The cast/crew dividers are a great feature that really helps extend DVDProfiler, but they're a bit awkward in a way IMO.  Most of the cases where dividers are used is for television shows.  With just 2 features on a disc it's fairly easy to work with, but when you have 24 episodes with cast and crew it's a bit hard to get all of the information together.

I would like to see an integrated view that combines the cast and crew, along with an episode level overview.  (Extending the divider concept to the overview)  That would give us something like:

---------------------------
1. SPACE PILOT 3000
After an accidental cryogenic freezing, Fry awakens at the dawn of the year 3000. With the help of his two new friends, a degenerate robot named Bender and a beautiful one-eyed alien named Leela, Fry defies his life assignment as a delivery boy. He tracks down his great-great-great-etc. nephew, Professor Farnsworth, who hires the three to work for his intergalactic delivery service. It's a brave new world and Fry is in for the ride of his life.

Cast:
Billy West as Fry, Prof. Farnsworth, Smitty (voice)
Billy West as President Nixon's Head, Additional Voice (voice)
Katey Sagal as Turanga Leela (voice)
John DiMaggio as Bender, URL, Mr. Panucci (voice)
John DiMaggio as Bike Thief, Additional Voices (voice)
Dick Clark as Dick Clark's Head (voice)
Leonard Nimoy as Leonard Nimoy's Head (voice)
Tress MacNeille as Suicide Booth (voice)
Dave Herman as Additional Voices (voice)
Kath Soucie as Additional Voices (voice)

Direction:
Some Guy: Director
Writing:
Some Other Guy: Screenwriter
Production:
Guy In Suit: Producer

------------------------------------------

That would seem a more natural way to view the data than going through the tabs and scrolling 3 windows to the appropriate point.

It would also be cool to be able to associate lengths, etc at the episode level, but that's not as much of an issue. 

In any case there would need to be a way to add dividers at the overview level and there would need a way to tie the "dividers" together between the 3 sources (If the divider text is equal for example) but it would definately improve the functionality.

Welll... it would make ME happy.  And that's important. 

Quoting snarbo:

Quote:
You can do that with the "Notes" section if you so wish, or even create your own with the "epg" which are also "User Created".

Steve

Sure.  We could do that.  But given the already burdensome data entry process for submitting profiles we might as well get bang for our buck and share the information.  Trying to copy overview, case and credits into 2 places seems to not be the best answer to me.  Not to mention the effort required to update the duplicate information when the main profile is updated.  (That's why I gave up doing it that way)

Quoting pauls42:

Quote:
Have a look at Goodguys Credit Plus layout - this compresses the episodes into a single listing and is excellent.

That is really cool :-)  But not quite what I'd like to see.  I don't want all of the episodes compressed into one listing.  I want to see deep information on an episode by episode basis.

Although I'm not sure about the suggestion "as is", I think it does have possibilities and could certainly be adapted to profile multiple films on discs as well, for example.
Just not too sure the best way to approach it though...

Quoting snarbo:

Quote:
No as I said earlier...what you want is Overview + cast in one window.

So do it yourself with either the Notes section or with a user generated epg.
By going down the route you want every profile will have to fit what you want just for TV Series.

Steve

Like I said, that's an awkward "solution" at best and doesn't take advantage of the crosxs reference or data sharing advantages that DVDProfiler brings to the table.  What you're suggestiing would work, but it wouldn't be particularly functional or practical IMO.

Quoting Addicted2DVD:

Quote:
Not to mention there is those of use that wouldn't want the info displayed like that... even for TV Series. I personally prefer it the way it is now.

Ok.  I'll bite... why?

If you're looking at it as episodes you need to look in two windows for 3 pieces of data and then for long lists, scroll to the right position for each...  What the advantage there? 

I'm genuinely curious.

For my part if I am watch TV on DVD I'm generally watching only one or two episoides so I'd like to be able to slice the data down to the point of use.  I.E. The episode.

Quoting Addicted2DVD:

Quote:
No more then a preference. I don't like seeing any info in the overview field then the actual overview. And that goes for any other field as well. A place for everything and everything in it's place. I personally don't mind looking at 2 separate windows for two separate pieces of data. That is what makes the most sense to me. A place for each piece of data. Not clumping everything together in one window. It just looks much neater and makes the most sense to me.

Seeing everything in one window would aggravate the hell out of me because that just looks bad to me. It just makes no sense... especially when there is already windows for each already in the program. All of it together will look sloppy as hell to me.

Just like what you asked for is your personal preference... this is mine.

I collect and watch a lot of TV series too... I personally usually watch a disc at a time when I do watch it. I personally would rather see going down to episode level profiles then to see everything in one window like this.

I see what you're thinking. I wasn't so much thinking of it as a replacement for what we have now but an extension that allows the use of tagged dividers in the overview as well. A skin could be used to tie them together for viewing and the data would still be available discreetly.  A seperate UI that allowed for the entry of "sub-profile" tags might help, but it would potentially add conversion issues which could be avoided if it was based around a "This = that" method of tag association.

I agree with what you mean about each piece of information being in it's place, but it seems to me that when you're dealing with an entry that has 20+ sub entities that each has it's own cast/crew/length, etc that the place isn't really at the top level.  But for simplicity of coding it would probably be the simplest way to approach it.