Starting with 2b01, an external skin is included, which can be found in the /roolku directory. To make it work, you need to export your database as XML, copy the file collection.xml into the DVD profiler directory and then open roolku.html in Internet Explorer. The skin will auto install the MS-XML parser 4.01, if not already installed. I suggest using full-screen mode (press F11 and make all panels auto- hide). Overview -------- The skin is devided into 3 areas: the index on the left, the DVD display on the right and a narrow panel for user-interactions below. When started, it will display a list of your DVDs sorted by SortTitle on the left and the first DVD from your collection.xml on the right. The DVD display on the right is controlled by the same settings as the internal skin, so make sure you read readme_internal.txt. You can select a different DVD by clicking on the sortTitle. Sorting & Counting ------------------ You can control the sorting of the index by selecting a different criterium/attribute from the panel at the bottom. The sort column is changed to reflect this criterium. Toggle ascending and descending sort by clicking on the indicator or the criterium. In addition to simple sorting, instances of the same type are counted. This obviously does not make much sense for attributes that are unique (e.g. ID), but is useful to find double titles or repeated collection numbers. It is great way to find which Director has directed most films in your collection or to show for instance the covers of all your DTS DVDs. The following items control the sorting/counting of the index: SORT - list entries sorted by attribute/sorttitle CNT - group entries by attribute and count (gray rows) + - overides sorting by attribute with sorting by number of occurrences Some comments on how it works, as certain results might seem odd: - the skin determines what instances of the sort criterium are available and sorts them - for each instance (group) it can display the count and/or a list of DVDs with this criterium sorted by SortTitle - for criteria that can have a number of values per DVD (such as Region, Genre etc) the DVD will appear in all relevant groups (so the sum of the counts can be larger than the total) - if there is a filter for such a search criterium, the index will also list the DVDs for the other entries (e.g. when you filter for Horror, there might also be a group humor, if there is at least one DVD that has both genres) - if a DVD has no value for a criterium, it will not be listed in the index - sorting by actor can be *very* slow (several minutes); in order to make it bearable, all actors who appear only once are suppressed in the listing If you click on the count field for a group the covers of the included DVDs will be displayed in the DVD details window. Be patient if you select large values. Filtering --------- A simple filter mechanism is implemented. By clicking on a hyperlink in the DVD or index display, you can restrict the listing to only display DVDs with that feature (e.g. clicking on the production year will only display DVDs from that year). Hyperlinks show up as underlind when the mouse pointer hovers over them - so hunt around. The filter is displayed in the user panel. To clear the filter click on FILTERED to turn it into UNFILTERED or simply press ESC. Pre-Filtering ------------- This is a special case of a filter this is applied before the ordinary filters and not reset when you clear the filters. You can select if you want to include owned, ordered and/or wanted entries of boxsets and/or single DVDs. You can set the default value at the top of main.js: sort_param1, sort_param2, sort_param3 // initial sorting var sort_data_type = "text"; // datatype for inital sorting; can be text/number var sort_order = "ascending"; // order for inital sorting; can be ascending or descending var sort_count_value = 1; // flag for set sortcount; sum of flag values var prefilter_value = 1+16+32; // flag for set prefilters; sum of flag values The individual prefilter values are: 1 - owned 2 - ordered 4 - wishlist 8 - box set 16 - not box set (i.e. individual DVD) 32 - entries from NBSI (overrules other flags) 64 - don't list adult genres Shortcuts --------- Two shortcuts to often used settings are included next to the counter: RB (recently bought) - DVDs are listed descending by purchase date NYW (not yet watched) - DVDs are filtered for not watched and sorted by Genre NBS Catalogue ------------- If you have catalogued your non-DVD media with NBS catalogue (www.nbsi.de) you can now merge the data with your DVD collection. This means for instance that by clicking on an actor etc you can see all of his films that you own. You need to specify the location of your NBSI datafile in the main.js file. nbsifile = "c:/program files/nbs catalogue/rob.qvd"; // full path to NBSI data file Random DVD ---------- To start roolku.html with a random DVD selected, set RANDOM = true in main.js. Otherwise it will start with a blank rectangle. Activity Log ------------ Timeconsuming activities (transforming XML) are logged to an area that is shown during the initial loading and can be displayed by pressing later. The log is divided into a java log (top) and a javascript log (bottom). Web Mode -------- Although browser-based, the external skin is mainly intended for local or home network use (because of speed considerations - my collection.xml is 5.5Mb plus all the images, trailers etc). A demo with a small collection.xml can be found at http://www.roolku.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/roolku/roolku.html. When used via the web the skin overrides the following settings: COVER = false; HEADSHOTS = 0; GALLERY = 0; IVS = true; ACTION = false; to reduce traffic. IMDB Download ------------- IMDB Download (see extra readme) is now also available in the external skin.