Hello friends,
Extras seem to be an extremely powerful bonus feature for customisation that does... I can't actually tell! That's the problem. "Extras" can mean virtually anything. It seems like an even more powerful/flexible version of custom fields (with some limitations).
What do people use Extras fields for? I'd appreciate some examples. What do you use Extras fields for?
Thanks!
Example uses of Extras
Re: Example uses of Extras
I've read the Help page on Extras:
It gives an idea of what sort of things I can do it with the system. But I'd still like to know what people are actually using it for in reality in the 2020s.
Each extra has the following fields:
Number: Extra number between 1 and the number of extras. This number matches to the position of the extra in the extra list of movie.
Tag: Extra tag. This field is mainly used for HTML export and printing to identify an extra of a movie but there is no restriction in its use.
Title: Extra title.
Category: Extra category (e.g. covers, fanarts, snapshots, casting, trailers, videos, ...).
URL: URL or file path of associated extra.
Description: Extra description.
Comments: Extra comments.
Created by: Extra creator. This field is mainly used for scripts in order to know what extras have been created by themselves and so update them easier without modify the others.
Picture: Extra picture.
It gives an idea of what sort of things I can do it with the system. But I'd still like to know what people are actually using it for in reality in the 2020s.
Re: Example uses of Extras
It was a feature added by Mickaël among the few other ones he made between version 3.6 and 4.2.1
I think that originally it was mostly for having some actor-related info and additional images, but I never used it myself.
I think that originally it was mostly for having some actor-related info and additional images, but I never used it myself.
Re: Example uses of Extras
It's so powerful as a sort of super-custom fields feature that it's actually hard to find a proper, fitting use for it. Every use case I can think of makes use of at most about half of the fields offered by an "Extra". I was thinking of using it for episodes of TV shows but (a) I don't think the database can handle potentially 100+ extra records per entry and (b) I'd only be using two or three fields out of a dozen. IDK.antp wrote: 2025-04-13 12:17:29 It was a feature added by Mickaël among the few other ones he made between version 3.6 and 4.2.1
I think that originally it was mostly for having some actor-related info and additional images, but I never used it myself.
It goes with what I was saying in one of my other posts. AMC is only of the most oddly-designed yet powerful pieces of software I've ever seen. You can definitely tell it was designed by multiple people over a very long period of time. The biggest headache has been the keyboard shortcuts. Almost none of them were ever standard Windows shortcuts, either now or back in 2001. Too much reliance on F-keys. Are there any secret alternatives to the shortcuts that make more sense? Ideally, for example, adding a new item[1] would be CTRL+N (or CTRL+SHIFT+N for a version that brings up the script menu as well). In the early 2000s, shortcuts were much more of a mixed bag. They were kinda up for grabs and different programs made their own drastically different decisions, but things have standardised since then. Every powerful program has its learning curve and I guess this is just the big part of it for me with AMC.
[1] Or CTRL+I and CTRL+SHIFT+I if CTRL+N is associated too closely with "New document/database/list/whatever". AbstractSpoon's Todolist is my personal model for open source native UX design: an application that performs a (theoretically) simple CRUD task but that is so insanely powerful at what it does that it can be turned into a key-value store for basically any type of information. (It's actually becoming somewhat too powerful/bulky/feature-creepy, IMO, but whatever.) I use it for tons of things that have nothing to do with to-do lists. Hell, if you slapped a few scraper scripts onto it, it'd smash GCStar and Tellico for best generic key-value collections. It already destroys most personal database applications. My point is that it uses CTRL+N for a new tasklist and CTRL+T for a new task (or CTRL+SHIFT+T for a new subtask). In AMC, this would translate to CTRL+I for a new item or CTRL+E for a new entry or something.
Thanks.
Re: Example uses of Extras
I don't think it would be an issue to have a lot of extra entries per movie entry, the major issue you could encounter is the size of the catalog if images are stored in it.
But if you store images and linked external files, that should work fine.
I tried to assign keys to most of the functions, so many Ctrl+letter and F-keys were used.
Ctrl+N is for a new file, that's quite standard. Indeed Alt+Ins for a new movie is probably not very standard/usual (I found that the "insert" key sounded good for inserting a new record, I suppose; possibly another software I used back then had that shortcut).
Back then, in early 2000s, keyboard all still had all their 100+ keys, and manufacturer were keeping the F-keys available by default. Now they often put other features there, requiring to use a Fn key to access the original F-keys effect
But if you store images and linked external files, that should work fine.
I tried to assign keys to most of the functions, so many Ctrl+letter and F-keys were used.
Ctrl+N is for a new file, that's quite standard. Indeed Alt+Ins for a new movie is probably not very standard/usual (I found that the "insert" key sounded good for inserting a new record, I suppose; possibly another software I used back then had that shortcut).
Back then, in early 2000s, keyboard all still had all their 100+ keys, and manufacturer were keeping the F-keys available by default. Now they often put other features there, requiring to use a Fn key to access the original F-keys effect