Question for Developers: imported video title, episode, and relative import path

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by Opus4

But, there is a major downside to existing STVs & plugins & that would be the episode field being blank -- instead of a title, older code would show nothing.

Why? Are you saying that if a metadata scrapper only puts a movie title in title, and nothing in episode, as it should, that nothing gets displayed?

So, we would store the title in both the title & episode fields.

Doesn't make much sense to me... Maybe make it an option, for people with incompatible STV/plugin...

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Fonceur

Why? Are you saying that if a metadata scrapper only puts a movie title in title, and nothing in episode, as it should, that nothing gets displayed?

In existing code, yes. Currently, the imported video's title is expected to be returned by GetShowEpisode() & that's the call that the default STV has been using to get the title. If that field is blank, then no title would currently be shown in the default STV since it is written according to the API docs.

- Andy

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by Opus4

In existing code, yes. Currently, the imported video's title is expected to be returned by GetShowEpisode() & that's the call that the default STV has been using to get the title.

OK, but since you can push an update of the default STV, it should be a non issue...

If that field is blank, then no title would currently be shown in the default STV since it is written according to the API docs.

Well, talking of the API docs, they are inconsistent for that and others...

GetShowEpisode(sage.Show Show)
          Returns the episode name for the specified Show.

GetShowEpisode

public java.lang.String GetShowEpisode(sage.Show Show)

    Returns the episode name for the specified Show. For music files, this will be the name of the song.

    Parameters:
        Show - the Show object 
    Returns:
        the episode name for the specified Show. For music files, this will be the name of the song. For imported videos, this will be the title of the file

So only the last of the 3 definition matches what you say...

And for Title it's actually the second one:

GetShowTitle(sage.Show Show)
          Returns the title of the specified Show.

GetShowTitle

public java.lang.String GetShowTitle(sage.Show Show)

    Returns the title of the specified Show. For music this will correspond to the Album name. For imported videos, For imported videos, this will be the title of the file with the relative import path as it's prefix.

    Parameters:
        Show - the Show object 
    Returns:
        the title of the specified Show

So I guess we're just supposed to believe the longest line...

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Fonceur

So I guess we're just supposed to believe the longest line...

Sure -- the most detailed portion is probably the one to follow. Those calls have had to do multiple duties, so extra info about their exceptions were added. This topic is about removing (or at least reducing) the exceptions for how they work in terms of imported videos.

I would suggest that if you find API docs unclear/inconsistent that you submit it as a bug for further clarification.

- Andy

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I would suggest that if you find API docs unclear/inconsistent that you submit it as a bug for further clarification.

Right, I was just pointing out why I had no idea that it was the official way it was supposed to work, and might not have been alone. So it might not be breaking that many existing plugins...

[GKusnick]

Seems to me that if ever there was a time when it's OK to break existing plugins, this is it. I would venture to guess that virtually all V7 plugins are under active development, and very few of them abandoned and their authors MIA, simply because V7 and its plugin system are so new. So the danger of broken plugins staying broken very long is fairly small right now, I should think.

A couple of years from now that might not be the case. So if there are any other APIs you want to change in ways that might break plugins, best to do it sooner rather than later.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I think it's a valid concern, but I think in this case, a few broken plugins is acceptable if we can clean up and create a consistent set of apis for titles.

Having been through the change when GetShowTitle and GetShowEpisode swapped, I'm with stuckless. I'd go for consistency over the possibility of a few broken plugins any day.

John

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

Having been through the change when GetShowTitle and GetShowEpisode swapped, I'm with stuckless. I'd go for consistency over the possibility of a few broken plugins any day.

I'm curious: my memory may be faulty... could you clarify what/when you are referring to?

Maybe this is what you mean? I found old emails (~2006) talking about stripping the relative path off the episode value in order to get a shorter pathless title, then later GetMediaTitle() was changed at some point to simply return the episode value for imported videos, but GetShowTitle() always returned the relative path, as far as I know. If so, yes: this is the stuff we are looking to fix.

- Andy

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I'm curious: my memory may be faulty... could you clarify what/when you are referring to?

Andy, I don't remember the exact timing of it, but it was on one of the version changes a long long time ago, 2006 sounds about right.

I guess the point is, I think most people would accept a little short term pain to get rid of the inconsistency between videos and recordings.

I also support GKusnick's comments. Now is the time, while V7 plugins are mostly still under active development.

Another target for change could be the use of GetShowTitle and GetShowEpisode for music. It's always struck me as a little odd that there is an Album api that doesn't include some form of GetTrackName and that you need to use the Show api for music. At least I can follow the logic for how GetShowTitle and GetShowEpisode are used for music as opposed to how they're used for videos.

John

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

It's always struck me as a little odd that there is an Album api that doesn't include some form of GetTrackName and that you need to use the Show api for music.

Or why there is no ID for an Album... I know that the database has no ID for it, but you could use the ID of the first song or something...

[JREkiwi]

Andy, when you know what version number the changes are going to be in can you give us a heads up. I'm taking this opportunity to merge a couple of plugins while I'm making the changes, so I'll set a MaxVersion in the existing plugins.

John

[PLUCKYHD]

Bump any updates on this?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Bump any updates on this?

Good timing; I was looking at posting info about this today.

For imported videos and photos, the title field will now be the title. The episode field will match the title, unless it has been set via metadata. Existing imported files will be updated automatically by SageTV so that the title field is no longer the relative path - it can detect when the title is the relative path, so the title won't be changed if it isn't the rel path.

Imported music files are handled the same as before.

I'm currently updating the STVs provided by SageTV.

Saved online video files probably won't get updated because I found a bug in the way their relative paths were being set by the STV, which has now been fixed.

- Andy

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Good timing; I was looking at posting info about this today.

For imported videos and photos, the title field will now be the title. The episode field will match the title, unless it has been set via metadata. Existing imported files will be updated automatically by SageTV so that the title field is no longer the relative path - it can detect when the title is the relative path, so the title won't be changed if it isn't the rel path.

Imported music files are handled the same as before.

I'm currently updating the STVs provided by SageTV.

Saved online video files probably won't get updated because I found a bug in the way their relative paths were being set by the STV, which has now been fixed.

- Andy

Awesome sounds much better thanks for the update.

[Fonceur]

So I'm guessing this has not made it into the beta yet...

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Fonceur

So I'm guessing this has not made it into the beta yet...

Yes, it has. That beta version that has it just isn't out yet.

- Andy

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Yes, it has. That beta version that has it just isn't out yet.

OK, I see that the last beta was a week before your previous post talking about it. Weren't you doing weekly betas before?