Movies Virtual Directory

I think you could have this be a menu like this:

All > 2007 > 2006 > 2004 > ... (All movies listed in the first menu item, other menu items of each year displayed according to sort method below, for every year that has a movie in that given year from metadata xml. Some years could be skipped if no movies exist)

As far as sorting goes, you could have a menu item at the bottom: Sorting Method > with options: Ascending (oldest first) Descending (newest first) This would be for all menu items, it just doesn't make sense on a year by year basis, all or nothing on the sort order.

do you mean edit the xml file?

For example, I regularly get questions from my roommates saying: "what do you have that's new?" Usually, the new stuff I get are new releases. Instead of sorting through all of the titles alphabetically, it would be nice to sort by the existing metadata that is in the file. If the metadata isn't populated for a given file, then just tag it as n/a and sort them alphabetically at the bottom of the list.

You wouldn't even have to sort by year, just 1 big long list sorted descending by release date so the newest movies show up first.

Just curious but I didn't see a sort option in sapphire.....if you go to the virtual directory and go to all....how are you sorting? Am I missing something or do I need to edit some file to create a virtual directory that shows by some how querying the metadata?

Thanks,

Replying to ankrom22:

For example, I regularly get questions from my roommates saying: "what do you have that's new?" Usually, the new stuff I get are new releases. Instead of sorting through all of the titles alphabetically, it would be nice to sort by the existing metadata that is in the file. If the metadata isn't populated for a given file, then just tag it as n/a and sort them alphabetically at the bottom of the list. You wouldn't even have to sort by year, just 1 big long list sorted descending by release date so the newest movies show up first.

This could be even simpler if needed. The following menus: Movies
-All Movies
-By Genre
-By Cast
-By Director
-IMDB Top 250
-Academy Award Winning
-By Date

Then..

By Date
-Random Movie Title 05/02/08
-Another title 05/01/08
-Another title 2 03/22/07

They could just be sorted descending, newest titles first. No need to mess with sorting options, newest to oldest, that's what you get.

I've never coded in objective-C before, but I image it would be adding code to the SapphireMovieDirectory?.m file with code similar to this, copying from the existing menu options:

38 	        SapphireMovieCategoryDirectory  *allMovies;
39 	        SapphireMovieCastDirectory              *cast;
40 	        SapphireMovieDirectorDirectory  *directors;
41 	        SapphireMovieGenreDirectory             *genres;
42 	        SapphireMovieOscarDirectory             *oscars;
43 	        SapphireMovieTop250Directory    *imdbtop250;

307 	static NSComparisonResult oscarsWonCompare(NSString *first, NSString *second, void *context)
308 	{
309 	        NSDictionary *metaFiles = (NSDictionary *)context;
310 	        int rank1 = [[metaFiles objectForKey:first] oscarsWon];
311 	        int rank2 = [[metaFiles objectForKey:second] oscarsWon];
312 	        if(rank1 < rank2)
313 	                return NSOrderedDescending;
314 	        else if (rank1 > rank2)
315 	                return NSOrderedAscending;
316 	        return NSOrderedSame;
317 	}

Actually, in thinking about this and future design, we've realized that there is a better way than another virtual directory. ATM, the left button just changes the watch/favorite/none filters, but this could bring up a menu just like the mark menu does. A good candidate for this menu (other than filter settings) is sort options, which could be name, date, etc. We have other ideas for this as well.

Sort option is already in next major release.