etc...

[rick.ca]

Because for me, PVD is almost browser application, that's how I experienced it.

I very much appreciate the browser-like experience, but I doubt a browser would more effective in delivering it. Could the function of the list, for example, be implemented in a browser in a way that would not be much slower? Also, there's a killer feature I hope to see in the program some day. That's the ability to display synchronized movie and people panes at the same time. Imagine a split pane below the movie pane that displays the people record of the person selected in the movie pane. Conversely, selecting a filmography link in that pane would show the selected movie in the movie pane. In People View, a movie pane would appear below the people pane and would behave in the same manner. I believe this would revolutionize the browsing experience—in a way that could not be matched by a browser.

With an additional pane implemented, a natural extension of this idea would be to use the second pane to display an actual browser window. This could be used to display external links (e.g., movies or people not in the collection) while leaving the related movie or people record in view.

[buah]

It's a great idea to have a browser within PVD, also. Another instance of its use I imagine, would be to preview search results, in order to choose the proper one. Etc, etc...
PVD is so inspiring peace of software, that's for sure.

[rick.ca]

Another instance of its use I imagine, would be to preview search results, in order to choose the proper one.

Yes! I'm not sure how that would work (clicking a link to select, rather than browse). But I've often thought it would be so much more effective just to use the search results page, rather than a dialog list box to choose from. The dialog box so often excludes information that makes it easier to identify the correct movie. I suppose the browser shouldn't replace the dialog box, as its pane won't always be in view. But it could display the search results page at the same time. For that matter, it could, just for fun, display the last page downloaded by default. This would allow us to see things like search result pages, as well as review the pages downloaded information came from.