Pocket AMC Reader for Android 2.3.2 available [29.9.2020]

New scripts, templates and translation files that allows to use Ant Movie Catalog to manage other things than movies
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elman
Posts: 226
Joined: 2005-01-03 09:05:35

Post by elman »

Hi,

well optimizations for tablet is something I'm not looking at right now. Problem is I don't own a tablet, so I really have no place to test it on and an emulator is not enough. Thou some changes to improve UI are planned, e.g. new landscape layouts and navigation tabs for action bar. Tablets will greatly benefit from these.

Elman
baz
Posts: 2
Joined: 2013-01-02 21:37:40

Post by baz »

elman wrote:Yes, that is true. For instance my phone HTC One X has internal storage and phone storage. No real SD card, however phone storage is mapped to /mnt/sdcard/ so I can access it as I would regular SD card.

Anyway, did you make it work? If not, you can download older version of Pocket AMC Reader which doesn't have XML picker but plain input field where you can type any path you like. File Manager was added in 1.8, so you should download 1.7.1.
Hi elman
just started to use this on my Noontec A9 andriod box, with the catalog and movies stored on an external drive. is there plans to update the app so that the xml picker can move up to /mnt/ which will then (assuming) would allow me to pick my usb drive. I will downgrade to 1.7.1 in the mean time and type in the path.
baz
Posts: 2
Joined: 2013-01-02 21:37:40

Post by baz »

elman wrote:Hi,

well optimizations for tablet is something I'm not looking at right now. Problem is I don't own a tablet, so I really have no place to test it on and an emulator is not enough. Thou some changes to improve UI are planned, e.g. new landscape layouts and navigation tabs for action bar. Tablets will greatly benefit from these.

Elman
Hi elman,
thanks for the update, is there reason why the root is set to /mnt/sdcard and not / or /mnt/ as this I think this may resolve the issue.

Also where can a get the 1.7.1 pkg file to load on my andriod box.
Thanks
Baz
elman
Posts: 226
Joined: 2005-01-03 09:05:35

Post by elman »

baz wrote: Hi elman,
thanks for the update, is there reason why the root is set to /mnt/sdcard and not / or /mnt/ as this I think this may resolve the issue.

Also where can a get the 1.7.1 pkg file to load on my andriod box.
Thanks
Baz
Hi,

well, reason is quite simple - most people know nothing about /mnt/ or /. Therefore I'm pointing to default external storage directory, which might or might not be /mnt/sdcard/. In case of my phone it is /storage/sdcard0/.

Anyway, Rapidshare decided to delete my account, therefore download links don't work. Until I re-upload the app somewhere else, PM me with your e-mail and I will send you required pkg.

Or you could try to hard link your external drive to /mnt/sdcard/external/ and it should work.

Later I will add the option to change folders all the way to the root.

Elman
J
Posts: 224
Joined: 2008-02-17 17:09:26

Post by J »

Hi elman,

i´m new to Android and I like to say that I really appreciate your app, it seems to have more functionality than all my other apps together :lol:

After exporting my catalog to the phone there are two things I noticed so far:

1) Perhaps the colors white and gray (color tag 0 and 12) used for the title coloring are interchanged, for me the title color for "white" movies apear gray and vice versa. The other colors are fine.

2) For movies with some special characters in the title as well as for double movies (different movies with same name) the picture is not shown.

In the first case, the special character in the movie name is transformed to another character, e.g. the accent grave is changed to some czech looking character. The filename for the associated picture is still original.

In the second case the picture for the second movie with same name is not shown. The picture filename format for the second movie is
CatalogName_MovieName_SomeNumber.jpg
The number might be the internal picture number from AMC.

Any idea other than renaming movie for these?


And at last I have a small request:
Would it be possible to add "date added" for the sorting? So I can sort my newest movies (these are not necessarily the ones with the highest number) to top/bottom?

Btw. the apps works very fast even with 2000 movies incl. pictures, which is about 150MB.
Thank you for developing this fine app. :grinking:

J.
elman
Posts: 226
Joined: 2005-01-03 09:05:35

Post by elman »

Hi,

I'm glad you like the app :)
J wrote: 1) Perhaps the colors white and gray (color tag 0 and 12) used for the title coloring are interchanged, for me the title color for "white" movies apear gray and vice versa. The other colors are fine.
Colors are as intended. Color 0 means movie has no associated color, therefore I use default Android color, which is grayish, as you say. Color 12, which is in fact gray on PC, was not very good visible on black background and I changed it to white.
J wrote: 2) For movies with some special characters in the title as well as for double movies (different movies with same name) the picture is not shown.
In the first case, the special character in the movie name is transformed to another character, e.g. the accent grave is changed to some czech looking character. The filename for the associated picture is still original.
Have you tried to change Catalog encoding in Settings? If not, try different encodings. If none of it helps, send me sample of your catalog (2-3 movies should be enough).
J wrote: In the second case the picture for the second movie with same name is not shown. The picture filename format for the second movie is
CatalogName_MovieName_SomeNumber.jpg
The number might be the internal picture number from AMC.

Any idea other than renaming movie for these?
I really don't think this is problem with my app. AMC stores picture name in XML and use this value to show the picture. It has no relation to movie name and could be anything. Do you store catalog in XML as default or did you use export?
J wrote: And at last I have a small request:
Would it be possible to add "date added" for the sorting? So I can sort my newest movies (these are not necessarily the ones with the highest number) to top/bottom?
Shouldn't be a problem. Will add it in next release.

Elman
J
Posts: 224
Joined: 2008-02-17 17:09:26

Post by J »

Hello elman,
thanks for your fast answer, I attached a demo catalog to give you an example.
http://www18.zippyshare.com/v/17202684/file.html
Colors are as intended. Color 0 means movie has no associated color, therefore I use default Android color, which is grayish, as you say. Color 12, which is in fact gray on PC, was not very good visible on black background and I changed it to white.
OK, no problem.
Have you tried to change Catalog encoding in Settings? If not, try different encodings. If none of it helps, send me sample of your catalog (2-3 movies should be enough).
I´m using the amc-format with pictures included.
Changing the encoding in the settings is set back to windows-1252 (which is, I guess, the win default encoding) every time I save the catalog in amc-format.
Also changing the encoding and exporting to XML will not have changed the encoding in the exported XML file.
Only saving in XML preserves the new encoding settings, so I will try this or just change the movies name, it´s only three movies (first three in example).

UPDATE: Ahhhh, changing to western europe IN THE APP was successfull! Haven´t seen that option before. :shocked:
No need to change anything in AMC then.
--> Solved.
I really don't think this is problem with my app. AMC stores picture name in XML and use this value to show the picture. It has no relation to movie name and could be anything. Do you store catalog in XML as default or did you use export?
Well, I found the reason for this. Every time I export the catalog, a different number is attached to the second picture filename. e.g.

TEST_The Illusionist.jpg <--- first movie
TEST_The Illusionist_12205687.jpg <--- second movie

This number changes EVERY TIME I export the catalog.
What I did was adding some movies to the catalog, exporting it, and only copying the new XML and the new pictures to my phone. So the numbers in the new exported catalog didn´t correspond the numbers of the previous pictures on the phone. Copying the new XML-catalog and all pictures of "double"-movies will perhaps do the trick. It´s a bit uncomfortable, but i don´t want to copy all pictures every time I added only one movie.
So you were right, it´s not a problem with your app.

The other solution seems to change to XML instead using amc-format. I prefered amc because I don´t like to have thousands of picture files in my folder.
Will add it in next release.
Thank you.
elman
Posts: 226
Joined: 2005-01-03 09:05:35

Post by elman »

J wrote: Well, I found the reason for this. Every time I export the catalog, a different number is attached to the second picture filename. e.g.

TEST_The Illusionist.jpg <--- first movie
TEST_The Illusionist_12205687.jpg <--- second movie

This number changes EVERY TIME I export the catalog.
What I did was adding some movies to the catalog, exporting it, and only copying the new XML and the new pictures to my phone. So the numbers in the new exported catalog didn´t correspond the numbers of the previous pictures on the phone. Copying the new XML-catalog and all pictures of "double"-movies will perhaps do the trick. It´s a bit uncomfortable, but i don´t want to copy all pictures every time I added only one movie.
So you were right, it´s not a problem with your app.

The other solution seems to change to XML instead using amc-format. I prefered amc because I don´t like to have thousands of picture files in my folder.

Thank you.
Hi,

yes, I meant in the app. Glad to see you got it working. :)

I solved my problem with duplicate images like this. I'm using preference "Use formatted movie title" just like you do. However when I see there is a duplicate and random image name is generated, I simply copy this picture, rename it to something more meaningful like "TEST_The Illusionist_(2009).jpg", switch preference to "Keep original name" and add this image to the movie. Then I switch preference to its original setting. I'm using XML catalog, so I'm not sure if it works with AMC as well. Maybe worth a try.

Also note that there is a new preference in latest AMC which allows storing of pictures in a subfolder, so you wouldn't have your main folder cluttered and you would save yourself a hassle doing exports all the time. Not sure where you can set it up thou, I just saw it in release notes.
J
Posts: 224
Joined: 2008-02-17 17:09:26

Post by J »

hi elman,

meanwhile I found a (at least for me) sufficient way to update the phone catalog fast and easy (quick & dirty) and stay with the amc-format on PC.

I simply connect my mobile via USB and open a second instance of AMC with direct access to the catalog on phones SD-card.
Due to the fact, that almost every change of the catalog is adding a new movie,
with a simple copy/paste from one catalog to the other I can update the one on the phone and save without any trouble with naming or anything else.

Every other change in the original catalog might be a bit hard to remember,
but from time to time I´ll copy the whole stuff to the phone (which btw can easily be done by deleting all movies on phones catalog and importing the amc catalog from PC) to be 100% sure to have a 1:1 copy.

Unfortunately there is always a reimport af all movies to the database/cache when adding a new movie, which takes a couple of minutes.
Is there a way to prevent/shorten this?

Thank you
J.
elman
Posts: 226
Joined: 2005-01-03 09:05:35

Post by elman »

Hi,
J wrote: Unfortunately there is always a reimport af all movies to the database/cache when adding a new movie, which takes a couple of minutes.
Is there a way to prevent/shorten this?
I can't think of any. If I could, I would use. Believe me, my import takes a long time as well :)

There's simply no way of knowing whether a movie changed or not. And even if I knew it, I would have to walk thru whole file to find changed movies and that is the most time consuming operation. Therefore easiest way is to erase everything and do complete import.
Thomas
Posts: 2
Joined: 2013-01-23 13:22:48

Umlaut problem

Post by Thomas »

Hello,

thanks for your app! It is quite good to have a quick loock into the owned movies.

My problem:
I use PVD as my Desktop DB. One guy wrote an export file to export the data in the xml file your programm needts to create an catalog. If I export my db and import it to you tool, I cant see the correct names. Example "Dächern" will shown as "Dächern".
Export use UTF8 codepage. I have used every available codepage in your program, no succsess. May you can add an separate codepage to display german umlaute correct.

Thanks in advance.

Thomas
elman
Posts: 226
Joined: 2005-01-03 09:05:35

Re: Umlaut problem

Post by elman »

Thomas wrote:If I export my db and import it to you tool, I cant see the correct names. Example "Dächern" will shown as "Dächern".
Export use UTF8 codepage. I have used every available codepage in your program, no succsess.
Hi,

problem is that AMC doesn't use UTF-8. You need to make the export in ANSI. If you can't do that within export, you can use text editor for this task. I use Notepad2 http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html .

Elman
Thomas
Posts: 2
Joined: 2013-01-23 13:22:48

Post by Thomas »

Thank you very much, now works perfect for me.

One little wish for a future release. May you can add the possibility to sort by the field "date added".

Best regards, Thomas
elman
Posts: 226
Joined: 2005-01-03 09:05:35

Post by elman »

Thomas wrote:Thank you very much, now works perfect for me.

One little wish for a future release. May you can add the possibility to sort by the field "date added".

Best regards, Thomas
Great. Sorting by "date added" is planned for next release.
sts85
Posts: 40
Joined: 2005-03-02 09:39:33
Contact:

Post by sts85 »

Hi,
First Tray on my Samsung S3 Mini I exported 5233 movies on my External SD...But I can't picked my catalog on external SD.

Second try I send my catalog on my phone memory...3 movies appear...

Third Try: I made a new catalog with 1 movie. Afer many problems I appy the "RemoveBadChars" script (it do not appear in the list, you must select a script, edite, Open "RemoveBadChars" in the Scrit List and execute it...)
I export only 1 movie with picture... It Works well.

Fourth Try: I export only my Blu Ray catalog 1687 movies with pictures...
It works very fine...:grinking:

My only regret it's the brooser which looking in:
/storage/sdcard0/
I want:
/mnt/extSdCart/
but I can't do it. With the apk ES Eplorer I can reach it...

How can I reach catalog on External SD?

Thanks for all the TEAM.

Jean Christophe de CHOLET (France)
elman
Posts: 226
Joined: 2005-01-03 09:05:35

Post by elman »

sts85 wrote:Hi,
My only regret it's the brooser which looking in:
/storage/sdcard0/
I want:
/mnt/extSdCart/
but I can't do it. With the apk ES Eplorer I can reach it...

How can I reach catalog on External SD?
Hi,

glad you made it work ;)

Next release will remove the restriction to go up from default sdcard folder so that you will be able to navigate to /mnt/extSdCart/.

Elman
bad4u
Posts: 1148
Joined: 2006-12-11 22:54:46

Post by bad4u »

Hi elman,
would you consider repackaging your app for use with Blackberry 10 devices and Blackberry Playbook ?

Blackberry supports Android apps after simple repackaging/conversion from .apk to .bar format, which can be done easily with some free tools. There's even an online packager tool available which does that automatically from your browser, Blackberry simulators are available from here too:

http://developer.blackberry.com/android/tools/

Code signing keys for developers currently are free. I'd try myself but don't know about the software license you used, and maybe you just prefer to have it signed with your own key. Unfortunately all your rapidshare links seem to be broken so I don't have access to any version at all ;)
elman
Posts: 226
Joined: 2005-01-03 09:05:35

Post by elman »

bad4u wrote:Hi elman,
would you consider repackaging your app for use with Blackberry 10 devices and Blackberry Playbook ?
Just did it, check the other thread viewtopic.php?t=5324
bad4u wrote:I'd try myself but don't know about the software license you used, and maybe you just prefer to have it signed with your own key. Unfortunately all your rapidshare links seem to be broken so I don't have access to any version at all ;)
It actually uses the same license as Ant Movie Catalog, so it's open source. I haven't put source codes anywhere one the net so far, but if anyone wishes to see them, simply needs to ask for them and I will send them.
sts85
Posts: 40
Joined: 2005-03-02 09:39:33
Contact:

Post by sts85 »

I have download the new 1.8.3....
Very good, Now I can put my data folder on SD card...
I enjoy too the "Date Added"...
I love this apk.

Thank You :grinking:

Jean Christophe
elman
Posts: 226
Joined: 2005-01-03 09:05:35

Post by elman »

sts85 wrote:I love this apk.
Awesome :D
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