Thoughts on Statistics page

[thajeztah]

I was looking at the 'statistics' feature of Pedia and have some thoughts on that;

• The statistics button in the toolbar has no 'state' (its not a toggle button), however, if I'm on the statistics page I cannot view my library until I click 'ok' to close it. Either make it a 'toggle' button (sunken when statistics is opened) or include it in the view-group (Table view/Cover view/Coverflow/Statistics)
• The statistics 'toolbar' ('options' and 'ok' button) don't stay in view when scrolling. To close the statistics, I need to scroll to the top again to click the 'ok' button (will a 'close' caption be more clear?)
• Pie charts ... would be nice to choose 'Pie charts' for some data as the statistics page will be very wide for some categories
• Right-clicking on the statistics page shows a 'open in external browser' option, which (in my case) doesn't seem to do anything?
• Is the statistics page a html view? Is it possible to apply/create my own template for that?

[sjk]

My hunch is the Statistics screen is low on the development priority, which is why I haven't bothered reporting issues with it or making suggestions. But since you've started this thread maybe I'll mention a few things here in the future.

[thajeztah]

Well, it's not on top of my priority list either, but I tend to write some ideas down now and then. If they get picked up it's nice, if not, also fine. Just trying to improve great software . Would be interesting to hear from other users if they have ideas on this one

[Conor]

Thank you for the feedback. The statistics is a HTML page and the view gets shared by the other display. This is why the statistic was picking up "open in external browser" command that is shown when displaying links for an entry. I have fixed this in the beta and added a "Close" contextual menu command. The button at the top says "OK" as that is easier for localization, especially back in the early days when we did not know how to localize the web view yet. The statistics button does toggle and will close an open statistics if clicked again, you are correct that we should have a visual indication of that (included in the beta, as well as pressed states for info view and links). Also remember the regular shortcuts will work for closing: command-period and esc.

We thought about pie charts but they turned out to be complicated to create in HTML, we would need to upgrade our statistics to use a custom view. The graphs now are 100% CSS. Sadly though the HTML is not customizable, the generation of the code is so complicated that it's coded into the program. You can customize the CSS layout but it would need to work with the current HTML structure blocks. The base file that is used is located inside the program at DVDpedia/Contents/WebViewFiles/Statistics.html.

The other are we are working towards adding a customizable editor is the new XML file that is used when creating the statistics. This file describes what the statistics should be and at the moment is very technical and meant just for us. But if for example if you wanted to know how many of your movies have a location you would open up the file at (DVDpedia.app/Contents/Resources/statistics.xml) and add the following:

Code: Select all

	<dict>
		<key>identifier</key>
		<string>location</string>
		<key>title</key>
		<string>Location Percentage</string>
		<key>type</key>
		<integer>7</integer>
	</dict>

The different statistics types that can be done are described in a comment at the top of the file.

[thajeztah]

Ah, thank you again for the quick response. I will have a look at the technical side of the Statistics page

Regarding the pie charts: I can think of two solutions to add those;
- Google charts (although I think those require a developers-key, which may not be possible with standalone software?)
For example:
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht= ... uji|Rulez!


- YUI charts (requires Flash Player)
http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/charts/

[Conor]

Thank you for the Google link I was not aware about the charting API, I will look into it. The downside of a solution like that is that it requires internet access, we been looking for a solution that we could use with regular web standards. The new Safari 3D functions seem promising, although I haven't looked into it if they can do charts and not just 3D animation.

[thajeztah]

Well, there are alternatives, for example, use 'SVG' or 'Canvas' (both supported by Safari/Webkit without plugins), having the advantage of being vector-based, thus resolution-independent. Some libraries for this exist, although most use javascript or some extensive XSLT stuff.

I did a quick google on this, a nice example here:
PlotKit - Javascript Chart Plotting
http://www.liquidx.net/plotkit/

Still, I expect the statistics page is not your top priority (keeping fingers crossed on resurrection of PocketPedia..), so I will have a look at it myself (if I find time.. lol). If I come up with something, will let you know.