Hi "burning-down-the-house" MfU 😊 

I wanted to add this to my To-Do list ...but since it's an easy going day today, I decided to add some torture to my day hahah 😜 

Check it out: implemented in 2.1.4 beta .... (link)

@hans

Wow that was quick !

Thank you 😀 

You're welcome!! 😉 

Hi Hans,

hope you are doing well.

I am re-using this thread for a new feature request.

In the TV Shows search box, would it be possible for your app to ignore punctuation altogether, and just consider letters and numbers.

By ignoring, I mean:

A) if a user inputs any (dots, comma, hypen, colon etc), RMTVS would ignore it in its query (tvdb/tmdb websites do accept such querries).

B) Also if a user does not type those punctuations, RMTVS would still work (even if they're is actual punctuations in show name (S.W.A.T. or 9-1-1, for ex).

I believe it would ease finding more tv shows on first try.

Let me know if its feasible or not.

Take care

MfU

Hi mFu !!

How are you doing 😊 

Not a bad idea to ignore punctuation, but it will come with undesired side effects, since the actual search is not executed by RMTV but rather by the data provider (TVDB etc).

Example: S.W.A.T. ... 

Searching for S.W.A.T. will give the right TV show(s). However, searching for SWAT will not.

Since most of these data providers work with a database, most likely something like MySQL or MariaDB, you could use "%" as a wildcard.
For example search for S%W%A%T - however ... this will only return a (inconsistent) subset of what you would expect.

The only option that would bring up all SWAT variations is by disabling the "Cleanup search results" option.

Keep in mind though that this function is there for a reason haha ...
Give it a try and you'll know what I mean with the goofy results.

For example:

See how most of these raw results do not even have the phrase "SWAT" in their titles or even descriptions?
It is a total mystery why these results are even returned by TVDB (mostly, occasionally TVMaze and TheMovieDB return something goofy as well).

On that note:
The cleanup function removes everything that does not include the search term.
This is very rudimentary due to SQLite limitations. The "%" character can be used for any character(s) and "_" for a character.
Which means that if a result is filter by "%S%W%A%T%", then "S.W.A.T." would be valid, but "Seven Worlds, One Planet" as well.
If I would filter by using "S_W_A_T_" then "SWAT" would fail, but "S.W.A.T." would succeed.

Even if we found a perfect filter for S.W.A.T., then this filter will most likely not work for other search queries.

Unfortunately, there is no wildcard option to select zero or one character.

There is an option to add user defined functions for SQLite, however I never got that to work properly.

--- several hours later --- 🤦🏻‍♂️

I did manage to make a work around in the 2.1.15 beta ... (link)
Took me some work to work around the database and search results limitations.

Punctuation is not being ignore, so "S.W.A.T." will produce (if search cleanup is enabled) a list of all shows with "S.W.A.T." in it.
However ... if you enter "swat" or "SWAT" then the results will include S.W.A.T. named TV shows.
A little quick fix, but basically what it does, is look for results that have one or no characters in between.
So I basically try to match a pattern S?W?A?T where "?" can optionally be a character.
This may not be super refined of course, but I think it will do for now.
If you run into issues, I cam refine the citeria.

Let me know if this works 😊 

Hi Hans,

I just tried searching swat and 911 (instead of s.w.a.t. and 9-1-1) and it worked !

Great ! 😎 

the reason I was asking is a little lazyness on my behalf, and sometime, shows have colon (:) but (as you already know) its a forbiden character in windows. Sometime I try with semi colon (;) which does not work, sometime I have to guess if they put a hyhen, with or without a blank space.

The Beta version really has come a long way from stable.

Thank you again for your dedication.

Later

MfU

ps:Just tried the new feature with NCIS: Los Angeles and NCIS: New Orleans (without the colon) and those too worked. 🤩

I will continue to test the new feature on more "tricky" show titles, but it looks as though you nailed it once again.

Posted by: @hans

See how most of these raw results do not even have the phrase "SWAT" in their titles or even descriptions?
It is a total mystery why these results are even returned by TVDB (mostly, occasionally TVMaze and TheMovieDB return something goofy as well).

I am guessing it returns anything with a common letter (anything with a "s", anything with a "w", and so on (which is totally useless)

Posted by: @mfu

I am guessing it returns anything with a common letter (anything with a "s", anything with a "w", and so on (which is totally useless)

Yep ... and/or maybe looks for wording in the Show description ... I haven't found any logic to it yet, and the worst seems to be TVDB (as usual).
That's why I made the cleanup function 😊 

Posted by: @mfu

I just tried searching swat and 911 (instead of s.w.a.t. and 9-1-1) and it worked !

Awesome! And laziness = convenience ... so I think it is a good thing to add.
While writing the reply yesterday, I was thinking if I needed to refine this a little to just punctuation being added. Right now I allow any character.
We will see how this develops in the future 😉 

Posted by: @mfu

Thank you again for your dedication

You're welcome, and thanks for the suggested feature. 
I always like challenges haha 😁 

Posted by: @mfu

The Beta version really has come a long way from stable.

Yeah, I probably should bring the current beta to release version.
I'm just dreading having to write about all the new features 😂

See RMTVS comments page Mar 7, 2021 - 9:43 AM

As an added benefit, I can now search a raw tv show title (ask.this.old.house.).

Less typing, more copy/paste 😎 

Haha, that is funny - I really did not expect that to work hahah ... cool though! 😂

I'm only adding characters, but maybe it is something to keep in mind if I want to change/improve that function:
- first remove all punctuation (which I currently do not do)
- look for any matching punctuation/space when filtering

I'll look into that today and see if it is even needed 😉 

Did some testing, and removing punctuation actually broke it hahah ... 🤣 
Some more tests shows me to probably just leave it as is.