[avmjt]

Everything I tried was too bloated and had terrible WAF so I made this. Let me know what you think...

Instructions and Download at... (Only 13 KB!)
http//thomann.net/xplor


I would like to have some feedback to know how useful this is. If it is of any value to the community, I will put more time into it. On the other hand, if I've just reinvented the wheel, please let me know.


It's a small download, and there's no installation required. Just read the overview, download it, run it, and let me know what you think. Thanks!

 

[voranand]

This's nice. I see we can sort movie by genre, format and rating. Think at least you should add *year* into it.

Also the ability to play with our default player is a must.

 

[Davinleeds]

I like the listing. What about folders?

 

[avmjt]



Quote:
Originally Posted by voranand /forum/post/16884331


This's nice. I see we can sort movie by genre, format and rating. Think at least you should add *year* into it.

Also the ability to play with our default player is a must.

Yes it opens the default player. Would you prefer an option to sort by year, or an option to search for movies in a year that you enter?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Davinleeds /forum/post/16884464


I like the listing. What about folders?

Folders? What sort of function with folders would you like?

 

[paratwa]

Would this be compatible with WMC? Click on movies and have this come up?


And year would not be an important thing for me at all. But I can see if you have different versions of the same move but from different decades I could see the need, AKA Sabrina, Whicker man, Psycho, King Kong. If the name of the movie is the same, would your program be able to tell the difference if you had both versions?


Also, would this be usable using a remote?



Oh, and I like your selection of movies, not one shown that I have not watched and liked. And I like the looks of your program.

 

[voranand]



Quote:
Originally Posted by avmjt /forum/post/16889216


Yes it opens the default player. Would you prefer an option to sort by year, or an option to search for movies in a year that you enter?

Sort by released year, like Gone With the Wind will be in "1939", or at least I can type "1939" into search bar and *only* movie released in 1939 will show up. Either way is fine by me.


So I guess I can open a movie with TheaterTek for example?

 

[voranand]



Quote:
Originally Posted by paratwa /forum/post/16889458


Would this be compatible with WMC? Click on movies and have this come up?

Eh, why do you need this to be compatible with WMC? There's loads of movie organizer plug-in for WMC already. I guess the main reason for this app is simplicity and WMC is kinda not actually in that category IMO.

 

[paratwa]



Quote:
Originally Posted by voranand /forum/post/16889540


Eh, why do you need this to be compatible with WMC? There's loads of movie organizer plug-in for WMC already. I guess the main reason for this app is simplicity and WMC is kinda not actually in that category IMO.

Why? Because of the wife factor. If she can not just click, she will be pissed.


If this is going to be used on a HTPC, then I would think it should be as simple to use as possible by thousands of people that are NOT computer literate. What use is it to me (or my wife) if I can not access it with WMC?


What reason would I have to use this If I can not sit 10 ft away and control it to watch movies?


Yes there might be loads of plug ins for WMC, but most of them suck. Like the maker of this program said, "Everything I tried was too bloated and had terrible WAF so I made this." What reason would I have to use this if it cannot use the main interface of WMC? She will also want to watch TV, music and everything else that WMC was designed to make easy to do.


And I was just asking a question. It's not like he gave a lot of info about what the program could do.

 

[scat2002]

What would be really cool is if you made a vb script

that a user could run and point to his Movie folder(s) on multiple drives that would write the
file: "movies.txt"
with the minumum content:

King Kong

C:/Movies/King Kong.iso


Casino Royale

C:/Movies/Casino Royale.iso


because some peoply have hundreds of movies.


Thanks

Scat

 

[avmjt]



Quote:
Originally Posted by paratwa /forum/post/16889458


Would this be compatible with WMC? Click on movies and have this come up?

To be honest, after 5 minutes with WMC I decided it wasn't for me and I never learned much about it after that. If WMC allows you to specify a program to run when clicking on movies, then you are all set... just set it to open "xplor.vbs".

Quote:
Originally Posted by paratwa /forum/post/16889458


If the name of the movie is the same, would your program be able to tell the difference if you had both versions?

Yes. The movie list is simply generated from the titles entered in "movies.txt" and sorted by title. If two movies have the same title, both are displayed in the movie list. To help you identify which movie is which, you can specify different release years for each movie in "movies.txt".


When you enter both a movie title and a release year for a movie in "movies.txt", Xplor uses both to query imdb.com for movie details. The result is that the currect movie information is always retrieved from imdb.com without having to select from a list of query results. This works as long as the title of the movie that you enter in "movies.txt" is the same as the movie title at imdb.com.


Note.. One thing I overlooked was the ability to designate different cover image for two or more movies of the same title. This can be easily implemented. I will release Xplor 1.1 with this ability, and it will be fully compatible with the current "movies.txt" data file. In fact all future developments will likely be compatible with the data file of the initial 1.0 release. I wanted it to be that way so that the movie data file would never have to be re-compiled.

Quote:
Originally Posted by paratwa /forum/post/16889458


Also, would this be usable using a remote?

Mouse functionality is required. Look for remotes that have an air mouse feature. Personally, I don't believe that the future of HTPCs will continue the trend of reducing their functionality to that of the typical home theater component when it so much more. I think instead that accesories such as remotes which take better advantage of the HTPC's potential including mouse functionality will become the norm.

Quote:
Originally Posted by paratwa /forum/post/16889458


Oh, and I like your selection of movies, not one shown that I have not watched and liked. And I like the looks of your program.

Thanks!

 

[avmjt]



Quote:
Originally Posted by voranand /forum/post/16889532


Sort by released year, like Gone With the Wind will be in "1939", or at least I can type "1939" into search bar and *only* movie released in 1939 will show up. Either way is fine by me.

I shall implement one or both of these methods next.

Quote:
Originally Posted by voranand /forum/post/16889532


So I guess I can open a movie with TheaterTek for example?

Yep. In Windows, just associate the movie's file type with the program you want to watch it with. Would it be helpful if I included a help section in the instructions for file-type/program association?

 

[avmjt]



Quote:
Originally Posted by paratwa /forum/post/16889544


Why? Because of the wife factor. If she can not just click, she will be pissed.


If this is going to be used on a HTPC, then I would think it should be as simple to use as possible by thousands of people that are NOT computer literate. What use is it to me (or my wife) if I can not access it with WMC?


What reason would I have to use this If I can not sit 10 ft away and control it to watch movies?


Yes there might be loads of plug ins for WMC, but most of them suck. Like the maker of this program said, "Everything I tried was too bloated and had terrible WAF so I made this." What reason would I have to use this if it cannot use the main interface of WMC? She will also want to watch TV, music and everything else that WMC was designed to make easy to do.


And I was just asking a question. It's not like he gave a lot of info about what the program could do.

One of my motivations for making this was to provide a tool to help make the HTPC more user freindly for the wife and kids. It makes everyone happier when nobody has to complain about something they don't understand. Therefore, every decision I made about the program's front end was based on the primary goals of simplicity and intuitivity. Every program I tried, complexity was multiplied just to take advantage of little- or never-used features.


Face it, 99% of the time the wife and kids will not be managing the movie database or program functions. Therefore, the primary functions of viewing and playing movies should not be cluttered on the front end by 999 administrative functions.


Most of what the program can do is pretty much seen on the screenshots here. There are a couple useful tools which are referenced in the instructions such as a cover image locating tool. The program is so simple that the only instructions are what is presented on the program home page... http://thomann.net/xplor

 

[avmjt]



Quote:
Originally Posted by scat2002 /forum/post/16889602


What would be really cool is if you made a vb script

that a user could run and point to his Movie folder(s) on multiple drives that would write the
file: "movies.txt"
with the minumum content:

King Kong

C:/Movies/King Kong.iso


Casino Royale

C:/Movies/Casino Royale.iso


because some peoply have hundreds of movies.


Thanks

Scat

Actually, auto-cataloguing is planned next. I wish I was able to incorporate that from the get go, but time is not something that I have much of and I wanted to make this available now. Any contributors would be greatly appreciated.

 

[sonofdbn]

There's a nice piece of software called Karen's Directory Printer here that can scan a folder or drive and output a listing of files to a text file. You can also filter the listing, so that you list only *.iso for example.


If someone had some text parsing skills it should be pretty easy to convert this to the required movies.txt format. Unfortunately I don't, although I think that if I was desperate I might be able to do it via Excel (the "when you only know how to use a hammer, everything's a nail" school of programming).


I think what would also be useful is a movies.txt validation utility - some way of checking that the movie file location info is valid. This would avoid the huge dent in spousal confidence when they click on something and the file isn't there.

 

[voranand]



Quote:
Originally Posted by avmjt /forum/post/16893560


I shall implement one or both of these methods next.

Thumbs up.

Quote:
Originally Posted by avmjt /forum/post/16893560


Yep. In Windows, just associate the movie's file type with the program you want to watch it with. Would it be helpful if I included a help section in the instructions for file-type/program association?

It would indeed help.


One last question, do you have a way to disable left plane (text data) maybe by unchecking, for example, menu\\view\\Text Listings, so we could see only covers?

Look like I'm very much interested in this now.

 

[avmjt]



Quote:
Originally Posted by sonofdbn /forum/post/16894002


There's a nice piece of software called Karen's Directory Printer here that can scan a folder or drive and output a listing of files to a text file. You can also filter the listing, so that you list only *.iso for example.


If someone had some text parsing skills it should be pretty easy to convert this to the required movies.txt format. Unfortunately I don't, although I think that if I was desperate I might be able to do it via Excel (the "when you only know how to use a hammer, everything's a nail" school of programming).

Thanks. Getting a file listing from a directory is the easy part. It's determining the movie title that I would need some direction with.

Quote:
Originally Posted by sonofdbn /forum/post/16894002


I think what would also be useful is a movies.txt validation utility - some way of checking that the movie file location info is valid. This would avoid the huge dent in spousal confidence when they click on something and the file isn't there.

The way I envision it working is a movie indexing script would allow you to select folders to scan for movie files, and the movie titles and movie file locations would be appended to movies.txt. The indexing script would be instructed to search for only files of desginated file extensions. Maybe the indexing script could allow the user to determine which file types to add.

 

[avmjt]



Quote:
Originally Posted by voranand /forum/post/16894302


One last question, do you have a way to disable left plane (text data) maybe by unchecking, for example, menu\\view\\Text Listings, so we could see only covers?

Look like I'm very much interested in this now.

You have two methods to hide the left pane movie list...


1. You can click on the left pane's border and slide it all of the way to the left.


2. Better yet, you can also open settings.js and change the DefaultListSize to '0'. Then Xplor will always start with with left pane movie list completely collapsed to the left and hidden from view, and you will still be able to view the list if you want by clicking on that border and sliding it to the right.

 

[tiger8mush]

avmjt, this seems like exactly what i'm looking for! low-key, easy to modify, great job and thanks alot!


i'm having a problem getting it to play a file when I click on the picture. this is my movies.txt file:


Cinderella

2005

PG-13

Kids | Animation | Disney

DVD

C:/Media/movies/Cinderella/MainMovie/Cinderella_FS/VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.IFO


Shrek

2005

PG-13

Kids | Animation | Disney

DVD

C:/Media/movies/Shrek/MainMovie/SHREK/VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.IFO



obviously not 100% correct, but the links to the IFO files are correct. When I double click the IFO files, they play in Media Player Classic HomeCinema. But when I am within Xplor and I click on the pictures, nothing happens. Any hints?


Thanks again, I think this software will do exactly what I need, with a small footprint.


Rob

 

[video321]

Any chance of making it not require IE8?

I refuse to use that

 

[tiger8mush]

yeah, I had to d/l IE8 cuz I use firefox as my main browser and hadn't updated IE. Only issue for me at the moment is that when I click a movie picture, nothing happens

Also, I downloaded a picture and named it "Cinderella.jpg" and put it in the folder w/the other cover pictures. That one doesn't show up (displays the missing image icon) but the Shrek one (that came with the download) does appear. hmmmm