Friday, February 19, 2010

About Figuritas

Figuritas is an open source media manager for Linux that is a little different from the rest. It is coded in bash, using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, and SQLite.

A picture worth more than a hundred words:
Ain't it pretty?
Don't worry about the OS X look, it is just a skin. It is running on Ubuntu Linux with metacity, the scrollbars are gtk. In future versions it will be possible to change themes.

It look like an OS X application but it works in a very different way. I will try to explain it.

Simplicity
By looking at the screenshot you could think that it is too simple and featureless application with no menu bar and almost no action buttons. For example there are no buttons for adding movies.

Figuritas is designed to be very simple but at the same time very powerful with a lot of room to add features without bloating the gui. Almost everything in the gui describes content and actions are contextual to that content. For example to add a movie you have to click on movies, a menu appears and you can select 'add', very simple.

Modules
As you can see, in the toolbar, there are some icons, those are modules. The only module working right now is the first one: "Movies"
There are two more modules that are not visible: arcades and comics. The idea is to bring the grabbers from avatar-factory and to make figuritas expandable.

Browsers & Icons
Now, take a look at the 'Browsers' panel on the sidebar:
As shown on the screenshot, it is possible to open any browser in the main view or in the sidebar.
You can see anything as icons and for some browsers you can set custom icons, thats the reason I named it figuritas. Figuritas is Spanish for sticker albums (albumenes de figuritas). When I was a kid, sticker albums were very popular. Now you can use figuritas to seek for good stickers (icons) to represent your favorite movies, directors, characters, etc... (It is very easy to do so)

In this version you can set custom icons only for movies, characters and people (directors, writers, etc...).

Tabs and Sub Tabs
In the next screen see what happens if you click on Johnny Depp:


Yes, a new tab opens, Figuritas has tabs, but thats not all, it also has sub tabs and every browser can have his own set of sub tabs.

For example, the sub tabs for movies:
The only tab working now is the subtitles tab. You can associate movies with videos on your computer and display the subtitles in that tab, then you can click on a line and the movie should open in that part (mplayer required)

Browsing anything by anything

In the last screenshot, the browser in the sidebar is set to directors and the main view to movies (browsing movies by directors) but you can do any combination: browse directors by genres, actors by movies, etc...

Filters
Also in the sidebar, there is a panel called "Filters", that panel is working but the idea (that isn't currently implemented) is to be able to add almost anything including existing filters to a new filter.
For example: Right click a genre and select "add to new filter" then a new panel appears bellow the Filters panel called New Filter and the selected genre as a logical operator (AND,OR,NOT). Then you can add more operators and eventually save the filter to the filters panel.

An application and a web site
Figuritas is in part a web site, that means that it can be accessed by other computers on your network, you can open Firefox and type: 127.0.0.1:9009 in the address bar and figuritas should appear.

It is not compatible with other web browsers right now but the possibilities are many, for example in future versions it could stream your movies using html5 video tags from one computer to another.

14 comments:

  1. Yuzem,

    Your ideas are the most brilliant ones I've come across in Linux since I've switched to Linux a couple of months ago (from Mac). Yet I can't get any one of them work in Mint 12. If I could I would replace Mint (Gnome 3) with Xubuntu at once.

    Couldn't install Figuritas from the dep file:
    "Dependency is not satisfiable: Prism".

    And I couldn't find a way to install Prism seperately either. Then I downloaded the tar file, extracted the archive and run the INSTALL file (this first in my life). Surprisingly for me it seemed to install Figuritas, but later found out that not Prism. Now I don't know how to uninstall this.

    Avatar-factory I installed and it asked me constant questions to configure itself. I'm not sure I gave the right answers. Then it seemed to fetch something: four files. Now I don't know how to uninstall this.

    IMDb-thumbnailer seemed to me to be the best of them being uncomplicated with enough functionality, but couldn't get it to work either. I could uninstall this.

    Configuring IMDb-thumbnailer I set my video directory as

    /home/user/Shares/Shared Video/Movies

    This is a share in my WD network drive (have setted it to mount permanently). When I entered the "imdb-thumbnailer --nautilus" command it produced something like this:

    "can't remove /home/.local/share/imdb-thumbnails no such file or directory.

    Then I foolishly created this directory just to make it capable of removing it again! But it couldn't saying it's a directory or something. It's second line was this:

    "Videos/Movies no such file or directory"

    After that line it produced many lines begining (I think) with Setting ...mkv, Setting ...avi etc. And at the end it asked to restart Nautilus. I confirmed, but nothing happened in my video folder in the network drive.

    GnomeUnityKDELionHater

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for your comment!

    The Prism dependence for figuritas will be removed in the next version.

    After installing figuritas from the tar file you should run: figuritas -S
    Then open firefox and go to: http://localhost:9009/
    It should work.
    To uninstall figuritas you can run: ./INSTALL remove
    To remove avatar-factory run: ./uninstall

    I don't know about the avatar-factoy questions, that's strange.

    The command to set imdb-thumbnailer for nautilus should be: imdb-thumbnailer --set-nautilus

    "can't remove /home/.local/share/imdb-thumbnails no such file or directory"
    This is strange, be sure to be using latest version (0.8.4)
    You can check the code: geany /usr/bin/imdb-thumbnailer
    Line 349 should be:
    local configFile=$HOME/.local/share/thumbnailers/imdb.thumbnailer

    $HOME should expand to your home directory:
    /home/your-user-name/.local/share/thumbnailers/imdb.thumbnailer

    and not:
    /home/.local/share/imdb-thumbnails

    Moreover the directory should not get removed.
    You can check if it is working with this command:
    touch "/home/user/Shares/Shared Video/Movies/Matrix.avi"
    Now open nautilus and check it the file Matrix.avi gets a thumbnail.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you, but no joy.

    burak@burak-mint ~ $ imdb-thumbnailer --set-nautilus
    rm: cannot remove `/home/burak/.local/share/thumbnailers/imdb.thumbnailer': Is a directory
    Setting Key for application@ogg
    Setting Key for application@smil
    Setting Key for application@vnd.rn-realmedia
    Setting Key for application@vnd.rn-realvideo
    Setting Key for application@x-extension-m4a
    Setting Key for application@x-extension-mp4
    Setting Key for application@x-flash-video
    Setting Key for application@x-matroska
    Setting Key for application@x-ms-asf
    Setting Key for application@x-ogg
    Setting Key for application@x-quicktime-media-link
    Setting Key for application@x-shockwave-flash
    Setting Key for application@x-shorten
    Setting Key for application@x-smil
    Setting Key for application@xspf@xml
    Setting Key for audio@x-pn-realaudio
    Setting Key for image@vnd.rn-realpix
    Setting Key for image@vnd.rn-realpix
    Setting Key for misc@ultravox
    Setting Key for video@3gpp
    Setting Key for video@dv
    Setting Key for video@mp4
    Setting Key for video@mpeg
    Setting Key for video@msvideo
    Setting Key for video@quicktime
    Setting Key for video@vnd.divx
    Setting Key for video@vnd.rn-realvideo
    Setting Key for video@x-anim
    Setting Key for video@x-avi
    Setting Key for video@x-flc
    Setting Key for video@x-fli
    Setting Key for video@x-m4v
    Setting Key for video@x-matroska
    Setting Key for video@x-mpeg
    Setting Key for video@x-ms-asf
    Setting Key for video@x-msvideo
    Setting Key for video@x-ms-wmv
    Setting Key for video@x-nsv
    Setting Key for video@x-ogm@ogg
    Should I restart nautilus? (This will close all open windows) [yN] y
    burak@burak-mint ~ $ gedit ~/.imdb-thumbnailer/config
    burak@burak-mint ~ $ gedit /usr/bin/imdb-thumbnailer
    burak@burak-mint ~ $ touch "/home/burak/Shares/Shared Videos/Movies/Angel Face.avi
    >

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ok, it seems to be a bug, try version 0.8.5 from here:
    https://launchpad.net/imdb-thumbnailer/+download

    Do as before (imdb-thumbnailer --set-nautilus)
    It should give no error.
    Let me know if it works.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Can this be due to the space in my movie directory path: "/home/burak/Shares/Shared Videos/Movies"?

    burak@burak-mint ~ $ imdb-thumbnailer --set-nautilus
    /home/burak/.imdb-thumbnailer/config: line 2: Videos/Movies: No such file or directory
    Setting Key for application@ogg
    Setting Key for application@smil
    Setting Key for application@vnd.rn-realmedia
    Setting Key for application@vnd.rn-realvideo
    Setting Key for application@x-extension-m4a
    Setting Key for application@x-extension-mp4
    Setting Key for application@x-flash-video
    Setting Key for application@x-matroska
    Setting Key for application@x-ms-asf
    Setting Key for application@x-ogg
    Setting Key for application@x-quicktime-media-link
    Setting Key for application@x-shockwave-flash
    Setting Key for application@x-shorten
    Setting Key for application@x-smil
    Setting Key for application@xspf@xml
    Setting Key for audio@x-pn-realaudio
    Setting Key for image@vnd.rn-realpix
    Setting Key for image@vnd.rn-realpix
    Setting Key for misc@ultravox
    Setting Key for video@3gpp
    Setting Key for video@dv
    Setting Key for video@mp4
    Setting Key for video@mpeg
    Setting Key for video@msvideo
    Setting Key for video@quicktime
    Setting Key for video@vnd.divx
    Setting Key for video@vnd.rn-realvideo
    Setting Key for video@x-anim
    Setting Key for video@x-avi
    Setting Key for video@x-flc
    Setting Key for video@x-fli
    Setting Key for video@x-m4v
    Setting Key for video@x-matroska
    Setting Key for video@x-mpeg
    Setting Key for video@x-ms-asf
    Setting Key for video@x-msvideo
    Setting Key for video@x-ms-wmv
    Setting Key for video@x-nsv
    Setting Key for video@x-ogm@ogg
    Should I restart nautilus? (This will close all open windows) [yN] y
    burak@burak-mint ~ $ touch "/home/burak/Shares/Shared Videos/Movies/Angel Face.avi
    >

    ReplyDelete
  6. Tell me the result of this command:
    cat /home/burak/.imdb-thumbnailer/config

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sorry, couldn't see your reply in Google Reader. Before giving you the result:

    I again converted a DVD from my NAS to MKV in desktop and the newly created MKV automatically got its DVD cover. Previously I was open it with mkvmerge gui and embed the cover in its metadata. So the problem seems to be with my movie directory (network share). Here's the result you've asked for:

    burak@burak-mint ~ $ cat /home/burak/.imdb-thumbnailer/config
    films_path[0]="$HOME/Trailers"
    films_path[1]=/home/burak/Shares/Shared Videos/Movies
    films_path[2]=
    films_path[3]=
    burak@burak-mint ~ $

    ReplyDelete
  8. Some strange things are happening here!

    Now I've converted another DVD (BICYCLE_THIEVES) to MKV, but this chosen the output path to be the share folder (Shared Videos) rather than desktop.

    Converter (makemkv) produced the main movie (title00.mkv) and two movie extras (title01.mkv and title02.mkv). Only the title02.mkv got a (wrong) cover.

    Then I've renamed the files: BICYCLE_THIEVES.mkv, BICYCLE_EXTRA1.mkv, BICYCLE_EXTRA2.mkv.

    Now the BICYCLE_EXTRA1.mkv (title01.mkv) got a (wrong) cover too, but not the main movie.

    Then I've copied them to desktop and this the main movie got the correct cover and the cover of the BICYCLE_EXTRA1.mkv has changed to another (wrong) one.

    To remove the wrong cover I've tried both "imdb-thumbnailer --remove BICYCLE_EXTRA1.mkv" and "imdb-thumbnailer --remove BICYCLE_EXTRA1". Have tried both commands both they're in the share folder and on desktop, but everytime Terminal produced this:

    burak@burak-mint ~ $ imdb-thumbnailer --remove BICYCLE_EXTRA1
    /home/burak/.imdb-thumbnailer/config: line 2: Videos/Movies: No such file or directory

    (process:6282): libgnomevfs-CRITICAL **: gnome_vfs_get_uri_from_local_path: assertion `g_path_is_absolute (local_full_path)' failed
    Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "", line 1, in
    RuntimeError: unknown error
    burak@burak-mint ~ $

    ReplyDelete
  9. After the update command if I make a little change in the name of the file (replacing spaces with dashes) and then reload Nautilus, then the cover art gets fetched. But only entering the command produces this:

    burak@burak-mint ~ $ imdb-thumbnailer --update ANGEL FACE
    /home/burak/.imdb-thumbnailer/config: line 2: Videos/Movies: No such file or directory
    ERROR:"ANGEL" does not exist
    burak@burak-mint ~ $

    ReplyDelete
  10. Ok, the problem lies in the config file.
    Change this line:
    films_path[1]=/home/burak/Shares/Shared Videos/Movies

    To:
    films_path[1]="/home/burak/Shares/Shared Videos/Movies"

    Let me know if it works.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Nothing happens. Tried to individually update a movie:

    burak@burak-mint ~ $ imdb-thumbnailer --update KLUTE.mkv
    ERROR:"KLUTE.mkv" does not exist
    burak@burak-mint ~ $

    But if I just change the name of the movie and the movie doesn't have a thumb already a new cover is fetched.

    ReplyDelete
  12. And here's the new config file:

    burak@burak-mint ~ $ cat /home/burak/.imdb-thumbnailer/config
    films_path[0]="$HOME/Trailers"
    films_path[1]="/home/burak/Shares/Shared Videos/Movies"
    films_path[2]=
    films_path[3]=
    burak@burak-mint ~ $

    ReplyDelete
  13. Yes, it is better to use both -r and -u:
    imdb-thumbnailer -r KLUTE.mkv
    imdb-thumbnailer -u KLUTE.mkv

    ReplyDelete