As it is today, you have to decide in advance that you want to see (ex - a Bourne movie), then go to collections, select Bourne and then select the one you want. No doubt this works for some. I say it’s flawed because of how many of us actually use Infuse.
Collections should exist within the listing of movies taking up one thumbnail and when clicked on, open up to just those inside. Many times you want to watch a movie but have not predetermined which one so you start browsing all of your movies in grid mode, which in our case are sorted by filename on an SMB share, and you come to the 5 Bourne movies being displayed. Why can’t those 5 movies take up one thumbnail representing the collection vs showing each of the 5 movies? Click on it and then pick the one you want. Otherwise continue scanning down to find something else, like a thumbnail representing all the Pirates of the Caribbean collection, or further down to a thumbnail representing the Spider Man collection.
It’s one thing to know up front the movie you want, remember it is in a collection and click your way until you have it. It’s entirely different when you are in a browsing mode where all of the movies are potential options.
On the Apple TV version of Infuse if you go to Settings > Collections > and set “Group Movies Into Collections” to “On” it will do that when browsing in the Library > All Movies.
You can then set the Library > All Movies to be a single favorite on the home screen so you don’t have to drill down in the Library if that is what you want.
Then maybe instead of incorrectly suggesting that the OP needs to seek out your preferred software, be helpful and let him know that Infuse already provides the functionality he seeks?
Please read carefully what I wrote. I use SMB shares instead because if I use the Library then all the sub-folders that are set for about 12 categories will disappear. Specifically for that reason I don’t show the Library or share Library>All Movies as a favorite. The SMB share of Movies is set as the favorite instead. I’ve lobbied to have the Library>All Movies show folders but it has fallen on deaf ears. Having collections to work with SMB shared favorites as I described is a more elegant solution that simplifies use for all family members.
I am sorry, I don’t know, what OP means. The answer to the original question was given by ochsenauge. So what’s your problem. I didn’t knew this answer, and it seems it’s not evident. But I apologize for giving an answer, that you don’t like. In any case Zidoos do that feature by themselves, without fumbling around in the preferences.
I am a very early adaptor of infuse, and I always had wishes that were not realised or even ignored.
Like so many others. You only need to look at the all the topics here.
Collections is a feature of the Library, so it won’t be available when browsing directly via folders.
Browsing via folders allows you to use your own organization structure to navigate your library. IMHO implementing collections here would detract from this and be confusing as it would either include items that are not actually present in a particular folder, or would leave out items since they are contained in a different folder.
You might consider using a combination of the Library and folders to navigate your library. This would allow you to see collections mixed in with other content while browsing a category like ‘All Movies’ but would also provide the option to browse via folders if you wanted to see your own grouping at times.
Respectfully disagree James. I know someone came up with how it’s implemented today but it just does not facilitate the locating process for many users. Collections could easily be set to not look lower than current folder which would eliminate the confusing point you mentioned.
When the movie count gets into several hundreds (we are over 700) categorizing with a few sub-folders as shown in the jpg I attached becomes important. If the kids want to watch their movies, they should not have to browse down through hundreds of them. Instead, right at the top, click animated and they are there.
Allowing collections to be used on a single level within a folder on SMB shares provides users the simplicity in discovering the movie they want to watch. Again this is for SMB shares as favorites, becasue Library favorites will not show folders as in the jpg above.
Again, you can simply pin those collections to the Home Screen. There already exist genres for Animation, Family, Music, Romance, Sci-Fi, and Westerns.
You can likewise Pin Collections and/or Playlist and/or Custom Collections to the Home Screen as well to cover John Wayne, James Bond, Star Trek, Star Wars, and Harry Potter.
You can also favorite those specific folders of yours and they’ll appear on the favorites bar.
Disagree all you want, but the program was written the way it was for a reason. You’ve got three different ways to do what you want to do. Why not just pick one?
(I’ve currently got 3,509 movies and 11,432 episodes indexed in Infuse, and I don’t have any difficulty at all quickly finding what I’m looking for … 700 titles isn’t all that much.)
You missed my point, if show library is checked in the config and you select Library on the first screen, no folders in Movies are shown and the only way to show them is to use an SMB share as a favorite instead. Putting a slew of favorite folders at the same level as the library ie, first thing you see when Infuse is brought up, isn’t elegant despite if it ‘just works’. Many family and extended family of all ages access our listing and as such I’ve found that a simpler selection logic works best. When presented with the genre, etc they became frustrated (most likely too complicated - some are getting up in years). As a result, I have only two things to pick from when Infuse is initiated, Movies & TV Shows. If Movies are selected, they are then presented with the folders first, below which are the remaining movies. This setup eliminated their anxiety and has worked well for the last couple of years.
What is being requested is to have a config setting to allow collections to only work on those remaining movies (ie. within a single folder ignoring any sub-folders).
I’m just trying to explain that you don’t want to use the library in that case (and most of us likely wouldn’t want our folders shown in the library — since we already have the folder browser for that).
You can totally control what’s shown on Infuses’ Home Screen. You can hide everything you fear will distract from the young and old.
You don’t have to show the entire genre bar — you can hide it but still pin specific genres and specific collections to the Home Screen. And collections will be grouped as you want there — these pinned items act as filters (just as your pictured folders) to the library interface which still allow collections to be grouped as you want them to be. You can pin an item to the Home Screen that only includes 4K titles.
I’m telling you this because with James having moved this thread to “suggestions”, what you are asking for is likely never going to be implemented — and certainly not anytime soon.
I’m trying to offer you suggestions to best achieve what you want while working within the bounds of what Infuse currently allows. Because that’s all you’ve got.
It’s well enough established that Firecore is very much against adding to menu bloat by accommodating our ‘fringe’ requests, especially those that go against their core design ethos. It’s the Apple way, after all. If you are the kind of person who wants to customize every single element of your OS’s UI, you don’t buy a Mac or an iPhone — you buy Windows and Android. Apple products are built to function in the way Apple deems best (so that they ‘just work’ and supporting users is easy because everyone’s devices are locked-in to a configuration that works the same for everyone).
I’ve customized my computer so much no one else would be able to figure out what’s going on with it if they tried to use it. They’d think it possessed. You’d never be able to offer me tech support. The deal you make with Apple products is accepting that you won’t be able to make them work the way you might prefer they do. Instead, it’s you who needs to learn how to work them the way Apple allows you to.
Great reply to why it is the way it is. Actually I attempted pinning the 10-12 folders to the Home page and what you get is a single line that requires one to scroll to the right in order to see them vs all showing on one screen to pick from by wrapping them around. Add to that the remaining movies not in sub-folders would have to be moved into a separate folder so it could be pinned as a favorite - guess you could call that ‘other’. As deployed, it’s far from an elegant approach when it comes to the user experience.
I will gladly adopt another approach per your comments if someone can prove it works by providing a screen shot from the AppleTV that shows pinned favorite folders arranged alphabetically that does not require scrolling right to see all 12 folders. Any scrolling should be down, not right. Assuming for the moment that all the current non sub-folder movies are re-grouped into their own “Other” sub-folder, show if you scroll down the movie selections in “Other” (that are displayed by filename) until you arrive in the B’s at the Bourne movies, that they are displayed as a collection instead of five individual thumbnails.
There is no highly customized file structure here. Everything is in the Movies folder with sub-folders for some, followed by the rest. At the end there are two issues. The Home page does not support the wrapping of favorites to fill the screen with choices, instead if forces the user to scroll right to the remaining favorites. IMO right scrolling is never a good solution. Wrap and down scrolling is preferable. Secondly, collections should have the config option to only operate within a single folder. All of this comes from woking with both 7 year olds and senior citizens that never grew up with computers or cell phones. Both of these perspectives I seriously doubt were taken into consideration when current programing was developed.
I’ve been with Infuse since the beta James rapidly deployed to provide a solution vs Plex’s terrible implementation of an app for the AppleTV. Plex’s app is still lousy 4 years later. Infuse is by far the best there is today for all of us with movies, tv shows and home video collections. I’ve tried to point out the other perspectives by varied users and an approach to consider that others might also appreciate. It’s up to James and company to as to whether they want to address these two items or not. JMTC in trying to make Infuse better.
So you can pin genres, and rename the pins to your liking, and when you browse by genre, collections are compiled.
You can also pin collections themselves (like James Bond) or custom collections (like my “Star Wars” one that also includes the Family Guy, Robot Chicken, and Mel Brooks parodies plus Rogue One, Solo, and the Lego Star Wars films.
Everything else, you view through your File System favorites (mine are “Movies” and TV”) or the Infuse Library “Movies” and “TV” buttons. If the “Library” link isn’t needed, hide it.
Appreciate your effort. Yeah tried that early on. The movie listing doesn’t wrap and instead forces the user to right scroll at each pinned favorite folder. It does however segregate them from each other with yet another one to select if wanting to see other movies or tv shows. IMO not the best intuitively for some, especially senior citizens. It works but the flow isn’t designed such a manner that the user can simply scroll down from the top until they find something they want to see. I certainly do have Library hidden.
What I’ve put together satisfies the top down scrolling for every movie that’s available. The only thing missing is the ability to configure collections to operate within a single folder while ignoring any movies located in a lower sub-folder. In my case, such a config would only create collections for those movies that are not in the folders presented at the top. It’s up to James and CO. at this stage.
Know what you mean. For me, I understand that Infuse is James’ baby and he certainly has the right to develop it as he sees fit. My intent is to provide user feedback in the hope that the logic conveyed might influence improvement direction in future updates.
If @james really is the only coder at Firecore, then I can really understand why this pair of requests of ours (as discussed in this thread) are not of very high priority; considering how much work he must have always keeping the software simply running through the curveballs thrown by each iOS, iPad OS, and MacOS update; and making sure Infuse continues to play absolutely every kind of video file you can scrounge up.
