DVD Box Set - Links Help

[racerx1]

From the DVDpedia Help File:

To link different entries inside the program to each other, for example entries in a box set,
Open the info view by pressing the 'i' button in the toolbar or choosing 'Info View' from the View menu.

In the table view, hold down the Command key and select all the entries to be linked.

Then hold down the Option key and drag the entries from the table view over the info view.

If you don't hold down the option key, the entries will only be linked to the entry that was selected last, i.e. the one showing in the info view.
They won't automatically link themselves back to the other selected entries.

If you want to link the entries to only one entry but the title has already been included in the selection (and it's not the one showing in the info view), command-click the title twice. The first time will de-select it, the second time will re-select it, making it last and showing in the info view.

When I try doing this, all of the entries (6 entries) receive just one link which is a link back to the first entry. The first entry's link has the link title of the second entry, but just links back to itself. The behavior is such that it resembles as if I did not hold the option key when performing the drag. The URLs of the links are the same and of the form: dvdpedia://bruji.com/asin=B002M9WW30 (Rocky: The Undisputed Collection).

As an experiment I created three blank entries in the database and gave them each titles of X1, X2, and X3. Performed the link operation and it worked as described. The URLs for all of the links were of the form dvdpedia://bruji.com/uid=xxxx

So I went back to my Rocky Collection entries and deleted the ASIN field data. Tried the link operation again and same results as the first time except the link URL was dvdpedia://bruji.com/upc=883904161646

To me, it seems like the link operation only works when the key field for linking has different data values for each of the selected entries (e.g., uid). If the link field has the same data value for the entries then it doesn't work (e.g., asin or upc). So my question is: How do I determine what the link field is when I try to link entries together? Is there a program preference to select this? I think it would make the most sense to use either the uid (but that is not readily apparent for a given entry) or the Collection ID for each entry.

Thank you.

[Conor]

That is a known bug with linking entries that have been duplicated from each other and have the same unique number such as ASIN or UPC. Deleting those two will result in a fall back to UID that is unique to all entries in the database. Originally, we had only UID but this does not work across databases (you export a .dvdpedia and then import it into another computers database – UID changes but not UPC). Doesn't seem many users are moving linked entries across databases, hence I'll fix the bug for the next version by checking for duplicate UPCs within the links or always using UID.

[racerx1]

Thanks Conor - good info to know! I will delete the upc and asin data from the entries, link them, and then add the data back in.

Cheers!

[racerx1]

Was this fixed in v4.6.2? I still can't get it to work...

[Conor]

Not updated as it was a x.x.1, a change like this would go in a bigger release for longer testing as it would change the way the linking works, including those linking files to other programs.

[racerx1]

Have tried this using the new v4.9.2 Beta.

I linked the five X-men movies with the following link results for each movie:

X-Men (1)
dvdpedia://bruji.com/dogTag=1937
dvdpedia://bruji.com/dogTag=462
dvdpedia://bruji.com/dogTag=2880
dvdpedia://bruji.com/asin=B004LWZW4C

X-Men United (2)
dvdpedia://bruji.com/asin=B001PPGAKS
dvdpedia://bruji.com/dogTag=462
dvdpedia://bruji.com/dogTag=2880
dvdpedia://bruji.com/asin=B004LWZW4C

X-Men: The Last Stand (3)
dvdpedia://bruji.com/asin=B001PPGAKS
dvdpedia://bruji.com/dogTag=1937
dvdpedia://bruji.com/dogTag=2880
dvdpedia://bruji.com/asin=B004LWZW4C

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (4)
dvdpedia://bruji.com/asin=B001PPGAKS
dvdpedia://bruji.com/dogTag=1937
dvdpedia://bruji.com/dogTag=462
dvdpedia://bruji.com/asin=B004LWZW4C

X-Men: First Class (5)
dvdpedia://bruji.com/asin=B001PPGAKS
dvdpedia://bruji.com/dogTag=1937
dvdpedia://bruji.com/dogTag=462
dvdpedia://bruji.com/dogTag=2880

Are these the expected results? I would have assumed all of the entries would be of the same type (either asin or dogTag).

Thank you.

[Conor]

The linking tries to be as redundant as possible. The advantages of a dog tag or ASIN is that they allow a link to still point to the movie on the Doghouse or Amazon should you ever remove the movie from your collection. (As shown by the fact that anyone with DVDpedia can click on those links you listed) Also allowing you to re-adding it to your collection and have the link still work. The order of preference for internal or external linking is dog tag, ASIN, Freebase, UPC and last the internal unique ID.

In short the links are the expected results. You can link both X-Men and X-Men First Class to Doghouse entries by using the gear button on the bottom right of the add panel – for X-Men (1) you have to remove the (1) for the search from the title as it will confuse it for "1.5" and a animation "volume 1" and show you exact results for that instead.

[racerx1]

The order of preference for internal or external linking is dog tag, ASIN, Freebase, UPC and last the internal unique ID.

Could the order of preference be a user-defined preference?

In all honesty, I would prefer the links be based on the collectionID key field.

Thanks!

[Nora]

Thanks for the feedback. It's a bit complicated to make it a preference but we'll keep it in mind for the future.