Giga, you are always so willing to help. Thanks. But of course I am thorougly familar with all that you told me ... I have to parse and create profile IDs in a whole bunch of plugins ... 

I didn't state my problem clearly enough. In CollectorZ, the UPC, title, etc is stored, just as in Profiler. But Profiler has this additional notion of locality, which, so far, I haven't been able to correlate to data that is stored in the CZ profile. So, when I import the CZ XML, I create a profile based on the UPC, but there is no way for me to determine the actual DVD Profiler Profile ID, whenever the locaility is not 0 (US). This means that when the user goes to refresh the profile from the Invelos web site (I don't import any of the non-personal DVD information), the user gets an error, because the refresh is based on profile ID, not just UPC. I tested this, and simply changing the locality to the correct one, allows the refresh to complete sucessfully.

So, in summary, how does one "deduce" the locality from other information stored about the DVD (when it comes from outside Profiler)? It does not seem to be directly correlated to Country of Origin, so where does it come from? Maybe I should simply ask Ken - I hope that it is not a secret: if so, I will just drop the matter, and document the manual update procedure.

(Edit: comment deleted. Checked my code, and it was OK.)

@Mithi,

Some good leads, thanks. Studied it a bit. SRP currency has a close, but not total, correlation. So far I didn't see much of a correlation with the GS1 Country codes - that would have been sweet!    If you think I'm missing something, let me know.

I would never assume any software is bug free, but my testing has gone pretty well, so I want to move on to the CSV Import and 3.5 support, so maybe I'll go ahead and release it. I just wanted it to be totally smooth - since the goal is to make it easy for people to move over to Profiler. New people may be turned off by error messages.

In my testing, I've noticed that CZ's import of Profiler XML doesn't preserve Box Sets (I had to build some profiles for testing), but I do preserve any CZ-defined BoxSets on the way into Profiler.  Becasue of that and some other anomolies, I wouldn't recommend round-trip Import-Export scenarios for owners of both programs. It is primarily for migration assistance. Maybe I'll give it another day or so in case I get more clues, or better still if I can get the nerve to just ask Ken, but I sure hate to take any of his time away from 3.5, right? ....

For the german "Am Anfang war das Feuer" ['La Guerre du feu' (1981)] DVD, leeched from Amazon.de of course, the XML contains:

<link>
<description>Amazon Germany</description>
<url>http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004YAE8/collectorzc04-21</url>
The sources seem to be a bit limited though (only Amazon.US, UK, JP, CA, DE and FR) to distinguish.

Another approach might be:

<mpaarating>
<displayname>Freigegeben ab 12 Jahren</displayname>
Doesn't look like a picnic either.

As for my UPC/EAN idea ... should work in theory, but as usual the reality is a totally different thing ... just probed my collection.xml for all my locality "Deutschland" DVDs: 162 items
25 items (15%) - 12digit upc = now way in hell to deduce locality Deutschland
78 items (49%) - 13digit ean, range 400-440 = 'clearly' Deutschland
59 items (36%) - 13digit ean, range all over the place ... a lot claim to be swedish, some uk, one france, one netherlands ...
so ... no real luck there either ... 

cya, Mithi

lets see: 742 profiles, 276 have a EAN13
Of that 276 an astonishing 200 (72,5%) have the correct correlation between locality and GS1 country code, that's much more than I imagined.
As the good Captain P. said: "Make it so!" [insert ST-Smilie-here]

V.088 Available:

Main thing along with a few bug fixes is ColectorZ migration assistance by allowing import of CollectorZ export format.

- BulkEdit automatically distinquishes between Profiler and CollectorZ. Just load the XML file.
- Since CollectorZ does not have the concept of "locaility", the locality is synthesized, resulting in up to 90% recognition.

The algorithm is simple: If there is a rating, and it is unique to a locality, then use that locality. If the rating is shared by multiple locailities, I use a GS1 Locality lookup as an educated guess (based on UPC). If the selected locality guessed, has a rating system that includes the actual rating, then we have a match, otherwise the first locaility in the localities table with a matching rating is used. If there is no rating, then the GS1 lookup reuslt is used. This worked pretty well on Mithi's collection, but I have absolutely no idea how well it will work in general. My collection doesn't count. It is mostly locaility 0 (US).

So, invite your CollectorZ friends and neighbors to "come on over - the water's fine."

Here is a step-by-step cookbook (assuming you have already installed BulkEdit and somewhat familiar with it):

(1) Prepare the CollectorZ XML export. Nothing special here. For the best migration, just make sure that the UPCs and ratings are correct. Also, BulkEdit preserves boxsets, so you should double check to see that they are set up the way you want them in CollectorZ, or you can set them up later after you migrate.

(2) Open a new database in Profiler. If you know all the Retailers you need, then you should define them ahead of time.

(3) Select BulkEdit from the Tools menu. You only need to check one field - Purchase Place. Profile ID is always visible. You can check any other fields you want - but it slows things down.

(4) Select File-> Load XML and Validate. Pick your file and click OK. If all goes well, you will create profiles at the rate of about 1 - 1.5 / second.

(5) When finished, view the log and note any errors. Verify that the correct number of profiles were discovered and processed. Handle any problems - report any bugs here. All your personal data will have been saved in the newly created profiles, EXCEPT Purchase Places. Now select View My Purchase Places. If there are any on the list that you forgot, you will need to add them before running the bulk update - otherwise you will get nasty errors.

(6) Click out of BulkEdit (the results will be saved for you). Notice that all the added profiles have been flagged (any that haven't indicates a program bug - please report it). So now, select Collection/Flagged/Refresh. You have the option now to download all the profile data from Invelos. At the complettion of this step, you are done, unless you have Purchase Places in your profiles, or unless you have locality mismatches. You can fix locality mismatches using "Change locaility" on the Profiler DVD menu.

(7) To load Purchase Places, go back into BulkEdit - your stuff is still there, including the Purchase Places column. Right-click and select one or more profiles that you want to update. Then select Save Validated Changes. View the log when done - just to make sure.

That's it. Typical collection should take about 1/2 hour.

I'm not sure what is going on with the display. It might have something to do with the fonts. I'll try a different one. You might also try changing your screen resolution temporarily ... if the text shows up, that might be a clue also. Thanks for testing that. I have a screen shot on the web site that shows how it was designed to look.

Now, the problem with copying your data is that I did not include the ability to edit locality. I will fix this, and allow this change when editing manual profiles.

I guess my layout is confusing. The three boxes are totally independent. The upper left box where you have selected "Location" has nothing to do with the find/replace box, where I assume you are trying to change "Locaility" , and your currently selected cell is in the Locality column. Locality is read/only (now), but you can edit Location.

When I make the fix, you only need to use the "Look For / Replace With Box". You can test it on some other field, such as slot or location (not locality).

The upper left box is for making column to column copies of data, eg you want to copy a field into Notes. They are totally independent.

Quoting Giga Wizard:

Quote:
Ok had windows clasic color and changed it to XP, made no difference. I just noticed that font is in white, so hardly visible against that yellow. Scalling down in resolution does not help.

Oh man, that is sooooo wierd. It is definitely not defined specifically as white in my code. Foreground color is defined as "Active Caption Text" Ah hah, looking at the code as I type, all the other controls have forground color = "Control Text". So that's it. Now I just need to figure out why my design tool is not letting me change the foreground back to "control text". Anyway, at least now we know what the problem is. You can probably fix it temporarily by changing your windows color scheme, but I doubt if you really want to do that ... Edit: Ok, I figured it out - I forgot that I was in debug mode at the time.

I hope the other info about Locality and how to use the Look For / Replace was understandable.

Quoting Giga Wizard:

Quote:
Yeah it was, those boxes are separte and not connected they do different things. Wow man, this is a powerfull tool.
On exit in bulkedit: could you clear the righthand window list? (loaded profiles)

(Thanks for the kind words). Regarding the request: OMG no way! The fact that the table and log are saved is a major part of the XML import paradigm, and a major way that I use the tool. I bounce back and forth all the time, expecting my last results to be there. I haven't yet figured out a way to "know" when it should be cleared, and I know that you can get errors when the underlying database changes. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

Do you find the menu item "File\Clear Sheet Data" too much trouble, or do you get errors or other major problems from the data being preserved?

Unless we come up with some good ideas, I'm afraid this is one request that I cannot honor at this time - sorry. 

Oh you know what, I just thought of: Exit - Clear. How would that be?