Collections have been a disappointment due to the basic logic as coded.
SHOW COLLECTION INLINE, SHOW ITS ITEMS
HIDE COLLECTION INLINE, SHOW ITS ITEMS
Are coded as FORCIBLY SHOW ITS INLINE ITEMS, NO MATTER WHAT
While
SHOW COLLECTION INLINE AND HIDE ITS ITEMS
Are coded as
HIDE ITS ITEMS ONLY IF IT IS NOT IN ANOTHER COLLECTION THAT FORCIBLY SHOWS ITEMS.
This logic is backward. ALL ITEMS ARE SHOWN… it is the “DEFAULT BEHAVIOR” from before collections existed. The feature was supposed to offer inline collapse. FORCING DEFAULT behavior (as in not using collections at all) to override the behavior of a new feature, negates the exception the feature was supposed to offer.
If any Collection says HIDE, it should HIDE. Collections that say show should be coded as “don’t modify the behavior of the items” since the default behavior was ALWAYS to SHOW.
There are two reasons I want collections:
1) to collapse many films into one inline. I have 42 Abbott & Costello films. No point in everyone scrolling past 42 films every time. Most of them have title starting with “Abbot and Costello…” The few people who want to watch them will open a collection. MOST will ignore their existence. The best use is when HIDE collapses many movies alphabetically into one. All NINE STAR WARS: blah blah. films become one STAR WARS poster. This improves usability, reduces graphic/bandwidth load, speeds browsing. GREAT!
2) group like films together because they share a trait, subject matter, aka tag. Now one example would be CHRISTMAS MOVIES. I might want to hide all of them most of the year in a collection. Come November I could even flip the collection behavior to STOP HIDING. But let’s look at something more common since it is not uncommon for films to be capable of belonging to multiple collections. Lets look at three tags
MARVEL COMICS
MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE
THE AVENGERS
There are more than a half dozen films of Marvel’s Avengers. The 4 MCU films you just thought of, Avengers Confidential (animation), Next Avengers (animated), Ultimate Avengers, etc. All of them would be tagged for “THE AVENGERS”, 4 tagged “MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE”, and all tagged “MARVEL COMICS”.
MARVEL COMICS would NOT HIDE ITEMS. This should not mean they are FORCED to display.
This is a collection of all marvel’s creative property films over the last 80 years (1944 CAPTAIN AMERICA). This might point out older movies or less known properties to a marvel comics fan, like “Werewolf By Night”. If this were TV Shows, people might not have heard of “Legion”. Hiding these is kinda detrimental, especially to little known ones. Because no one will see them UNLESS they are looking for marvel stuff. And there are many sub-collection that, alphabetically, would be better placed.
MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE. I don’t want to hide these either. These movies can actually be watched IN ORDER… there is a logical order to them and they cross properties(aka collections). This is meant to gather but NOT HIDE them specifically.
THE AVENGERS. Like Abbott & Costello, here is an opportunity to collapse and reduce clutter on the library when browsing. THESE I’m willing to HIDE. It puts all Avengers properties under “AVENGERS” alphabetically. I might even want an ULTIMATE AVENGERS (HIDE) tag so those movies show as a collection alphabetically at “Ultimate…” as well.
So, If I want to hide…
NOPE!!! CAN’T!
I already said to “forcibly show” them in the two previous collections. This feature is now broken and non-functioning.
To me, this is THE use case of multiple collections that should have defined the coding. Most are groupings to make it easier to find related movies. Like 007–the titles are alphabetically all over the map. But debateable if I would want them to HIDE Harry Potter and the.'. HIDE/COLLAPSE. Fantastic Beasts films HIDE/COLLAPSE, J.K.Rowlings DON’T HIDE. J.R.R.Tolkien DON’T HIDE. The Hobbit HIDE/COLLAPSE. Lord of the Rings HIDE/COLLAPSE. To me HIDE/COLLAPSE is about the alphabetical position of the COLLECTION vs. the movies inside.
Now people also want nesting, which I get but I would be more than content if the basic logic wasn’t busted.
Harry Potter Universe/J.K.Rowling. (DON"T HIDE)
Harry Potter and…(HIDE)
Fantastic Beasts (HIDE)
20th Anniversary (single item, only in Universe collection)
I would be happy if Plex corrected the bad logic of SHOW ITEMS. All the films in the sub-collection would be tagged in the larger. I prefer this!! Because it means there is a collection alphabetically at “Fantastic Beasts…” Users don’t have to go to “Harry Potter Universe” to find a film that starts with “Fantastic” It also means things like the 20th Anniversary show would be in plain sight, not buried. If someone hadn’t heard about it , they would see it when browsing.
This was how I assumed this would work, and I don’t see why it was implemented with the inverse logic as it breaks the HIDE/COLLAPSE feature.
