A 'Not' Filter?

[Orclev]

Any plans to add some kind of inverse or 'not' filter, for genre in particular? It's come to mind when scrolling through a list of series by genre, and I'm not interested in anything that's 'animation', or for that matter 'family', but there's no obvious way of telling without selecting each one...(although if the title sounds like manga, it probably is ). To a lesser extent 'not owned' would be nice as well but that at least you can see easily enough.

[(cool) Hector]

I understand your point, but I can't think of an elegant way to implement it, and in the end I think it's not worth it.

It's always the same dilemna: is it worth making the interface more complex for a feature that will be scarcely used?

[Orclev]

well, personally I would add it to the list of filters in 'add/remove filter' - something like 'exclude genre', and maybe even 'exclude genre2' - I bet it would get used more often than filtering by 'video studio' or 'video release date'

[(cool) Hector]

well, personally I would add it to the list of filters in 'add/remove filter' - something like 'exclude genre', and maybe even 'exclude genre2'

I don't know if it's just my opinion, but I find it weird

I bet it would get used more often than filtering by 'video studio' or 'video release date'

Yes, this filter is probably little used, but it's natural to have it. If it wasn't there, it'd be missing, as we have filters for all the fields.

The few negative values that we have, are listed by the field. For example, "not rated (not yet seen)", or "{no tag}".

[Orclev]

Well, your opinion probably matters more than most on an individual basis - I guess I'm just used to filtering in excel/oracle and the like, where 'not equal to' is as useful (if not more so) than 'equal to'...

Edited to add - having had a quick look, your major competitors seem to have this more advanced kind of filtering (NOT, AND, OR, etc.) built in, fortunately you're far superior overall but clearly there's some demand for it

[(cool) Hector]

You really think that the competitors have a better filtered search? What program is it?

[Orclev]

Well, I haven't actually used them (I considered lots of options 3 years ago, and decided yours was the best, and I haven't changed my mind since ) - so I just did a quick search on google about MyMovies filtering (the 'reverse sort or filter' on http://www.bolidesoft.com/amm_tips_tricks.html) and Collectorz filtering (http://www.collectorz.com/movie/manual/search-filter.html)...

(if I could have anything I wanted, it would be something like the Collectorz one but better , click a button or select a menu option to go to 'advanced filtering', where I could have, Sci-Fi, Series, Not (animation or family), Not owned, Less than 50% popularity, More than 6.0 IMDB rating, etc.etc.).

[(cool) Hector]

I've spend a few minutes with the search of Collectorz Movie Collector, and it's indeed very powerful. But my problem with it is that it looks intimidating. A person familiar with Excel will feel at home, but a less computer savvy user would probably say "Hey! I'm not a programmer!".

I've tried to avoid that by taking a different approach. As a result, there are indeed some special searches that can't be done wth Coollector, but hopefully there'll be less users turned down by the filtered search.

Those "AND", "OR", "equals", "greater than", etc... are indeed powerful, but they are scarecrows that will repell the average users.

[Orclev]

So you can't accomodate the average, and the 'power user'? - no, I'm only joking, that's a good answer - and it's not really a big problem at all, even I am perfectly happy more than 99% of the time

edit to add - and, when I show people who are neither computer-savvy nor movie-collection-software-savvy your program (even my dear old gray-haired mother ), they understand how to use the filters very quickly, so you must be doing something right

[(cool) Hector]

when I show people who are neither computer-savvy nor movie-collection-software-savvy your program (even my dear old gray-haired mother ), they understand how to use the filters very quickly, so you must be doing something right

Thank you very much for this feedback, it's very interesting.

It's difficult to design an interface, and my choices are probably not always good. I'm far from being a "know-it-all" guru.

But I'm at a point where I'm about to add several features that are without a doubt major improvements:

- have the program and the movie database in other languages than English
- make incremental updates (download only what has changed)
- provide information about which movies are available on streaming (Netflix, etc...)
- provide information about which movies are played in theaters near you
- provide information about which movies are shown on TV
- all this of course boosted by our recommandations engine...

Those are big tasks that will keep me busy for many months, so it's difficult for me to consider your minor requests. When the big things will be in place, I'll be more open for the smaller ones.

[kakashi]

provide information about which movies are played in theaters near you

It isn't likely that that will be available in Jamaica is it?

[(cool) Hector]

It isn't likely that that will be available in Jamaica is it?

Coollector will provide a link to the IMDb showtimes service.

http://www.imdb.com/showtimes/?ref_=nv_tp_sh_3

The available countries are: AR, AU, CA, CL, DE, ES, FR, IT, MX, NZ, PT, UK, US.

No Jamaica

[kakashi]

That's cool. I'm considering getting a satellite connection for my cave later this year anyways...

[(cool) Hector]