GCfilms can be used with other softwares. It requires collection conversions. Export allows you to use your collection in another software. While Import do the opposite, so you could use a collection generated with another software with GCfilms.
Introduction
Plugins are described in the same order as the one they should have in Export and Import menus (sub-menus of File). If one of them is not present, user may know why thanks to Dependencies item in help menu ?). It will open such a window:
Items in the list are Perl components which are used by import and export plugins. Plugin using a non-installed component won't be available. Within previous example, Tellico import plugin could not be used (and would not be present in Import menu) because of missing Archive::Zip component.
Once the Perl component has been installed (way to do that depends on operating system), there is no need to reinstall GCfilms. Closing and launching the application will be enough to make the plugin available.
Export movies collection
In Movies menu, there is an Export submenu. It contains 5 items. Each one being for a different export method.
CSV export
This first one creates a CSV file. In such a file, there is one line for each movie. The movie information are separated by a user selected character (or string).
The first option is to include or not the columns names in the output file. It can be useful to have them if you wish to open the file with a spreadsheet program.
You can also select the delimiter. And if it occurs in values, it will be replaced with something that can be configured to avoid confusions.
Fields to export must also be selected. And of course, order matters. Another option is available to copy pictures in a sub directory and having relative pathnames in generated file.
HTML export
This is used to generate a HTML page containing all movies from current collection with their pictures. When creating such a page, a directory is also created to stock all pictures. If this page has to be consulted from anywhere else (as from a web server), user needs to copy also this directory. Its name is displayed in a dialog box once exportation has been performed.
Some templates are provided. They let user create different kind of pages with different features and styles.
Some options can be customized for this export. They are in dialog box displayed when it is activated. You can select if some Javascript will be used or not (only available for Tian template). If activated, you will have some useful stuff such as a basic search and a collapse/expand feature.
SQL export
SQL export is used to create a file containing insertion queries into a table. The user have to specify the table name and some settings.
With these settings, some instructions can be inserted on the file beginning. There is a DROP instruction and a CREATE one.
Then, user can choose if the movies pictures have to be copied in a directory. This one will be created in the same directory as the SQL file one.
Clicking on the button below these options open a window. Fields to be exported (and their order) need to be set by theuser.
.tar.gz export
With this item, a unique file, a .tar.gz archive, is created. It will contain movies list but also all pictures. It can be useful if you need to move your collection from a machine to another one.
Tellico export
This plugin may be used to create a movie collection that can be read by Tellico, a collection manager for KDE.
Collection is created as an XML file. This file contains also the pictures.
XML export
The XML export uses some templates to generate the file. First choice let user select where this template can be found. It can be manually entered in the text area or loaded from a file. GCfilms comes with various predefined models that can be useful.
A template contains three sections defined as follows.
[HEADER]
[/HEADER]
[ITEM]
[/ITEM]
[FOOTER]
[/FOOTER]
In HEADER section should be present all things that will be on top of the file only once. It could include the main tags opening, the DTD definition and so on.
The ITEM part contains everything related to one movie. So it will be repeated as many times as necessary.
Finally, the FOOTER section is for final stuff.
In the ITEM section, some special things can be used. Something like ${name} will be replaced with corresponding field from the movie. These fields are:
| String to use in template | Description |
|---|---|
| ${title} | Movie title |
| ${date} | Release date (free text) |
| ${year} | Release date (year only) |
| ${time} | Running length (free text) |
| ${length} | Running length (minutes number) |
| ${director} | Movie director |
| ${nat} | Nationality or country |
| ${type} | Movie categories (comma separated) |
| ${image} | Picture path |
| ${orig} | Original title |
| ${actors} | Actors list (comma separated) |
| ${comment} | Comments |
| ${synopsis} | Synopsis |
| ${seen} | Already seen (1) or not (0) |
| ${format} | Media type |
| ${number} | Number of media |
| ${rating} | Rating |
| ${url} | Movie information URL |
| ${place} | Place where media is located |
| ${audio} | Audio languages (comma separated) |
| ${subt} | Subtitles languages (comma separated) |
| ${borrower} | Borrower name |
| ${lendDate} | Lend date |
| ${history} | Borrowings history (comma separated) |
All coma separated values can be used in a loop. The syntax is this one:
[LOOP field]
[/LOOP]
field being one of previous ones (without ${ and } ). All the text included in this section will be repeated as many times as needed. Each time the loop iterates, it will replace $$ with current value. Here is an example. If you provide this in your template:
<actors>
[LOOP actors]
<actor>$$</actor>
[/LOOP]
</actors>
And you have a movie with actor list being "John, Edna, Paul". The generated file will contain:
<actors>
<actor>John</actor>
<actor>Edna</actor>
<actor>Paul</actor>
</actors>
Another feature is the SPLIT section. Its syntax is:
[SPLIT value=field sep=char]
[/SPLIT]
field can be each ones of the movie information (not only the comma separated ones). char is the character that will be used as a separator. In text included in this section, special values can be used: $0, $1,... They correspond to each part of the original field.
To have an example, we consider this template:
<director>
[SPLIT value=director sep= ]
<firstname>$1</firstname>
<lastname>$2</lastname>
[/SPLIT]
</director>
Separtor used is white space. If in a movie, director is "John Doe", the file will contain these information:
<director>
<firstname>John</firstname>
<lastname>Doe</lastname>
</director>
Import from other softwares
GCfilms can be used with movies collection created from other softwares. You can use one of the predefined importation modules for this. Movie list can be imported within current one, or in a new one that will be created. This can be selected through an option in the importation dialog box. Here are the different kind of importation.
Ant Movie Catalog
This plugin can be used to import a collection generated with Ant Movie Catalog. Simply select your .amc file and everything will be done (including pictures importation).
CSV
Many softwares have a feature to export list in CSV format. It can be imported into GCfilms through this module. User has only to specify which separator is used and fields that are on each line.
DVD Profiler
This plugin can be used to import a collection generated with DVD Profiler. It doesn't import the native format but the XML version. So you need first to convert your list in XML format through this software.
GCfilms
This can be useful if you want to merge two movies collection. Simply open the first one, then import the second one. Of course you have to select to import in current list.
Titles list
With this plugin, a title list can be imported. This list have to be in a text file with on title on each line. Then the user may choose which website has to be used for information retrieval.
Sometimes the search may return many results. A check box can be used to select GCfilms behaviour in such a case. If checked, first result will always be used without user intervention. If unchecked, the user will have to select manually a movie in a list.
.tar.gz
This import plugin deals with movies list that have been generated through corresponding export plugin. It is a compressed archive containing the list itself but also pictures.
Tellico
This plugin may be used to import a movie collection generated by Tellico, a collection manager for KDE.
It manages both collection format used by Tellico: .tc files and XML files. It will only import collections that are video ones.
Should you have a problem using GCfilms, you can submit a bug on Gna!.