FEATURE REQUEST: narrator in search results

[jt196]

It's quite common to have several instances of the same book but with different narrators. To save the trouble of searching which one, I'd suggest including the narrator in the search results.

This is easily done by adding the line to the score_result() function on line 500 in init.py:

if score >= IGNORE_SCORE:
    info.append(
        {
            'id': valid_itemId,
            'title': title,
            'year': year,
            'date': date,
            'score': score,
            'thumb': thumb,
            'artist': author,
            'narrator': narrator # narrator here
        }
    )

and changing the description variable:

description = '\"%s\" by %s [%s] nr: %s' % (
    r['title'], r['artist'], r['year'], r['narrator']
)

Be nice to squeeze the description a bit more into that blank space too.

[djdembeck]

The blank space is something Plex web determines, we have no control over the dialog itself. While the narrator would be good info to have, I think the year is enough already, since there's almost never a book that has 2 different versions that came out the same year, so it's clear to the user which one is theirs.

Moreso, at a certain point there isn't enough space to show this information. We would either need to cut out the author (and rely on the author being scored for relevance), or cut out the title, which is obviously not great.

[romanoh]

Why just dont remove the date to the normal position, maybe this will make more room:

per example:

just removing the year from description and adding to MetadataSearchResult.
Just a suggestion.

Also the thumb=r['thumb'], is not showing the image.

[djdembeck]

Why just dont remove the date to the normal position, maybe this will make more room:

per example:

just removing the year from description and adding to MetadataSearchResult.
Just a suggestion.

Is this possible for 3rd party agents?

[romanoh]

Yes i have it in one agent i am changing:

[djdembeck]

Yes i have it in one agent i am changing:

Hell yeah, I'll get this added in. Thanks for pointing it out!

[romanoh]

Also the thumb=r['thumb'], is suppose to work? it does not show images, in the search, i think this will be a nice addition.

cant see the result in the log.

[djdembeck]

Not sure 3rd party agents ever had real thumbnail support.

This looks way better for year

[jt196]

Looking good with the year. I'd argue that most of the audiobooks I'm putting into Plex I know the narrator - either by listening to the first minute or so of the recording, or through the source. The year for me would require a search on Audible.

One other thing I thought about @djdembeck, was to include the source URL in the search results. Honestly don't know whether it accepts HTML or markdown etc, so don't know how feasible it is. This would also be quite handy in identifying which version of the book you're looking for and save the search time.

[djdembeck]

The thing to do would be show the 10 digit ASIN at the end. I'm not sure that's necessary or if that's something the community wants?

[romanoh]

I think now it have space to put in the narrator, or its initials.

[rabelux]

Three topics I'd like to discuss:

1. What's the purpose of showing the ASIN? I don't see it in the book's details page and if it's displayed in the search results I can't copy it to search for it. So from usabilty's perspective I currently don't understand how this would help or what the usecase would be.
2. I've just added a feature to shorten prenames to initials. "Arthur Conan Doyle" would become "A.C.Doyle" for example. I think this would be helpful to better use visible space. I know that it doesn't really look beautiful but I'd rate function higher in this case. Feedback is welcomed in Truncate long titles, use initials for prenames, add narrator to search result #33
3. Narrator has been added in Truncate long titles, use initials for prenames, add narrator to search result #33, too. Are you guys happy with the word "with" as separator between artist and narrator?

[seanap]

I think we are all on the same page.

1. ASIN gives us the most confirmation that we are tagging the right release, but it's a pita as far as actual usability to find and verify. Is it worth taking up the limited space, will it actually be usable in practice? Idk...

2. I like the author abbreviations, not ideal in a perfect world but given the restrictions I think it's a good compromise. I can't think of a situation where it would be a negative.

3. Having the narrator is much more user friendly to compare releases than asin, but it doesn't help for all edge cases, and it may get cut off more often than not. I agree that "with" is probably the clearest shorthand to use, but I don't hate "n:" or "nr:"

[jt196]

I think I originally put "narr:", which I guess would be a bit clearer than "with:" but less succinct than n/nr.

Author initials is a great idea. It's really about getting the ID of the book right, so personally I don't think it matters whether the full name is displayed or not. Initials for the narrator also makes sense.

[rabelux]

What about abbreviating with with w/? That way the special character might also act as a visible separator.

[jt196]

What about abbreviating with with w/? That way the special character might also act as a visible separator.

Personally, I've not seen 'with' used to describe a narrator, seems more appropriate to be used for a co-author. Audible uses "narrated by" as a tag. Dude I guess it doesn't matter all that much, and I'm happy for this suggestion to be added either way. Just trying to think about clarity for newcomers.

[djdembeck]

In a perfect world, search dialog should be just used to correct rare mismatches or broken searches. Alexander made some great changes in their PR. Once that’s merged, we can gather more info from users who think if anything is confusing or can be improved on.

It’s good to have these discussions that open people to new ideas!

[JakobTischler]

Might be a bit gimmicky, but what about using unicode symbols? Fairly concise, immediately recognizable.

E.g.

✒ Author • 🎤 Narrator