Can't search for anything anymore...

[Biggen]

Upgraded to the new Phoenix build this morning and ever since then, I can't search for anything in BMT. The only way I can change/edit my metadata is to browse to the movie. If I type in the movie name, BMT responds with "Search Failed for [insert movie name]".

Anyone else?

[stuckless]

I apologize... I changed how the search works, and i forgot to post a message explaining the changes

The search box now accepts a query expression (much like sql, but called, PQL (or Phoenix Query Language)) which can be used to search any metadata fields.

So, to do a title search now, you'd enter something like, Title = 'House'.

But, you can also do more advanced querries, such as find all episode of house where the season is greater than 3.

Title = 'House' and SeasonNumber > 3

or, even more complex, you can replicate the Missing Metadata query...

MediaType is null or MediaTitle is null or (MediaType = 'TV' and EpisodeNumber = 0)

You can also search the genres as well...

Genre contains 'Horror' or Genre contains 'Thriller'

For a complete list of the fields on which you can query, check out this file.

[Biggen]

Ahh. Ok, I'll play around with it.

Any reason for the change? Obviously, this type of searching is much more 'powerful'...

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Biggen

Ahh. Ok, I'll play around with it.

Any reason for the change? Obviously, this type of searching is much more 'powerful'...

I needed to do more powerful searches I didn't want to create separate basic/advanced search panels, etc, so the single search box was modified to accept the PQL querries. I considered making the search box work like a regular title search if you entered a single keyword... I may still do that.

[wrems]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I considered making the search box work like a regular title search if you entered a single keyword... I may still do that.

+1

[wrems]

The search string is case sensitive. Is it possible/likely to ignore case?

[stuckless]

I'll change the search to be case insensitive. (that'll add a small performance hit... but shouldn't be too bad)

[wrems]

One more thing to consider adding to this field. Is execute on Enter key. Right now one has to execute the query with a mouse click on the magnifying glass.

BTW, Awesome job on the inclusion of this!!!! The PQL and the recently added Batch Updater really make BMT powerful and easy to manage metadata in anyway a user see's fit. I just made very quick work of Genre mismatches, and was able to create a few different Custom categories which I then mapped to specific Genre lookup views and created their menu links to have a very nice polished segregated movie collection they way I want to see it!!

It's a little maintenance going forward but I don't buy too many movies, so it wouldn’t be too big of a deal to keep up with/maintain...

One thing I’ll throw out for you to consider is a method to auto tag with the Genre field based on a user defined definition. Sort of what I just did to query and tag my Kid’s movies but applied to the scraped metadata on initial load. What I did was run PQL queries for Genre=’Family’, Genre=’Animation’ and Batch updated/appended the tag Kid’s. Then I did another query for Rated=’G’ and appended the Kid’s genre. It would be nice to be able to assemble a basic definition that would do this on the fly as movies were added to the system. If the movies is Family, Animation, Rated G add the Kid’s tag.

Maybe there’s a better way but this worked well for my situation.

Thoughts/Comments??

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by wrems

One more thing to consider adding to this field. Is execute on Enter key. Right now one has to execute the query with a mouse click on the magnifying glass.

BTW, Awesome job on the inclusion of this!!!! The PQL and the recently added Batch Updater really make BMT powerful and easy to manage metadata in anyway a user see's fit. I just made very quick work of Genre mismatches, and was able to create a few different Custom categories which I then mapped to specific Genre lookup views and created their menu links to have a very nice polished segregated movie collection they way I want to see it!!

It's a little maintenance going forward but I don't buy too many movies, so it wouldn’t be too big of a deal to keep up with/maintain...

One thing I’ll throw out for you to consider is a method to auto tag with the Genre field based on a user defined definition. Sort of what I just did to query and tag my Kid’s movies but applied to the scraped metadata on initial load. What I did was run PQL queries for Genre=’Family’, Genre=’Animation’ and Batch updated/appended the tag Kid’s. Then I did another query for Rated=’G’ and appended the Kid’s genre. It would be nice to be able to assemble a basic definition that would do this on the fly as movies were added to the system. If the movies is Family, Animation, Rated G add the Kid’s tag.

Maybe there’s a better way but this worked well for my situation.

Thoughts/Comments??

Just so you know... you can combine the PQL Querries, such as...
Genre contains 'Family' or Genre contains 'Animation' or Rated='G'

And, PQL is far from finished... this is just the first step... over the next few months, you'll see a few new additions to PQL and I can see it being able to update as well, such as,

set Genre = '+Kids' where Genre contains 'Family' or Genre contains 'Animation' or Rated='G'

Once that is in place, it wouldn't be too hard to have one or more pql scripts run against a single imported file, as it's being added to the collection.

[wrems]

Nice:

Genre contains 'Family' or Genre contains 'Animation' or Rated='G' and MediaType='Movie'

One step! Even better.

BTW, I like the new Avatar!

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by wrems

BTW, I like the new Avatar!

yeah, just trying to give the new puppy a little facetime

[fac13]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I considered making the search box work like a regular title search if you entered a single keyword

+1

I like the idea of being able to do advanced queries too, but mostly I used the basic title search and I miss it.

I really, really like BMT, thank you

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by fac13

+1

I like the idea of being able to do advanced queries too, but mostly I used the basic title search and I miss it.

I really, really like BMT, thank you

I've changed the code so that it works this way, so i'll be in the next build... I just don't know when the next build will be

[Comitizer]

This seems pretty good but I find that I have to type the entire title now if I'm just entering a single search term. For example, if I search for "Shameless" in the old system I would get any piece of media with "Shameless" in the title. Now, I miss the items that are called "Shameless (US)".

I used to use this to query to find all items of some specific series. For example, "The Office" is often often tagged as "The Office (US)". In the old system, the query would bring back both. Now, I just get the first one.

I tried to use a wildcard (*) but that didn't help. Can you add the wildcard?

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Comitizer

This seems pretty good but I find that I have to type the entire title now if I'm just entering a single search term. For example, if I search for "Shameless" in the old system I would get any piece of media with "Shameless" in the title. Now, I miss the items that are called "Shameless (US)".

I used to use this to query to find all items of some specific series. For example, "The Office" is often often tagged as "The Office (US)". In the old system, the query would bring back both. Now, I just get the first one.

I tried to use a wildcard (*) but that didn't help. Can you add the wildcard?

I'll look into adding wildcard support. Obviously, we are still working out the kinks with PQL

[Comitizer]

No worries, I think it has some SERIOUS potential in the future. Thanks for taking my feedback.

[wrems]

Avoid the = and use contains:

Title contains 'Shameless'

[MitchSchaft]

Originally Posted by wrems

Avoid the = and use contains:

Title contains 'Shameless'

That's the only way I could get it to work. Use 'contains' instead of '='.

[Fuzzy]

Another point to perhaps try to work towards might be to incorporate parentheses support as well. I can think of a few situations where this would be useful. Also, forgive me for not looking yet, but are the PQL search results exposed via the Phoenix API?

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Another point to perhaps try to work towards might be to incorporate parentheses support as well. I can think of a few situations where this would be useful. Also, forgive me for not looking yet, but are the PQL search results exposed via the Phoenix API?

Parenthesis are supported as well as 'and' and 'or'...

MediaType is null or MediaTitle is null or (MediaType = 'TV' and EpisodeNumber = 0)

PQL is exposed, in a way, in that it's a native part of the VFS. PQL results are vfs items.