New Users Online Library

[Alex]

Pretty soon we will be rolling out a feature for users to share their Pedia libraries automatically through a web page.

This topic will be dedicated to any feedback, problems or comments you might have once we launch it.

Stay tuned.

[Alex]

This feature is now live. You will need the latest beta of the pedia you're using.

Instructions to set up your Online Library are here: http://bruji.com/howto/online_library/

[Conor]

The beta links are as always:

DVDpedia
Bookpedia
CDpedia
Gamepedia

This feature will be part of the next release, but being such a complex bit of coding we want a broader earlier release to figure out any bugs and round out the new feature. Thank you for help.

[Alex]

We've made a number of improvements to the Online Library, most of them under the hood so, don't worry, it still works as the same Online Library you've known and loved for the past... 5 days. Here is some of the new functionality we've added:

• Better menus for consistency. The empty pedia menus no longer disappear

• Reoredring by title and other criteria with nice indicator for direction (ascending or descending)

• *Different URLs for each pedia

* This one is not so much a feature as an improvement and was necessary to allow us to add more functionality in the future. Basically, the URLs that previously were:

Code: Select all

http://doghouse.bruji.com/library/alex?app=dvd

are now:

Code: Select all

http://doghouse.bruji.com/dvds/library/alex

Much nicer and cleaner. Just update your bookmarks if you made any.

[Alex]

We've just added more functionality to the User's online Library:

• Searches for all pedias within the user's library (only title searches for now)
  Better icon and menu placements
  Better user management when changing users (should be faster now)
  Fixed error where the thumbnail wasn't redirecting to the proper view

Give it a try and don't be shy about posting problems or suggestions for this new feature.

[Alex]

We keep adding functionality like crazy! Here are some of the highlights:

• Search for Director as well as movie title
  Search for Author as well as book title
  Search for Artist as well as album title
  Search for Developer and Platform as well as game title
  Better iPhone styles

Why is this awesome?

Because if Conor sends me his library of games but I don't have an Xbox, only a Playstation I can just search for 'Playstation' on his library and see the games that I can steal, I mean borrow, from him.

Or say Conor is in town (a rare occurence I grant you) and I'm looking at his movies library to decide what we can watch tonight, but I don't like Russel Crowe as much as he does (and who does, right?) so instead of having to slog through all the Gladiators and Men of Steel and Virtuosity (yuck!) I search for Brad Pitt and voila, I email Conor and tell him to bring over 12 Monkeys.

Or maybe he sends me his library of Albums including the Bee Gees' rare gems but I hate the Bee Gees... you get the picture.

Oh and Conor can't read so I don't ask him for his list of books.

[Conor]

Excellent work, but we are only watching 12 Monkeys if Russell Crowe does a cameo on the directors cut. I only watch movies starring Russell Crowe, Leonard DiCaprio or Matthew McConaughey. (The last one covers me for all the movies released in the last 2 years - including TV series).

[sitenoise]

Hmmm .. First of all before installing the newest Beta:

I logged in from within DVDPedia and added my email address, just for kicks, but didn't check the "Sync my Library" because I wasn't sure what that would entail.

I went to look at what might be in my Online Library and it was 64 entries, with several "duplicates". And by "duplicates" I only mean that there is an entry for a DVD and a Blu-Ray.

Okay, weirdness now ... After installing the newest Beta and using Firefox (because my preferred Browser doesn't show the "User Options" submenu ) the URL keeps redirecting to Games ...

Okay, scratch that ... I guess it was in the middle of updating or something, because now it says I have not "submitted any entries to Doghouse".

If by "submitted" in that sentence you mean "Contributed", I think it should say Contributed. And looping back around to the top of my post ... by "Sync my Library to Doghouse" do you mean capture a list of all my contributions to the Doghouse (not that you would write that in the Drop down sheet. Just asking.) Because I want to be sure what will happen when/if I check that box. If it's just contributions--and not actually my DVDPedia Library--will it also include Titles I have Moderated but may not have contributed?

[sitenoise]

... to expand a little on my semi-coherent previous post:

It looks like a few of the links to one's Online Library need to be updated. The one in a person's profile; the ones in the Blog post about this thing (in the image at the bottom); the one under the "User Options" Gear icon thingy.

They appear to be of the variety <http://doghouse.bruji.com/library/user_name> but then they just default or redirect to 'games' (or at least mine appear to). <rant>did Firefox remove the "Reload" option from their interface or is it now hidden somewhere I can't find it?</rant>

And not to be a grammar nazi but, in my profile it says "display my collections publicly"; in the "Doghouse->Settings..." sheet it says "Sync my Library"; but in the literature about this Online Library it seems to be saying that only contributions are gonna be there.

In normal people's lives that may be three ways of saying the same thing but in my life those are three very different and distinct matters.

[Alex]

The reason you end up in games is because the system checks to see if you have contributed anything in the following order:

Movies
Books
Albums
Games

So when there are no entries to show you end up in the last item and it tells you there is nothing to show.

I'd be very interested to know if after reading the instructions here: http://bruji.com/howto/online_library/ you still found things confusing.

[Alex]

BTW Firefox's reload button is now on the address bar just like in Safari. You can thank/blame Jony Ive for that one as well:

[sitenoise]

<HULK_SMASH>Jony Ive</HULK_SMASH>

Thanks for the info, tho.

I wouldn't say I'm necessarily confused about the Online Library--except I'm still curious if Moderated entries will show up, as in, for example, Mirroring a title. I take your word for it, as you write in said Article that only contributions will be there. I just think it's a little less than clear because of the way it is stated at the two points that really count: The Doghouse Settings sheet and the user Profile checkbox. One says "Sync my LIBRARY", the other says "I give my permission to display my COLLECTIONS publicly".

Look at it from the opposite of my concern--publishing more than I want to ... Someone might check the box and think that their COLLECTION or their LIBRARY will magically appear without having contributed anything. Or maybe not (if they read the online Article).

Curious tho, as I just checked my Library page and there is a Title there that I just contributed but I never clicked "Sync my Library" in the Doghouse Settings Sheet. I understand it's not public, and/but this is why I'm a little nervous about the whole thing. I don't understand how "Sync" has anything to do with it--and why it makes me nervous that you may inadvertently "sync" something I'd rather you not. I assume your database has always had a list of all user contributions, it was just a matter of how you might make them accessible to the web and other users. That doesn't seem to me to need, or have anything to do with, "syncing" to my DVDPedia database.

I'm not really as grumpy about this as I appear to be.

[Conor]

Hi Sitenoise,

Thank you so much for helping us iron out this beta and the new online library feature.

You have an excellent point on the contribution. We were trying to be smart and keep the online library in sync when new contributions happen. But there is a missing check that the user is actually syncing their library before adding that information to the online library. Alex will add that check to the API endpoint.

But going further there is no way for us to be that smart on the contribution. Doghouse does not have the actual information to know if the entry was contributed from the main library or from some other excluded collection. Admittedly the later will be rare for most users but we do want to take it into account, so there is nothing but your "Library" online.

Which also means updating some of the wording so that it's clear that it's only the library at the moment and nothing more. It's hard to communicate that the entries need to have a dog tag to appear in your online library and hence have been contributed or come from Doghouse originally in the instructions without sounding too technical.

So a new beta is up for Alex to test that will send an explicit "add" command after a contribution if the entry is in the main library. I have not changed the version number yet, as I am still getting a few more fixes in and then releasing another beta version that will self update with the version number change.

Alex has also fixed it so that nothing is recorded until the users actually activates the "sync my library" checkbox. Previously the smartness in contribution code mentioned above was showing your contributions as you discovered on installing the beta. We thought it might be useufl as the whole online library is private by default. But changing the behavior to be all or nothing, allows us to be stricter and make the wording better as well.

Thank you so much. Give Alex a day to get all these changes syncing to our servers and then you can hit him with more bugs.

[Alex]

I forgot to update this last week but we've made even more changes to the Online Library functionality.

• Library sync is now evaluated on a per pedia basis. Before it was all pedias for one user when you checked 1 pedia. This, of course, might not be desirable so we fixed it.
  Contributions are smarter now and will only work if sync is checked.
  Some of the wording has been changed for better clarity.
  Some minor bug fixes.

NOTE: With the recent changes, you will need to do 2 things to make sure your Online Library is working properly:

• 1. Open the Pedia-> Doghouse-> Settings menu, make sure Sync my library to Doghouse is checked and click "Login".
  You must do this for each pedia even if you already had it checked because the code has changed and we need to pick up which pedia you are using.
  2. On the Doghouse webpage, log out and log back in again to refresh the session variables.

Lastly, if you're using this feature, we'd like to hear your thoughts about it.

[FineWine]

NOTE: With the recent changes, you will need to do 2 things to make sure your Online Library is working properly:

• 1. Open the Pedia-> Doghouse-> Settings menu, make sure Sync my library to Doghouse is checked and click "Login".
  You must do this for each pedia even if you already had it checked because the code has changed and we need to pick up which pedia you are using.
  2. On the Doghouse webpage, log out and log back in again to refresh the session variables.

Lastly, if you're using this feature, we'd like to hear your thoughts about it.

MMMM - this is not working for me.

You are not seeing anything because you are not Syncing your library with Doghouse.

On the Pedia, go to Doghouse-> Settings and click Sync my library to Doghouse

I have installed the latest Pedia's 5.2.4 Beta55 and Beta52 today. I have ticked, Quit then unticked, Quit then ticked again the Sync switch in Doghouse Settings. I have logged out and cleared all Bruji and Doghouse cookies in Firefox, Quit and restarted Firefox, then logged back in. Also I am having no luck with this in Safari.