Consolidaton of other DBs

[KingArgyle]

Time to chime my two cents in here. What it really sounds like you need is something like myHTPC and Meedio have which is a meta data database. It allows you to define views, and pretty much any type of information that you want. You then retrieve the information given a particular view of the data.

I do agree, that a common database is good for future development, but it also means that some of the quick changes to plugins will need to follow a more formal process instead of changing on the fly. It also means managing and maintaining the common database format. If a plugin that uses the common database needs something specific added, then it should be submitted to the group for review, and discussion before it gets implemented.

This would definitely affect Reven the most, since he's doing more frequent updates than the rest of the group. But, it also provides the development community a common place to retrieve some of this extra information that GBPVR doesn't store by default, and would benefit the end user when they switch plugins for whatever reason. They don't have to run an export process, just start up the new plugin and the appropriate information is there.

You also have to agree on what is the mimimum information that has to be stored. Plugins will also have to coded so that they gracefully handle missing data or features that they expect to be there.

Anyways, those are my thoughts. Good idea, and one that I think needs to happen in the long run.

[Jeff]

One reason I put a wrapper class around the DB was so that the underlying implementation could change over time without impacting plug-ins as much. If plug-ins write to the API, rather than pull data directly from the DB they will be more tolerant of chnages going forward. That said, I do pull data directly from the GBPVR database (violating my own rule) but the info I wanted was not available via an API.

Jeff

[jrockintuitive]

Let me recap....

If we do the export/import feature than Jorm can meet his requirments - again I would be happy to do the export/import with the help of Jeff's already existing interface. Jorm does this work for you?

If reven gets to manage his tables for actors etc. Reven does this work for you?

And, as King pointed out, the data base structure is stable enough that we can combine them without any plugin fearful of rapid change to the data structure.

Then I think we have agreed to consolidate.

Then comes the integration part.

[jorm]

I need to take a look at this. It looks interesting. Really the only fields I have in my exported are show name, description, subtitle, duration, etc

[reven]

If reven gets to manage his tables for actors etc. Reven does this work for you?

my only real problem is that whenever a user lookups a movie on imdb, every other plugin except my doesnt grab the actor info, and this info is needed for my plugin to work properly.

and well would this really be a huge benefit for most users? i dont use xrecord or video arch, ill probably use guide2j eventually, but for the most part the only plugin that uses this info is my videos. so would this benefit most users? is it more trouble than its worth?

[jrockintuitive]

Is this dead? or do want to move this forward.

[KingArgyle]

I'd say try to consolidate them all, even the Actors information. My main reasoning is that we don't know what people are going to want in the future. Truthfully though, I don't even use the Actor information in My Videos, but I know there are some people that do. I think long term it is better to consolidate than not to consolidate, it just means making sure everybody knows about the changes that may happen to the tables.