Burvelle's Blog

VMS is coming alone nicely since i have changed the datafiles, and its almost nearing a general release. In the coming days i might make a video clip about the program and see if i want to just stick it on a website for people to download it if they want too.

I already know that this is similar to MAL Updater, but this is for other shows (and to keep my parents happy :D), but this whole experience in doing this program has taught be a few things

1. Keep datafiles structure as simple as possible
   
2. Researching Ideas/Solutions
   
3. Learning C# (of course)
   
4. Planing ahead rely helps
   
5. and more
   

for the few months I've been coding this program it has been rely fun, and I'm def going to keep building on this program, I got an idea how to implement custom skins/templates and filters to the program.

all i can say is its not too bad for my first completeish program, the features in the general releace will be

• Multiple Users
  
• Its own media player
  
• Setting Watched on any group/season/movie/episode
  
• Continue from last time
  
• And a few others
  

Some things not included

• Templates/Skins
  
• Filters
  
• Anything i can come up with here
  

I have a feeling that the biggest problem that anyone that uses this program is how long it takes to set up a group and episodes, so i added a way that people can just copy and paste other peoples datafiles into there copy so they don't have to type a lot.

Not much of an update but just almost getting to a release stage :D.

So with the problems i had programming a few days ago i reworked my datafiles for the VMS - it made programming the new features so much more easier,

so this is how it was:
[Main Folder]

-[Data Folder]
-- User.Dat (holds all data information)
-- Genre.Dat (holds all Genre informaiton)
-- Type.Dat (holds all Type information)

-[Group Folder]
-- Group.Dat (holds all group information)
-- (group name).Dat (holds information on a group)
-- (group name)Episodes.Dat (information on the episodes)

And the problem accrues when changing watched because, i had 2 ways of editing a user take a long time opening all group data files (could be 500+ files) and find the name of the user to change the name, or i could have made a UserWatched data file and it would open all the users watched information every time you open only one group, and there were other problems as well.

How it is now:
[Main Folder]
-[Data Folder]
--[Users Folder]
--- [(User Name) Folder]
---- [(Group Name) Folder]
-----GroupWatch.Dat

-- Genre.dat
-- Type.dat

-[Group Folder]
-- [(Group Name) Folder]
--- Group.dat
--- SeasonXX.dat or Movie.dat

--Group.dat

How it is now puts things in their own folders making it editing so much easier since i just rename the folders now, saving watched is also easier and the structure of the files shrinks about 5% of my code, doesn't sound that much but that's like 4-500 lines of code (excluding spaces and comments of course)


Spending the few days on the structure made a big difference, just wished i saw it earlier

A little annoyed that i hit a wall in coding watched information on the VMS program, that i have to now re-code about 30% of the program,

Have to change:
Data Files
Folder Structure
Logic in the program

Get to fix:
Logic
Editing
Watched
Continue from last episode
Filter

So its not all to bad but it will take awhile but at least its still practice in programming skills

Here are some of the sample pictures of the VMS so far, the template in it is temporary i just put it together quickly so i don't look at Grey all the time,

Main Screen

Main Screen User Input

Setup Main

Setup Users

Setup Type/Genre

Add Group (Anime/TV Show/Movie - is defined as a group)

Add Episode to Group

Player Main

Player Playing

The template creator that is the last thing I'm programming will let users create there own skins for the Player and Main Menu, they can change everything, font/size/colour/position/multiple pictures and more.

My newest program is getting to the almost basic complete version, from my other 2 versions the new features so far is:

1. New name. Old name was Program Selector. New name is now Visual Media Selector
   
2. Better control of users.
   
3. One list for all Types of media (Anime, TV Shows, Movies, etc)
   
4. Visual Media Player, it uses the system codec to play the file, basic controls, Play/Pause, Stop, Mute, Full Screen Mode, and has open in default player,
   
5. Faster to load then V2,
   
6. Looks better,
   
7. More things you can add
   
8. Stores pictures into the data file so you don't need to keep the picture in the same spot all the time
   

Features still in progress

1. User information
   
2. Filter
   
3. Custom Skins/Template for the program
   
4. And anything else I can think of.
   

Progress is about 75% currently for the full program it runs at a basic level currently its about the same level as my V2 Program Selector(old name).

Pictures coming later.