Can I Copy a Columns View?

[sitenoise]

My ... ahem ... Volleyball Collections have different needs than my Movie Collections. I have a Default Column View that I use for movie collections that doesn't work for the Volleyball collections. I have about 20 teams and I've made a nice Column View for one of them which I would like to apply to the other 19 instead of re-doing-doing-doing it.

If I set it as my Default Columns View and then apply-apply-apply to the other ones, will it change all the movie collections I have set to Default Columns view, or will they remain untouched until I ... do something?

I'm thinking I can do this, and then just go to a Movie Collection that is/was set to Default Columns and set it as default column view again and be on my merry way, but I thought I'd ask first if anyone has experience in this area.

Ideally, without "setting" anything, if I could just "copy" a column view and 'paste' it to other collections I'd have less overly paranoid worry on my plate.

[FineWine]

Have read of this previous Topic:

Bookpedia - Default columns in a new collection

Though it is talking about Bookpedia it applies to all the pedia's.

[sitenoise]

The Collections I want to manipulate already exist.

And I believe you answered my fearful question that if I set one of these Volleyball arrangements to "Default View" so I can apply it to the other 19 Volleyball collections, then it will change any of the movie collections to this 'temporary' Volleyball layout that were set to Default Columns:

any collection that is set to default will change every time you set a new default

am I reading that right? If so, I don't want that to happen.

Hey @Conor:
"Copy Column Arrangement"
"Paste Column Arrangement"
Is that possible?

[sitenoise]

I suppose if I:
--go to a Movie Collection that is set to Default View and resize one the columns a smidge so it revokes being set to Default
--go to the VB master, set as default, apply to the rest of the VB Collections
--go to that Movie Collection I moved a smidge, move it back, Set as Default

I might get away unscathed?

[FineWine]

Ok. You see the pedia's are not inherently designed to have different Preference files per pedia, this is where the column arrangements are stored. In your case DVDpedia. (~/Library/Preferences/com.bruji.dvdpedia.plist). So the trick here is to have two preference files, one for your DVD collection and one for your Volleyball.

You see I asked Conor this very question back in December 2017 and he very graciously provided me with a work around.

If you do not mind getting your hands dirty there is a way to achieve this. Have a read here for the answer to your prayer: Running DVDpedia with different Data Folders/Profiles

This worked for me.

Good luck

[sitenoise]

That's pretty cool but I'm stubborn about using one database. When I started the volleyball thing I thought about making a separate db but decided against it. I use DVDP for all kinds of things (restaurants, applications, user manuals, etc. etc.). It's my database world. I want it open all the time with everything in it Coupled with exporting to web pages it's an amazing world.

I've figured out all kinds of crazy ways to use the initial "Movie" fields for gosh knows what. Director=Team; Writer=university they came from; Tagline=High School ... lol ... Then when I hack around with the export templates I can re-label them to something more appropriate.

So what do you think of the idea:

--go to a Movie Collection that is set to Default View and resize one of the columns a smidge so it revokes being set to Default
--go to the VB master, set it as default, apply it to the rest of the VB Collections
--go to that Movie Collection I moved a smidge, move it back a smidge, Set it as Default

Will I get away unscathed?

[FineWine]

Have a read of this Help Topic: The different collections

Now always remember you have your Master Library (DVD Library) where you can Include or Exclude Collections. What you need to do is create an Excluded Collection/s for each Volleyball team. (Grey Folder icon)

• 1 - Set DVD Library as Default
  2 - Set all your other DVD Collections using Apply Default Columns
  3 - Now in your Excluded Volleyball Collections arrange as required and Set as Default
  4 - Now in all the other Excluded Volleyball Collections use the Apply Default Columns

So you are just going to have to experiment with Include/Exclude from Library and Set as Default/Apply Default all in a certain order.

You are of course pushing the limits of the pedia's past what they were designed for and that is they were not designed to be a TOTALLY customisable database.

AND of course always BACKUP BEFORE you experiment: File > Export Collection > Backup

Good luck.

[sitenoise]

Hmm ... I'm not sure if I follow this correctly. If I use "Set as default" on an Excluded Collection, it won't foist itself upon Included Collections?

That's the tricky question, which I believe you answered in the affirmative, that "Set as Default" will apply itself to anything that had ever had "Apply Default" invoked on it. I thought I could use that to my advantage with my "smidge move" theory, but then it occurred to me that after I smidge moved my main library back and "set as default" it would apply itself to my VB collections. (my vb collections and all others "not Movie" are already excluded).

I'll probably just painstakingly set all the VB collections, but maybe not. I'm so anal that when I switch between them if the column widths shift around by a millimeter it will drive me crazy

I realize what I'm putting into DVDP is odd, but having different column sets for different "Movies" collections doesn't seem that weird. Like if you had a collection of "foreign" directors you might want "Original Title" and "Country" columns shown, but you might not want them in Collections of your native language and home country.

[Conor]

The default columns can be a bit confusing. Certainly when you want 2 default options. I wanted users who don't really think much about their columns collections to all be updated as they change the main library. They expect to see the same columns no matter what the collection selected is. But wanted to incorporate the ability to have special columns for power users. Which works perfectly when using the program, the issue starts when you want to adjust the default columns it gets a bit tricky to comprehend.

Any collection adjusted, be it resized or columns moved or added gets locked into it's own view.
Collections never touch pick the default.
"Apply Default" makes it like it was never touched (and will start updating to reflect the default).

"Set as default" stores the current columns as the view to show when nothing has been stored.

Assuming most of your collections Movie and Volleyball are at default, this would work.

-- Go to a Movie Collection that is set to Default View and resize one of the columns a smidge so it revokes being set to Default
-- Go to the VB master, set it as default
-- Visit all VB collections – "Apply Default if necessary" – and swap a column back and forth or adjust something to cement the change.
-- Go to that Movie Collection I moved a smidge, move it back a smidge, "Set as Default".

--- In the future when creating new "VB collections" select any collection on the side bar and use "Duplicate", this will bring the column settings along. Then empty out and start adding to your new collection.

[sitenoise]

So my 'smidge move' theory should work, but I'd like to be super confident about one aspect of it.

When I go to VB Master and Set it to default so that I can then Apply that default to the other VB Collections it won't change all the Movie Collections to that 'default' view unless I explicitly invoke it upon them, correct? I'm pretty sure that is correct because it makes sense, but I'm scared. I use Apple products that don't make any sense.

This is why I use this program for so much stuff. It's so flexible and sensible. I use it as my daily home base.

I could make a Collection of Toothpaste brands or presidential candidates. Not only can it/does it serve as a Bookmark collection but the ability to use "key"s as search forces is fantastic. And then when you Double dip into what you can do to the html templates for searching, it becomes a beautiful immersion. I'm a visual learner so I like to augment my knowledge collections with pictures

[sitenoise]

Assuming most of your collections Movie and Volleyball are at default, this would work.

1-- Go to a Movie Collection that is set to Default View and resize one of the columns a smidge so it revokes being set to Default
2-- Go to the VB master, set it as default
3-- Visit all VB collections – "Apply Default if necessary" – and swap a column back and forth or adjust something to cement the change.
4-- Go to that Movie Collection I moved a smidge, move it back a smidge, "Set as Default".

--- In the future when creating new "VB collections" select any collection on the side bar and use "Duplicate", this will bring the column settings along. Then empty out and start adding to your new collection.

I couldn't get this to work at first because I think I don't fully understand the significance of the smidge move in #1 and cementing the change in#3

#3 - I need to make a change to the VB Collections that I've applied the VB Default to so they aren't living in Default View any more, correct? Easiest way is to swap columns and then swap them back.

Without doing that, when I went back to the Movie Collection, set as Default, it foisted itself on my VB Collections.

I'm afraid to look ... when I set the VB Master as Default is it foisting itself on all my Movie Collections until I go back and Set the Movie collection as Default?

[sitenoise]

Oh no

It happened. All my dozens of Movie Collections went VB Default on me. And strangely they all also switched to list view from grid view. It changed every single Collection in my Library.

Somehow I made an error. I hope I can repeat the error so that if/when I recreate the Proper Movie Default it will change back all the ones that changed to VB default.

It's strange that this didn't happen right when I experimented with it. I'm positive of that. It seems to have just decided to do it over night. In other words, two days ago when I experimented with it, nothing changed. I only noticed it this morning because 'something' changed the SORT of the VB collections I was working on. So I looked further in horror.

Don't know if this is related. Yesterday DVDP became unresponsive to any mouse clicks. I force quit it and restarted. Today it's behaving oddly. As I said, this event also changed all my Collections to List view. So right now, if I change a Collection to Grid View and then click on another Collection it does not show me the clicked on Collection. It just stays on the first one I changed to Grid View. I can't change to any other Collection without first changing back to List View.

[sitenoise]

Well, I dunno. Restarted my computer, launched DVDP and it is back to Default Movie Columns and proper sortings and Grid/List view choices.

Super Weird. That was scary. I'm not gonna mess with smidge move theory Default Column shenanigans any more.