not importing certain movies with xAnt

[scottw]

How can I make xAnt not import movies that are unchecked??
I setup a portable XL machine that has a smaller hard drive then my home setup.
I have a "master" Ant Movie database with all movies in it. I only have certain movies on my "portable" PC (hard drive size limitation) with a separate Ant Movie DB I want to be able to just copy the "master" Ant DB and just be able to check/uncheck titles in Ant Movie as they are added and removed from the "portable" PC. This would make it easier to manage that second copy.

Any ideas??

Thanks,
Scott

[Marbles_00]

The easiest way on the portable is to indicate online/offline movies. This is done by using Ant's "Borrower" parameter. Leaving it blank will indicate that the movie is online (on the portable harddrive), setting that parameter to "True" will indicate the movie is offline (not on the portable).

You need to add to the XAnt movietemplate.xml file the following line within the <item> parameter, but before the <information> parameter:
<offline>$$ITEM_BORROWER</offline>

It will look something like this:

Code: Select all

<item>
    <parameter>$$ITEM_URL</parameter>
    <coverart>$$ITEM_PICTUREFILENAME</coverart>
    <display>$$ITEM_TRANSLATEDTITLE</display>
    <offline>$$ITEM_BORROWER</offline>
    <information>
      <support>$$ITEM_VIDEOFORMAT</support>
      <name>$$ITEM_ORIGINALTITLE</name>
      <title>$$ITEM_ORIGINALTITLE</title>

Then once you start xlobby, goto your movies screen and open the skin editor. Goto Category, then Display, then click on the Offline button to add some sort of image to indicate offline movies. Then when movies that aren't on the portable their coverart will have some sort of graphic displayed with it.

Then as movies get copied over, you just open your Ant catalog, change the Borrower setting for the appropriate movies, then just rebuild the database in Xlobby.

Hope it helps.

[scottw]

Thanks Marbles...I will give it a try.

Is there any way you can think of not to show the movie at all, in other words instead of showing a blank cover. I think it would get kind of annoying to flip thru the movies and see all of these blank covers.

I know I can't have everything but it's worth a try

I was thinking before that I could set something say in the Borrower field for online movies and just do a category-custom search to show only those movies. I would want to be able to filter them again after the custom search for like filtering by rating, genre and stuff like that. I will have to play around a bit...but that's part of the fun


I will let you know what I come up with.

[scottw]

Anyone know if there is an %%ITEM_CHECKED varable that would tell if the checkbox was checked or not??

[scottw]

Ok I can get what I want using the Subtitles field in ANT (I am not using it for anything else) by setting "Portable" in that field. I wrote a script for Ant that all I have to do is CTRL-Click each movie I want which will highlight them then hit F6 (Scripts) and run the script I wrote to fill in the subtitles field with: Portable.
Then in Xlobby I do a Category-Custom Search using:
Category Name: movies
Field: Subtitles
Value: Portable

This then only shows the movies I want.

Now comes the problem...I cannot search on these movies I goto my search page and no matter what I try, as soon as I click a letter it starts searching on the entire DB. I have gotten so use to using the search that I would rather not do without it.

Any ideas???

[WannaTheater]

Here's my 2 cents:
I have created 2 groups of movies in the same XAnt db - Family (G), and Mature (PG, PG-13, R). I need to check to see which Ant field I used. The xAnt.ini file can be created to create 2 separate xLobby databases from a single Ant db - mature_movies.xml and family_movies.xml (again from the same Ant db). Then inside the skin, there is a way to assign the selected database to "movies." So when I press a button called "Family Movies," it assigns the corresponding family_movies.xml database to the "movies" category, then opens up the screen(s) which display information about the "movies" category. I do the same with the Ant movies tagged as "Mature." In addition, within either the Mature or Family movies, I also have implemented the offline function.

In your case, you could merely just "Do Nothing" with the extra xLobby database that would contain the movies you do not want to display.

[scottw]

Sounds good...thanks!!!

Could you post or email me your ini (swindmiller at gmail dot com)?

I am a visual kind of guy

Thanks for posting!!

[Marbles_00]

I do the same thing as WT. Here is the .ini examples I use:

Code: Select all

[RMovies]
input=c:\Program Files\Ant Movie Catalog\Catalogs\rratedmovies.amc
output=c:\Program Files\Xlobby\databases\rratedmovies.xml
images=c:\Program Files\Ant Movie Catalog\Pochettes movies\
sort=$$ITEM_ORIGINALTITLE
template=c:\Program Files\Xlobby\plugins\moviestemplate.xml
filters=

[ChildrenMovies]
input=c:\Program Files\Ant Movie Catalog\Catalogs\childrenmovies.amc
output=c:\Program Files\Xlobby\databases\childrenmovies.xml
images=c:\Program Files\Ant Movie Catalog\Pochettes movies\
sort=$$ITEM_ORIGINALTITLE
template=c:\Program Files\Xlobby\plugins\moviestemplate.xml
filters=

Never thought of doing what you want to do that way...good call WT.

[scottw]

Thanks Marbles.

WT is not using 2 different Ant DB's though. I guess I would use the "Filters" section of the ini, right?

Either of you know if you can filter/sort on if the movie is "checked" in Ant or not??

Thanks,

[Marbles_00]

DOH! oooppsss! me bad...I reread his post. I do it differently.

[WannaTheater]

Correct, I use 1 Ant db. I will post ini file when I get home this weekend (and remind me as to how I did it )

[scottw]

I found one of your other posts which you posted it
http://www.xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5914&hilit=xant+filter

[scottw]

Got it working!!!!

You know it's amazing that there are features built in to things that you don't even realize how they can help you. I was brainstorming this for a few days and was in the xAnt ini several times and totally missed the filter section....go figure.


Thanks for all your help...this makes thing much easier for me

[WannaTheater]

Great!

[WannaTheater]

Just Looking through some files, and came across all variables that can be used in xAnt.ini

List of Available Variables:

$$DATE = Current date
$$TIME = Current time
Catalog file properties:

$$FILENAME = Catalog file name
$$FILEPATH = Catalog file name with full path
$$TOTALMOVIES = Number of movies in the catalog
$$OWNER_NAME = Name specified in catalog properties
$$OWNER_MAIL = E-mail
$$OWNER_SITE = Website
$$DESCRIPTION = Description
$$ITEM_FILEINDIV = Filename of individual page for current movie
$$ITEM_BEGIN = Begin of movie list
$$ITEM_END = End of movie list

Movie fields:
$$ITEM_NUMBER = Number
$$ITEM_CHECKED = State of the checkbox
$$ITEM_MEDIA = Media label/barcode
$$ITEM_TYPE = Media type
$$ITEM_SOURCE = Source
$$ITEM_DATEADD = Date added
$$ITEM_BORROWER = Current borrower
$$ITEM_RATING = Rating (0 to 10)
$$ITEM_APPRECIATION = Appreciation, from 0 to 4 stars, using files appr*.gif
$$ITEM_ORIGINALTITLE = Original title
$$ITEM_TRANSLATEDTITLE = Translated title
$$ITEM_FORMATTEDTITLE = Formatted title, as defined in the Preferences
$$ITEM_DIRECTOR = Director
$$ITEM_PRODUCER = Producer
$$ITEM_COUNTRY = Country
$$ITEM_CATEGORY = Category
$$ITEM_YEAR = Year
$$ITEM_LENGTH = Length in minutes
$$ITEM_ACTORS = Actors list
$$ITEM_URL = Website address (without link)
$$ITEM_DESCRIPTION = Description
$$ITEM_COMMENTS = Comments
$$ITEM_VIDEOFORMAT = Video format/codec
$$ITEM_VIDEOBITRATE = Video bitrate
$$ITEM_AUDIOFORMAT = Audio format/codec
$$ITEM_AUDIOBITRATE = Audio bitrate
$$ITEM_RESOLUTION = Video resolution
$$ITEM_FRAMERATE = Video framerate
$$ITEM_LANGUAGES = Languages
$$ITEM_SUBTITLES = Subtitles
$$ITEM_SIZE = Files sizes
$$ITEM_DISKS = Number of disks or tapes
$$ITEM_PICTURE = Picture, embedded in a <img> tag
$$ITEM_PICTUREFILENAME = Filename of the picture

-Greg