DVDAttache 3.9

http://www.dvdattache.com

Feel free to report all problems and suggestions to support@dvdattache.com. If you have a blocking issue put URGENT in the subject line.

Please make backups of your data folder regularly.

CHANGE HISTORY

CHANGES FOR 3.9

  • Rebuild for Java 1.5 (5.0). DVDAttache will no longer run on Java versions 1.4 or lower. Please don't complain - I've been saying this was coming for many months and several releases.
  • Universal binary for Mac.
  • Removed IMDB Search as IMDB was changing too much for me to keep up.
  • Updated Quick Add database.

    CHANGES FOR 3.8.1

  • Fixed image problem which resulted from recent Amazon changes.

    CHANGES FOR 3.8.0

  • Fixed broken UK Amazon Add.
  • Fixed an issue that rarely caused titles not to add.
  • Updated the internal reporting engine.
  • Added a new guide-type report with images.
  • Fixed broken IMDB Add.

    CHANGES FOR 3.7.4

  • Fixed broken filters due to a bad build.

    CHANGES FOR 3.7.3

  • Fixed filter removal problem.

    CHANGES FOR 3.7.1

  • Fixed bug that caused some titles to not add in the database. Apparent only after next restart.

    CHANGES FOR 3.7.0

  • Added Studio field to manual edit box.
  • Complete rewrite of filters.
  • Fixed bug that got gibberish for the Director in some cases.

    CHANGES FOR 3.6.6

  • Fixed Quick Add list problem when using dialup.
  • Fixed bug that causes the Summary tab to not update normally.
  • Fixed bug in title Editor where genres were not being set.

    CHANGES FOR 3.6.5

  • Improved the main list rendering speed, greatly reducing the amount of jerkiness when scrolling (noticable on Mac primarily). This was due to some image scaling inefficiencies that have been worked around.
  • Support for HD-DVD and Blu-ray titles.
  • Fixed Buy @ Amazon problem when using Internet Explorer as your default browser under Windows.

    CHANGES FOR 3.6.4

  • No changes, version bumped to get around a release problem.

    CHANGES FOR 3.6.3

  • Bug fix that caused loss of titles in the following situation: you edit a title or delete then re-add.
  • Fixed bug: After editing a title it was misinterpreted as having easter eggs.

    CHANGES FOR 3.6.2

    Sorry about all the muckups folks since 3.6.0. The major changes, as well as my new build system, have causes problems not found during regular testing. They are getting plugged pretty fast and I see it being stable very soon. This update goes a long way toward that goal.
  • Fixed add/update form bug.
  • Fixed context menu Delete.
  • Fixed bug where a title isa added/deleted/readded will not show up.

    CHANGES FOR 3.6.1

  • Fixed bug that prevented manually added/updated titles from being saved.
  • Fixed bug that causes activity log to always get submitted even if you didn't select to do so.
  • Added Remove Title to the right-click menu in the listing for convenience.

    CHANGES FOR 3.6.0

  • The Help menu has a new way to submit comments or bugs along with your activity log.
  • Lots of internal code reorg and isn't of interest to most people, but needed for software stability.
  • The database manager has been optimized to cut data load time roughly in half.
  • More updates to Cast list support from recent Amazon changes.
  • Fixes miscellaneous problems with genre parsing.
  • New Tools/Update Easter Eggs feature to download eggs from dvdattache.com and add to your titles. You'll know you have an egg by the small rabbit icon in the listing window (get it -- bunny, Easter egg -- I couldn't find a nice looking egg icon anyhow). - NOTE: there is already a bug here I know of regarding the "replace eggs" checkbox but it is harmless right now.
  • In-place editing for most fields in Details is gone and now accessed via the Edit Title menu item. This enables me to better detect when edits are made without lots of sloppy coding.
  • General miscellaneous dialog alignment fixes.
  • Completely overhauled build system, again not important to anyone except myself but makes the process of doing a bug fix/release much quicker.

    CHANGES FOR 3.3.4

  • WebBuilder templates updated to include images properly.
  • More changes to support Amazon's ongoing updates, including better genre parsing.
  • IMDB support is mostly useless due to more changes there. Updates forthcoming.

    CHANGES FOR 3.3.3

  • Fixed more Cast problems due to more Amazon site changes.
  • Fixed an Amazon Add bug that prevented titles with no image from being added.
  • Fixed fatal WebBuilder bug.
  • Solved the long-running issue with Windows users and reports. The Java SDK is no longer needed (JRE will do fine).

    CHANGES FOR 3.3.2

  • Fixed Cast retrieval problem due to some improvements on the Amazon site.

    CHANGES FOR 3.3.1

  • Replaced instant filter icons with smaller ones to fix some layout problems.
  • Fixed bug in instant filters where the filter list was not being refreshed.
  • Fixed filter bug that causes the "unrated" selection to not match any titles.
  • Added filter by year (title release year). You can specify a list, range, or single year.
  • Added a "filter mismatch" report that shows titles that a selected filter is unable to adequately compare, allowing you to fix the bad or missing data. This can be enabled or disabled from Preferences.
  • Updated Web Builder to be more like the Cocoa version. Also included a new sample template called SimpleDynamic that shows how to do DHTML with DVDAttache (demo online at http://www.dvdattache.com/demo/dynamicpages/pages/listing.html (slow load time). Just click on a title to expand it.)

    CHANGES FOR 3.1.1

  • Fixed bug that prevented edits from being saved.
  • Tidy up the title listing.
  • Added Check For Updates to the Help menu.

    CHANGES FOR 3.1.0

  • Fixed the Amazon Add issue where images would be invalid and appear to be assigned to the wrong title.
  • Filter editor allows for personal ratings filtering by "unrated".
  • Fixed search box size problem.

    CHANGES FOR 3.0.0

  • This is a massive update, mostly internally.
  • Fixed all Amazon Add problems in all domains.
  • Upgraded to new Amazon API service (techie stuff).
  • Added support for amazon.fr
  • Fixed IMDB parsing issues and add functionality.
  • Upgraded Quick Add database to current.
  • Added a few icons on the screen to break up the blandness.
  • The Windows version now has an installer.

    CHANGES FOR 2.5.0

  • Added user rating to the compressed standard view.
  • Rewrote data loading code, improving startup speed.
  • Fixed a bug when trying to save Preferences.
  • Updated some vital software components that make up DVDAttache.

    CHANGES FOR 2.4.1

  • There is a new View menu option - Standard Compressed. This shows the main title listing without thumbnails so you can get more on the screen at once. You can always go back to Standard to see thumbnails.
  • Fixed the squished Close button on the Amazon search panel (affected Mac users only).

    CHANGES FOR 2.4.0

  • This is primarily a cosmetic release, with several big changes. This is Pt 1 of the facelift and there is more to come (especially that ugly Details panel):
  • The Categories panel (under the main listing) is gone. There is now a dropdown on the top to allow filtering of the main list without the need for a second list.
  • The small blue popup typing search thingy is gone. It has been replaced by a search box at the top. Type in your partial search term, as before, and hit Enter to narrow your list. Filters and Searches are not inclusive (yet).
  • You will immediately notice the "browser view" is gone but thumbnails now show up in the main listing along with some vitals on the title. This will be tweaked more in the next update so this is a first shot at a better main listing view. Note: the scrolling speed is now noticably more sluggish with the inclusion of thumbnails but only initially. It will speed up as you scroll around, and the next update will further improve the speed.

  • CHANGES FOR 2.3.7

  • Small fix to the way the database is parsed to allow co-existence with Cocoa version.
  • New File menu tool to repair incorrectly named images files and recover missing ones.

    • The Java version will be getting a facelift as soon as I complete the Cocoa version's add and update functionality. I will also be adding auto detection of the Java /bin folder to assist Windows users when trying to run reports.

    CHANGES FOR 2.3.6

  • Rearranged some menu items
  • Fixed some font irregularities on Mac OSX. You may need to adjust your vertical divider.
  • Fixed a problem with the "busy" cursor when you are searching Amazon
  • Removed the Sell, Update, and Remove buttons from the alpha list and moved the functionality to the menus. This gives you back more screen real estate rather than taking up space for things not used often. It also looks cleaner.
  • The Mac OSX version now detects network proxies automatically so you can uncheck the "Use Proxy" option in Preferences/Network. This makes things easier for people like me who carry our laptops from home to work to the local WIFI-enabled pub. I'll try to get this in for Windows as well, it's just that the OSX platform makes it easy.
  • The Awards panel now supports viewing in browser via new right-click option. The awards panel gets a bit crowded sometimes and it's nice to be able to open it in a browser window.
  • Fixed IMDB searches *again* thanks to continued changes by the IMDB/Amazon folks.
  • The Cast panel now supports searching IMDB for the currently selected actor. Just right-click and select Find at IMDB to open a browser and search for the name.

    CHANGES FOR 2.3.5

  • Fixed Quick Add bug that "forgot" checked titles across different tabs.
  • Fixed Quick Add bug that caused most image downloads to be skipped.

    CHANGES FOR 2.3.4

  • Add via Amazon now captures Amazon's product description since we don't have access to the IMDB plot description anymore.
  • Fixed IMDB Add where the director and studio was sometimes captured incorrectly.
  • Fixed 2 more scenarios where the DVD images could not be retrieved from IMDB. Folks, please bear with me on IMDB support because it's a mess. There are so many different ways they render pages and I have to take them all into account and try to handle appropriately. To make matters worse, Amazon (which owns IMDB) is keen to stop people from scraping their pages by constantly tweaking them.
  • Implemented some automated test conditions to help me catch Amazon and IMDB parsing bugs from happening in the future before I do an update (currently only for US domain but others will follow).
  • Amazon search now returns 4 pages of matches rather than 3.
  • Changed XML Export to use ISO-8859-1 encoding.
  • Quick Add database updated, now with over 3,200 titles.

    CHANGES FOR 2.3.3

  • The Mac version has a new icon, thanks to Ash Asher. I appreciate all the other submissions but I finally had to just decide. And while they all were variations of the same theme (an attache case) this one was smooth and scaled very nicely so I went with it. Maybe I'll rotate every few releases to give the others credit.
  • The error some people get after doing an update to a title has been fixed. Actually, the problem has been there all along but I added the error message in the last release to try and find a pattern. Thanks to the users who emailed me their observations. Oh, and your data was never in danger...it wasn't that kind of bug.

    CHANGES FOR 2.3.2

  • A change to the IMDB pages required a significant update of IMDB functionality. After IMDB was changed you would not get the small and large images if you performed an IMDB Add. You will now, but only after major changes to get around their new method of hiding Amazon page links were implemented.
  • Fixed Browser View bug that caused the last page to be skipped when printing from the All tab.
  • Updated the FAQ to include information now regarding Amazon and IMDB changes and how that affects DVDAttache and your choices for adding.

    CHANGES FOR 2.3.1

  • Since Amazon has made significant changes to their DVD product pages DVDAttache tries to compensate for these changes now. What Amazon has done is eliminate the Edition Details (listing of the extra content on the DVDs), the IMDB link (where the plot description comes from), the anamorphic/THX indicators, etc. I'm still convinced this is unintentional since they did this once before and it lasted for less than a week before corrected. However, until it is corrected DVDAttache now will detect these changes and compensate as best it can.
  • Both the amazon.co.uk and amazon.de sites have updated and improved their DVD product pages and DVDAttache has been updated to capture this information accordingly.

    CHANGES FOR 2.3.0

  • Added the File/Info dialog to show statistics of your collection. A full download is required to activate this feature.
  • Added the Disc Details tab as a convenient place to list individual discs in a set and the contents of each. Good for listing episodes per disc for TV series.
  • Added a new view option -- Summary mode. You can choose to see the Details as they are today (looking a bit like a data entry form) or select Summary to see a large image and lesser of the technical gibberish. It is view-only -- no editing allowed.
  • Removed OK button click after Amazon add operations.

    CHANGES FOR 2.2.3

  • Fixed the Location filter bug.
  • Fixed the Location alpha listing column that was not showing any values.
  • Fixed filtering in reports.

    CHANGES FOR 2.2.2

  • Corrects a problem where titles added via Amazon Add have an MPAA Rating of "crap". This was an inside joke among testers and accidentally not removed. Sorry for any inconvenience.

    CHANGES FOR 2.2.1

  • Amazon Update now preserves your user rating and loaned-out info.
  • Replaced the gawdy yellow rating stars with simple grey ones -- courtesy of Apple ;-)
  • Added Set Borrowed and Set Returned to Edit menu as convenience for those with 1-button mice.
  • Fixed bug that caused changes to the custom genre list to not be reflected in the combo boxes until the next app restart.
  • The Guide report now uses standard 8.5x11 Letter settings rather than A4.
  • Added the Condensed Landscape report, for a paper-saving list of your titles. It prints in 2 columns in landscape mode, and lists the location, title, and MPAA rating.
  • The "loaned out" status icon in the alpha list has been replaced by an orange bullet/orb instead of that out-of-place "out" graphic.

    CHANGES FOR 2.2.0

  • New custom genres added were not showing up until the next restart. Fixed.
  • When removing a title the large version of the cover image was not being deleted. Fixed.
  • More tweaking to make the app better for dialup users.
  • Fixed bug that prevented the "on loan" reminder from listing multiple titles.
  • Made the first column in the Alpha List table user-definable (see Preferences/General).
  • Display of Disc Count as well as Title Count. Note that the disc count is accurate only if the Number of Discs field for each title is correct.
  • Fixed the Auto-Updater bug for Windows.
  • Fixed "my rating" filter bug.
  • DVD "cost" now defaults to the Amazon list price, but may be overwritten with another value.
  • Fixed IMDB "Add to Collection" bug that, for some titles, causes the application to freeze while parsing the data.
  • Quick Add moved from Tools to Edit menu.
  • Quick Add alphabetical tabs have been split up further due to the volume of titles.
  • The Quick Add list is downloaded from the dvdattache.com server now when you select Tools/Quick Add. This allows the list to be updated more frequently rather than during software updates. If the list takes more than 5 seconds to download from the server it will default to the local copy which isn't as up to date.
  • Quick Add downloads are now compressed for even faster performance.
  • The View menu contains items to hide/show the Categorized and Plot/Cast panels to conserve screen space, or provide more screen space for the Alpha title listing and/or title details, respectively.
  • Added new tags for report processing: cost, smallimg_path, largeimg_path.
  • Add new report called DVD Collection Inventory. This is a simple and compact report to list all of your titles and the cost/list price for each (assuming that information is known). This is good for giving an electronic or printed copy to your insurance agent for your home inventory file.

    CHANGES FOR 2.1.2

  • Speedup and major stability improvements to data file management.
  • Removed HTML from Plot description in Browser view, Web Builder, and on reports.
  • Fixed bug that caused an update to Cost to not be saved in certain cases.
  • Fixed bug that caused a change to the MPAA rating to never be saved.

    CHANGES FOR 2.1.1

  • Fixed bug that prevented the thumbnail image for the first selected title to be displayed.
  • New Preferences/Network option for dialup users so you won't have timeouts adding using Amazon Add. Defaults to off, so if you use broadband/dsl you are already set.
  • Added a Cost field to DVD details to track what you paid for a title. A new or modified report with cost added will follow shortly.
  • Updated Quick Add list.

    CHANGES FOR 2.1

  • Fixed editing bug in Cast List.
  • Added DVD count back into new UI, under Alpha List.
  • Removed Amazon.jp from Preferences, since it is not supported y et.
  • Improved database compaction performance a bit.

    KNOWN PROBLEMS

  • Mac Print to PDF skews the images badly. Apple has posted a message in their developer forum that Java printing support isn't 100% working yet.

    INSTALLING

    Mac OS X:
    Drag the DVDAttache application to any folder you like.

    Windows:
    Drag the DVDAttache folder to wherever you want the application to reside. The application is launched by DVDAttache.exe and it must NOT be moved. You are free to create shortcuts to it but if the main .exe is moved the application will not run.

    RUNNING

    Mac OS X:
    Just double-click the DVDAttache icon to start the app. If you are behind a network firewall with a proxy you need to select Preferences from the Edit menu, then select the Network tab.

    Windows:
    Just double-click the DVDAttache icon to start the app. If you are behind a network firewall with a proxy you need to select Preferences from the Edit menu, then select the Network tab.

    Unix/Linux/Solaris:
    The *nix distribution is a self-executing JAR file. If your desktop environment supports it you can double-click the JAR to run it. Otherwise open a terminal window and type: 

    java -jar DVDAttache.jar

    TIPS

  • To quickly get started with your collection select Tools/Quick Add and check the list of popular titles you want to add to your database. For titles not in the list use Amazon Search and click Add. For all other titles use Edit/Manual Add.
  • To see a larger version of the cover image click on the thumbnail on the right.
  • To see a larger version of the Amazon Search thumbnail images double-click the item.
  • If you are behind a network firewall with a proxy you need to select Preferences from the Edit menu, then select the Network tab and specify the correct settings.
  • Many tables and lists in the application support right-click line item menus (popups).