Main Browser tab for movies

Media Companion

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Using the Main Browser to navigate and edit movies
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The Main movie browser contains two panels, the navigation panel on the left, is used for browsing and searching your movie collection, and the panel on the right is used for displaying and editing information about the selected movie.

The navigation panel

Selecting a movie from the list will display the selected movie details within the panel on the right.

Media Companion allows your movie list to be sorted, filtered and listed in a number of ways, these are discussed here.
1.   List
            The three 'List' settings select how each movie is listed, the options are:
·   'Title & Year' Lists the movies by the Title & Year, as in the above image
·   'Filename' Lists the movies using the nfo filename
·   'Folder Name' lists the movies using the nfo's folder name

2    Sort
There are seven ways to sort your movie list.
·   'A-Z' Sort your movies alphabetically
·   'Rating' Sort your movies using the rating, high to low.
·   'Movie Year' Sort your movies by release year, new to old
·   'Sort Order' Sort your movies alphabetically according to sort order (See Below)
·   'Modified' List your movies in order of file modified, most recently modified first.
·   'Runtime' Lists movies according to run time shortest first.
·   'Date Added' List movies in the order you have added them to the library.
In addition to these sort methods, there is also a button that allows you to reverse any list,

3      Search text.
Search text is anywhere in the search field, which can be selected from any of:
·   List
·   Filename
·   Folder name
·   Genre
·   Rating
·   IMDB ID
·   Outline
·   Year
·   Runtime

All filters work using AND logic, so if have selected 'Action' and 'Adventure' filters, only movies that contain both action and adventure for the genre will be listed.

Right clicking on an item in the navigation panel will bring up a context menu with the following items:
·           Open Folder - opens the folder containing the selected media
·           Open File - opens the nfo file within notepad
·           Reload Item - Reloads the nfo file and art
·           Re scrape Specific - Allows you to re scrape any single part of the movie details
·           Fanart Browser (Alternative) - Original fanart browser
·           Poster Browser (Alternative)
·           Edit Movie (Alternative)

Double clicking an item in the list will play it back according to your preferences.

The main viewer panel

The Right hand panel within the main browser tab is split between displaying a movies art and other movie details. It can also be used for editing.
To edit a field, just edit the text and select the graphic button.

Any changes made will be lost if another movie is loaded before saving.

All split panels are variable size, and can be adjusted to you preference depending on screen size and resolution. These settings are saved so you only need to do this once.

Alternative movie titles.
Some movies may have alternative titles, when a movie is scraped, the standard title is used. To change to another title, just select the title you wish to use from the drop down title list, then press the save button.
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The search button graphic is used to search for certain items. In the movie panel there are two. The first on is next to the sets control which is covered in detail here. The other search is located next to the actor drop down box. Selecting the search in this instance will list all movies in which the selected actor has a part.


Sort Order

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Movies are most often sorted alphabetically, although there may be instances when you wish to group movies together under the same letter. Take for example the following list of movies.

Die Hard
Die Hard 2: Die Harder
Die Hard: With a Vengeance
Donnie Darko
Eragon
Field of Dreams
Garden Quest
Hard to kill
Ice Age
Jumanji
King Pin
Live Free or Die Hard

As you can see, although the first three Die Hard movies are located together, the 4th movie, 'Live Free or Die Hard', because of the different name, is located further down the list. Depending on how many movies you have in your collection, there could be 100s of movies between 'Die Hard: With a Vengeance' and 'Live Free or Die Hard'.

Another related issue occurs when movies in a series are not alphabetical, eg, if we were to list the star trek movies alphabetically, they are listed out of order, as shown in the list below.

Star Trek: First Contact
Star Trek: Generations
Star Trek: Insurrection
Star Trek: Nemesis
Star Trek: The Final Frontier
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Search for Spock
Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country
Star Trek: The Voyage Home
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan


So how does setting the sort order fix this problem. Well all movies already have a sort title, by default it is the same as the title, in order to get the above movies to sort correctly I would change the sort title to the following:
  
Movie Title
Sort Title
 
 
Die Hard
Die Hard 01
Die Hard 2: Die Harder
Die Hard 02
Die Hard: With a Vengeance
Die Hard 03
Live Free or Die Hard
Die Hard 04
 
 
Star Trek: First Contact
Star Trek 08
Star Trek: Generations
Star Trek 07
Star Trek: Insurrection
Star Trek 09
Star Trek: Nemesis
Star Trek 10
Star Trek: The Final Frontier
Star Trek 05
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek 01
Star Trek: The Search for Spock
Star Trek 03
Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country
Star Trek 06
Star Trek: The Voyage Home
Star Trek 04
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek 02

By using the above sort tiles, and selecting the 'Sort Order' radio button in the left panel, then the movies would be listed properly.

By default, XBMC uses the Sort Title when sorting.