Multiple Genre approach to be compliant with XBMC NFO

Right now XBMC Media Companion stores movies with multiple genres as:

Code:

<genre>Sci-Fi / Thriller / Horror</genre>

However that is not necessarily valid XML and not compliant with the XBMC nfo spec. It should be:

Code:

<genre>Sci-Fi</genre>
<genre>Thriller</genre>
<genre>Horror</genre>

Reference this thread here:
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=40885

Could you please change XBMC Media Companion to store the multiple genre information as multiple genre tags?

egg

I based this on the exported XML XBMC db.

Would you comfirm that having multiple genre tags actually are imported into XBMC.

I will test within the next day or two and report back.

egg

Any updates on this?

I tested by manually adding an extra genre tag, and XBMC picks it up.

If the genre is changed to seperate tag/value pairs, will media companion be able to convert old format .nfo files?

DrDDT wrote:

Any updates on this?

I tested by manually adding an extra genre tag, and XBMC picks it up.

If the genre is changed to seperate tag/value pairs, will media companion be able to convert old format .nfo files?

I looked into this, while XBMC supports the seperate tags, it also supports the tags as MC stores them, I tested it with my own library.
with "<genre>Sci-Fi / Thriller / Horror</genre>", all three genre's are imported into XBMC correctly.

I will change this at some point in the future but it would require a fair bit of work and yet another import method (nfo files created before the change still need to be supported). Basically it is not a priority.

Over the coming weeks I want to add support for local actor thumbs, and then the Music section (Artist/Album).nfo support. I believe both of these will increase the functionality of the program more than changing the way genre information is stored.

On the other hand, if you can persuade me that the current method causes problems in some way then I will re-evaluate.

[quote="billyad2000"]

DrDDT wrote:

Any updates on this?


On the other hand, if you can persuade me that the current method causes problems in some way then I will re-evaluate.

Using seperate tags makes it easier to manipulate existing nfo files. For me it's a nice to have.

For example, I'm (mis)using the genre tag to sort of re-create a folder structure. All movies in 'Directory1' also get a <genre>Directory1</genre> tag.
With the seperate tags, I can use basic XML tool to add/remove the correct genre tags, but with the 'old' format, I also have to parse the value string.

DrDDT wrote:

Using seperate tags makes it easier to manipulate existing nfo files. For me it's a nice to have.

For example, I'm (mis)using the genre tag to sort of re-create a folder structure. All movies in 'Directory1' also get a <genre>Directory1</genre> tag.
With the seperate tags, I can use basic XML tool to add/remove the correct genre tags, but with the 'old' format, I also have to parse the value string.

I actually like that idea, and it would be easy for me to add this capability to MC, even using the current tag format whch would be my preference, I don't really want to become bogged down rewriting the nfo parsers at the moment.

Let me know.

billyad2000 wrote:

DrDDT wrote:

Using seperate tags makes it easier to manipulate existing nfo files. For me it's a nice to have.

For example, I'm (mis)using the genre tag to sort of re-create a folder structure. All movies in 'Directory1' also get a <genre>Directory1</genre> tag.
With the seperate tags, I can use basic XML tool to add/remove the correct genre tags, but with the 'old' format, I also have to parse the value string.

I actually like that idea, and it would be easy for me to add this capability to MC, even using the current tag format whch would be my preference, I don't really want to become bogged down rewriting the nfo parsers at the moment.

Let me know.

If you could build this in that would be great! Saves me a lot of coding doing it myself.
I wouldn't mind if the 'old' method would be used.