I like BookPedia very much. Great job. Thanks.
What I miss is the possibility to have two different databases.
The second thing I would like is that the capture of the cover art doesn't require to close the "add book" window. Otherwise, it is impossible to hit the space bar... doing it put spaces in the add book dialog.
The third thing that would be great, is a FIND and REPLACE feature in order to change easily non homogeneous entries.
BookPedia
I was thinking about the possibility of different databases.
Partly because when one has a very large database, adding items is slow. It might be faster to add items to a small database, and then import it.
Find and Replace also might be useful (perhaps with options to specify which fields one wanted to do it on, so that one did not make a change in, for instance, both author and title fields). What do you actually want to do? You could search for items (either a simple search, or using a smart collection if you needed multiple criteria), select all of them, and then Edit the data. That might well be good enough. I've tried it so far to select all itmes whose location is blank and insert a single location for all these at once.
Partly because when one has a very large database, adding items is slow. It might be faster to add items to a small database, and then import it.
Find and Replace also might be useful (perhaps with options to specify which fields one wanted to do it on, so that one did not make a change in, for instance, both author and title fields). What do you actually want to do? You could search for items (either a simple search, or using a smart collection if you needed multiple criteria), select all of them, and then Edit the data. That might well be good enough. I've tried it so far to select all itmes whose location is blank and insert a single location for all these at once.
You can have separate databases for the Pedias. To create those, start the program up while holding down the Option key. That'll bring up a window asking you to either 'Choose a database' or 'Create a database'. When you create a new one, you can either import parts of your other database into it (a .bookpedia export/import is the easiest way to go) or start a whole new database by adding entries via the search.
To switch between the databases, always use the Option key during start up.
Speed shouldn't be an issue anymore with version 4.0 though since we're switching to CoreData.
To switch between the databases, always use the Option key during start up.
Speed shouldn't be an issue anymore with version 4.0 though since we're switching to CoreData.
It's stuff like this that I find so amazing about Bruji's products. I've been a user for over a year, and I read these forums regularly, and I never knew this. OF COURSE, it works just like iPhoto!
Keep up the amazing work, Conor and Nora, and thank you! I'm constantly stunned at the high quality of software that Bruji produces, considering how small your team is. AND you manage to stay in direct touch with your users through these forums. Many companies with 100 times the staff, or more, can't seem to do either of these things very well.
(I have been using separate collections, but this solution is much better for separating a whole different kind of DVD from my regular library.
)
Keep up the amazing work, Conor and Nora, and thank you! I'm constantly stunned at the high quality of software that Bruji produces, considering how small your team is. AND you manage to stay in direct touch with your users through these forums. Many companies with 100 times the staff, or more, can't seem to do either of these things very well.
(I have been using separate collections, but this solution is much better for separating a whole different kind of DVD from my regular library.
)
Features to Add
I have a couple of features I'd like to see added to Bookpedia.
1. When updating a .Mac web site exported from Bookpedia, it would be nice if the program just added to the website instead of having to completely rebuild it.
2. There is a bit of an issue with capturing a cover image with a Firewire camera. At first I couldn't figure out that you had to click inside the cover image box in the Add Book window before capturing the image. If this is not done, and, say the cursor is in the Title field, there is no way to capture the image - space bar, etc. do not work. Having the program automatically go to the cover image box whenever the capture image item is selected would fix this.
3. A search field as part of web export would allow visitors to an exported site the chance to search by topic or keyword.
Thank you for a great piece of software. I think the features above would make it even better.
1. When updating a .Mac web site exported from Bookpedia, it would be nice if the program just added to the website instead of having to completely rebuild it.
2. There is a bit of an issue with capturing a cover image with a Firewire camera. At first I couldn't figure out that you had to click inside the cover image box in the Add Book window before capturing the image. If this is not done, and, say the cursor is in the Title field, there is no way to capture the image - space bar, etc. do not work. Having the program automatically go to the cover image box whenever the capture image item is selected would fix this.
3. A search field as part of web export would allow visitors to an exported site the chance to search by topic or keyword.
Thank you for a great piece of software. I think the features above would make it even better.
That's already possible. Just do your export as usual and after the preview is done you will be able to choose between 'Update' and 'Upload'. To toggle between the two options, press Command-N while you're in the .Mac export window. You'll see the button at the bottom of the window change accordingly.When updating a .Mac web site exported from Bookpedia, it would be nice if the program just added to the website instead of having to completely rebuild it.
'Update' will upload the data and update new entries and their images but not refresh any of the existing images to save time and bandwidth.
Last edited by Nora on Sun Sep 09, 2007 6:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
An integrated search is complicated with plain HTML, you have to have a database such as MySQL for your own searches; But for any of our regular HTML pages you can add your own google search. You can view online one of our modified templates for DVDpedia as an example and [url=dvdpedia://www.bruji.com/download?temp/search/search.zip]here are the files[/url]. Of course this particular template does not need a search for titles as all movie titles are on one page, but the search will let you find movies by anything other than director or title as those are on the details pages. If you use this template or the code in a Bookpedia template, remember to submit your final site to google for the search to work (I just submitted the sample, so the search will not work yet).
Thanks for bringing up the bug with the space bar and the iSight capture. We tend to use it from the table view instead of the edit window, so we caught that bug. Will fix it in an upcoming version as we will be improving that entire capture experience.
Thanks for bringing up the bug with the space bar and the iSight capture. We tend to use it from the table view instead of the edit window, so we caught that bug. Will fix it in an upcoming version as we will be improving that entire capture experience.
Nora you said:
Having just tried the updating step, though I did not time the two processes, updating seems to take almost as long as uploading. Could the temporary file remain cached somehow so that it only needs updating and then only changes to it are updated? Would that save time?
I guess I got fooled by the "Preview" step creating a temporary site with all pages and images before checking for the files that need updating.That's already possible. Just do your export as usual and after the preview is done you will be able to choose between 'Update' and 'Upload'. To toggle between the two options, press Command-N while you're in the .Mac export window. You'll see the button at the bottom of the window change accordingly.
Having just tried the updating step, though I did not time the two processes, updating seems to take almost as long as uploading. Could the temporary file remain cached somehow so that it only needs updating and then only changes to it are updated? Would that save time?
It does create the preview from scratch as the program is fast a 1000 DVDs can be exported in ~30 seconds (more or less depending on the computer). Then during the updates it does not re-upload images files that are already present, the images consist of the majority of the bulk of the export 94%. The HTML text files are always uploaded as a simple addition to a collection will almost always require that all the files be updated.
We have plans to improve that and have an update system that is almost seamless; but to be a good system it's going to take a lot of resources so it's a bit down the road.
We have plans to improve that and have an update system that is almost seamless; but to be a good system it's going to take a lot of resources so it's a bit down the road.