How do I group videos in DVDPedia?

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duncancreamer
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How do I group videos in DVDPedia?

Post by duncancreamer »

I have all my DVDs in binders on shelves. Many of these movies are grouped together within the binder, rather than completely alphabetical. Which keeps "like with like" but allows me to add and remove movies from each binder as I organise. My movie-binders are already organised for the most part, and I just want to reflect that same organisation in the app.

I use DVDPedia to capture not only my whole collection of movies, but what movies each binder holds so I can just look it up on my phone/laptop using pre-organised Smart Lists that sorts the database into groups by which binder the movie lives in.

It works well, but I can't find a way to basically make groups within the binders. I want to group discs in a certain order, but the rest to follow by alphabetically. That way I can put all the Muppet Movie discs at the front of a binder, followed by Labyrinth and other Henson/Muppet movies and finally the non-muppet, kids movies in normal alphabetical order, thus resembling the order they are in the binder.

I tried "Sort Order" but that affects the main database alphabetical organisation so that's no good.


Let me know if there's a correct way to do this,
Thanks.

Duncan
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Conor
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Re: How do I group videos in DVDPedia?

Post by Conor »

Hi Duncan,

Thank you for the details. I would recommend the collection ID, if you are not yet using it or any other custom field (that can be activated in the "Preferences" pane under the "fields" tab). In the field you would enter the location within the binder. Mark "1" for all Muppet movies, then "2" for "Labyrinth" and others and all others "3".

Then when you sort your smart collection for a binder, sort it alphabetical then by collection ID. This way collection ID groups in order of numbering and when the number is the same it falls back to alphabetical.

Tricks: Select all your movies and edit them all lat once to set a default number for collection ID/custom field to "10". This way you can group movies together at the beginning of binder with 1,2 and at the end with 11,12. Everything else falls in the middle.

You could go further and also include the binder in the field. Such as "A1" = Muppets, "A2" = "Henson". "A3" = Other kid movies and second binder would be "B1" = Terminator, "B2" = Other action. This would have no effect in your smart collections, but it would mean added advantage of sorting your library by collation ID would also sort it by binder order and correctly within the binder, when you're not looking at a sub group.
duncancreamer
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Re: How do I group videos in DVDPedia?

Post by duncancreamer »

Thanks,
I've had this software for years and like it, but recently have been using it more deeply as I organise my binders and collection. (I suppose that's one good thing about staying home during a pandemic, you get organised.) I had used it just to keep a list of the movies I have, but it's allowing me to get control of my collecting habit, which is good. Thanks for your help.

Your suggestion is similar to what I had intuited and hacked together, but I originally used a Custom 1 field and then the Sort Title field. I numbered discs by position. 1 at the front of the binder, 2, etc.Then for the alphabetical remainder, I numbered them 64 (or however many discs that binder has in it, My current binders hold a max of 46 discs.) which worked and allowed me to add groups in the middle if needed. I can see how it might be a good idea to include the binder name as well.

Now I can sort a binder's movie order by selecting the desired column header to switch between Title and Sort Title. (But will likely switch to Collection ID across all the binders to be consistent.) I suppose the field used, doesn't really matter so long as it makes sense to the user? One small question: In your reply, when you say to "sort it alphabetically then by collection ID", you mean manually selecting each column header to re-sort based on that column right? One or the other, not a set of steps?

One other thing I've is that whatever order it's sorted by when I do a sync, is the order it shows up on my phone. This messed me up for a bit, since it isn't explained what happened or why my phone was re-organised. And there doesn't seem to be a way to change the order in the iOS App. Now that I know, I'm fine with this, but it would be nice to be able to switch order on the phone.

Thanks again, I must get back to organising the discs.
D.
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