Music folder hierarchy, search unique, search alert, and Launchcast

[Archerkit]

Hi all. I'll explain my cryptic subject in a moment. I got my PVR250 & SageTV bundle the other day, I love it so far! Can't wait to start customizing.

I think I want SageTV to be the entire front-end for my HTPC, if it can do a few more things. Maybe some of these are possible already, I'm not sure.

1. A folder-based hierarchy for the music jukebox. I have all of my CDs ripped to folders, mainly categorized by artist. At the root are folders for the artist. Beneath each artist's folder are individual folders for albums.

BUT there are exceptions. I have an 80s folder, a soundtracks folder, etc. So its multiple artists within a single folder. So when viewing by artist, I get MANY more icons than I want, because I might see a ton of artists under 80s.

What would be great is if SageTV could follow the folder hierarchy, yet still reveal the album art and ID3 tags. That way I could browse and see a "Frank Sinatra" folder which has all of his albums. But I'd also see a "Soundtracks" folder that had multiple albums.

Having a well-tagged collection goes a long way, but a folder-based structure would make it a lot easier for the miscellaneous things.

2. Search for shows, but only show unique. Last night I was overjoyed to search for "Cheers" and have it turn up 59 episodes in the schedule. But many were dupes. Ideally there would be an option to toggle "show only unique episodes" on a search.

3. A 'search alert' function. Let's say I want to find out when Diana Krall will be performing on TV. She may not be on in the next 2 weeks, but perhaps in 3. Maybe there could be a method in which I could cache search terms, and have it alert me when new things are available. Similar to ebay, where you can have it alert you to new items for which you've set criteria.

4. Launchast integration - as an SBC/DSL subscriber, I get Launchcast Plus for free. It would be great to be able to launch (no pun intended) the client from within Sage. I figure true 'integration' is unlikely, since it's proprietary. But perhaps it could leap to the foreground, until I close it.

Any feedback would be great. Thanks! Keep up the great work!

[justme]

3. A 'search alert' function. Let's say I want to find out when Diana Krall will be performing on TV. She may not be on in the next 2 weeks, but perhaps in 3. Maybe there could be a method in which I could cache search terms, and have it alert me when new things are available. Similar to ebay, where you can have it alert you to new items for which you've set criteria.

I like this idea, but don't limit it to actors use all of Sage's different search abilities(title matching, genre, etc). If done properly you could basically recreate most of Tivo's Wishlist functionality. Autosearching(in the background) right after an EPG update, for a set list of search terms(saved form some menu) would come very close. When the autosearch finds a match it could pop up a notice or icon for you to setup up a recording/favorite for the matching show. You could even have a user set option(when the Wishlist/autosearch is created) to auto-record the show if no conflicts with the favorites/manual recordings were found. You'd need to list any currently matching results at the time of setup. This would allow the user to see if their serch was too broad, and narrow it so they aren't overwhelmed with notices.

It seems to me that storing about 5 Wishlists(autosearches) would be enough to give people reasonable Wishlist functionality, I know it would be enough for me. I guess the number of Wishlists stored could be user configurable, but too many and maybe it could start to slow things down. Oh and of course there need to be a method to list and delete specific Wishlist autosearches just like with favorites. You don't want them around after they've served their purpose.

This is something I've persoanally wanted/thought about this for a while, but lack the skill to do it properly. It just seems to me that a Wishlist is nothing more than an autosearch that periodically runs looking for matches. It may be more diffilcult than I describe but it should be doable from what little I can do. This type of project seems like a perfect match for MlbDude or Malore. Just my 2 cents.

/justme