20091125

Just a bugfix release.
Fixed a bug causing “0″s to appear as chapter names when a chapter lookup failed.

I tried (unsuccessfully) all night to fix a bug that would prevent a file from getting a label color applied when it had an apostrophe in its file name. It’s not a huge bug, and I’m not sure I can even fix it at all due to the fact the file name passes through 3 different programming languages before it gets its label applied. I’m not going to spend any more time on this minor bug. I’m sure you would all agree that the time would be better spent on the next incarnation of iDentify. I’ve spent the past couple weeks learning cocoa (and I’m still only half way through my book) and putting the UI together with the knowledge I’ve gathered thus far. Its turning out pretty nice, and will be written in pure cocoa, instead of the mix of 3 or 4 different languages. Once I get a few more steps in (need to learn more about core data) I’ll post up some screen shots.

TVDB Downtime

just so everyone knows, the TVDB has been experiencing some server downtime over the past several days. Although the site is back up, they are still experiencing issues feeding search results via their api to programs like iDentify. Identify is -not- the only program affected by this, and the TVDB admins are working diligently to resolve this issue. You can follow this thread on the TVDB for more information: http://forums.thetvdb.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2257&start=20

[UPDATE]
They are currently running the XML regen right now. But its going to take several hours to a full day to regen everything. There are currently about 7000 series remaining to be scanned. As we know, series lengths can vary greatly from about half a season to 20+ seasons.

[UPDATE]
The XML regen on the TVDB is done. however, due to overlooking some site improvements earlier in the year, episode XMLs were not recreated. So the XML regen script had to be corrected and re-run. The regen script is currently re-running, and there are around 13500 series remaining for it to process.

[UPDATE 11/18/11:43 PM PST (GMT -8)]
The XML regen on the tvdb is moving along. Still have about 7000 remaining. Will perhaps be done by morning. Based on the number of entries they started with your shows have about a 50% chance for a successful lookup. Try if you want, but myself, I’m waiting…

[UPDATE 11/19/9:48 AM PST (GMT -8)]
Look sthe the XML regen is done. I’ve just tagged a handful of my tv shows that have been waiting, and things seem to be working again.

Next version

For the next version, I have already fixed the problem where all chapter names become “0″ in the event of a failed lookup for chapter names.

I have also identified an issue with the finder label colors, in which the color wont get assigned if the file name contains an apostrophe. An error for these files will be displayed, but the error is only for the label process, and will not affect tagging the file. Still need to sit down to fix this issue though.

20091030

Just uploaded to macUpdate. should be available shortly.
Fixed is the issue for tv shows where names containing an & were not detected correctly. This same bug also caused backslashes to appear before an ampersand in descriptions.
Also is the added option for iDentify to label files in finder based on its lookup status. Green for complete, orange for missing artwork, and red for lookup failed. Colors are not customisable at this time.

2009XXXX

Don’t know when the next version will be out. But here are some things I am working on.
Optionally change the Finder text label color of files that are currently being worked on. And change the color of the final file when done to Green (if everything found okay), Orange (Missing artwork), or red (Lookup Failed). This should make it at least a little easier to automate some tasks.

I am going to look into the problem with searches containing ampersands (&).
There also seems to be an issue in which Finder isn’t providing iDentify with -all- the files that have been dropped on it. I see this mostly with image files.

I do have a complaint from someone that for some reason, if a large group of files are dropped onto identify, and you have the add to itunes option enabled, some files are sometimes excluded from being added to itunes, yet when only one or two files are dropped at a time they always get added. I don’t use this feature myself (I added it by user request) and I don’t wish to muck up my itunes library with duplicates. So, if anyone else can confirm this, I’d appreciate it.

20091010

Everyone needs to hold off on upgrading until 20091010 comes out today. There is a significant bug in the previous version that, well, honestly, makes it worthless. I think I’ve already found the source of the issue. It’s amazing what a missing period can cause.

20091009

I just uploaded 20091009 to macupdate. Should be live soon. Fixes detailed below:

Will now find all tv episodes that are available on the TVDB, even ones
• from new seasons. (previous had issues finding new episodes)

• Forced period detection: replace periods with a ^ (iDentify tends to treat periods as delimiters to facilitated the plethora of file naming conventions. Alas, this can cause issues with show names that actually need a period for the lookup to succeed. You can now force a period to be treated as a period by substituting it with a carat ^)
• various bug fixes, mainly having to do with special characters in descriptions.
• Updated growlnotify and fixed issues caused by new version

More good news

More good news. Great news for a lot of people, really. Tired of your newest TV episodes not being found by iDentify, despite knowing that they exist on the TVDB? Well, I delved into the code of the TVDB module I am using. Been working on this for the past 6 hours or so, but finally got it working so it actually sees the newest episodes. It seems to slow down the lookup a bit, (not majorly, only a few seconds or so) but it at least returns all your results, right? With this coming update, I will not know of a single entry on the tvdb iDentify will not be able to access.

period.

I was considering naming this post something more… inappropriate. However, I have good news.. and I won’t mention saving money on car insurance this time.. (oops! too late!)… Been updating some of the code in iDentify. The good news is, periods are now supported in iDentify… it uses a round-about way much like how it supports the colon. Just replace all periods in your file name (other than that which separates the file name from the extension) with a ^ (a carat). For example “Mr. Bean” becomes “Mr^ Bean” and “The Venture Bros.” becomes “The Venture Bros^”. It’s not pretty, but it works. I was going to use a single * since its visually easier to remember, that would interfere with only 4 shows in the tvdb, and imdb shows could have been overridden with the imdb record numbe.r however, one of the tvdb shows that would have conflicted would have been M*A*S*H… a series that is far too popular to have a conflict with. Currently, there are no records in the tvdb that contain a ^. therefore… no conflicts.

There are also a few other bugs I encountered recently that will be fixed, as well as a few potential bugs that I have made a preemptive strike against, including the disappearance of $s from descriptions. Example, currently, “$1 Million” will become ” Million”. This should be fixed in the next version.

iDentify 20090505 released

iDentify 20090505 has just been posted on macupdate. Use the download link on the right to go get it!

Those who have donated at any point in the past have already been sent their donation codes to disable the nag screen. If you think I missed you, send me a message, along with your email and the date of the donation, so I can look it up in paypal.

UPDATE: Since I forgot to mention it. Donation codes will usually be sent out within 24 hours of receipt of a donation, as I have to manually create them. Code sent during my waking hours, however, will usually be sent right away.