"Add multiple DVDs" - pause error handling

[retromac]

I appreciate the benefit of adding the pause button when adding multiple DVDs in DVDPedia. Sometimes I connect through dialup, and have gotten stuck more than once while downloading a long list. But the new implementation in 4.1.3 leaves a couple things to be desired.

First, switching away from DVDPedia to another application automatically aborts the Add Multiple attempt. This should not be the default functionality, as it means the user can't do other tasks until the entire list is completed. Is there a reason this process can't continue while in the background, as in pre-4.1.3?

Second, and more crucially, the process of interrupting and resuming Multiples Adds now introduces data corruption into the results. While adding 12 of this week's new releases, and clicking away several times, and then resuming, a DVD description was linked to the cover image of the movie next to it in the Add sequence. Also, a couple failed Adds of Baby Mammoth left incomplete text data in place, and in one case no cover image. It would be better if these failed attempts were instantly deleted, or marked as Incomplete somewhere, rather than allow to persist in the database as is.

P.S. I also reported a file permissions problem (http://bruji.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2222). If that's related to what I'm experiencing here, please let me know. Thanks!

[Conor]

Thanks for the feedback. We reworked the add multiple feature because we wanted to give freedom to users to pause and resume the search but we also wanted to make sure that you couldn't switch collections and edit an entry in the middle of adding more entries as taht would confuse the multiple add that is working in the background (this wasn't an issue in the previous version as the progress sheet was being displayed). But as you brought to our attention changing programs also pauses the searches. We have updated the program to prohibit almost all other functions while the add multiple window is open but it does mean that you can now move to another program and leave the download happening in the background. Try out the beta version and let us know what you think. We disabled the pop-up display while DVDpedia is not active, but we left the sound so that users might know that an entry was not found.

It could be that the bug you described in the other post is related to the partial information retrieved for the entry, If it happens again with the beta version do send us the list of items you were searching for (select them in the add multiple table and use copy/paste into a mail message or a forum post). Also let us know what site you have selected in the find window or if you have cascade selected which sites you have turned on in the preferences. Thank you.

[retromac]

>We have updated the program to prohibit almost all other functions while the add multiple window is open but it does mean that you can now move to another program and leave the download happening in the background. Try out the beta version and let us know what you think.

Great! Now I can do other tasks while snoring through a dialup connection.

>It could be that the bug you described in the other post is related to the partial information retrieved for the entry.

Adding this week's new releases worked just fine with the new beta, with a small exception. The one little glitch was that the Genre information for two movies showed up as "<Name>Comedy" and "<Name>Musicals & Performing Arts" instead of "Comedy" and "Musicals & Performing Arts". It's happened to me before, and may not be related to switching back and forth between apps, but it may.

Adding IMDB info worked fine with the beta. One followup question about IMDB though: I notice accesses are made to images.amazon.com during the IMDB lookup. If these are redundant to the ecs.amazonaws.com accesses made when first downloading the cover art, could you filter those out to avoid the repetition (or do you want to allow for the possibility that the user was lacking the cover art in the first place)?

[Conor]

The one little glitch was that the Genre information for two movies showed up as "<Name>Comedy" and "<Name>Musicals & Performing Arts" instead of "Comedy" and "Musicals & Performing Arts".

This is most likely a mistake in the Amazon database, but do let us know the ASINs and we can look them up and make sure that is the case, and that it not a new format for the information.

I notice accesses are made to images.amazon.com during the IMDB lookup. If these are redundant to the ecs.amazonaws.com accesses made when first downloading the cover art, could you filter those out to avoid the repetition (or do you want to allow for the possibility that the user was lacking the cover art in the first place)?

It is as you mentioned a way to allow the program to have the cover art from Amazon if it's missing. Normally a plug-in only sends the image URL to the program, and then the program downloads it on a needed basis, if the Image is missing. The IMDb plug-in is the only one that does things a bit differently; it loads the Amazon image and sends it along as an Image and not a URL, (the image URL is that of the image on IMDb). The program prefers the already loaded image instead of the URL, since the Amazon images tend to be better this is why those are passed as images, but if the Amazon image is missing the program can fall back on the IMDb image URL and load that. But you are correct that it's slower for dial-up connections and a burden on the Amazon server that has to serve up the image even though it might not be used; so I will change it with the next version so that plug-ins can pass a list of image URLs in the order it would like to load them and let the program decide if it needs them.