Blog

Reworked theme is live

I shared my thoughts about half a year back regarding the Drupal theme and how I was not entirely happy with it anymore. It took longer than I originally thought, but today I finally updated the front-end theme to the new version.

In my opinion it is a better user experience, and it also gives a slightly fresher look with the reworked cast/crew view.

I decided to hide several fields, and only show them for logged in users. This makes the OFDb a bit more accessible, but it’s relevant… » read more

“Script” field added

You can now add the script of a film or episode by providing a link to a (external) PDF. Consult the Wiki for more info.

An increasing number of information can be added to the OFDb, mainly to films and TV shows (as the more complex content types). This is very much the goal, but also left me thinking, whether the front-end might need some rework. For instance, I’m not convinced anymore that all the icons are good UI/… » read more

“Collection” and “sales agent” fields added

You can now add movies and TV shows to collections to group them together. This is useful to get a list of all films in a specific universe or franchise, for example.

Currently collections can’t be created freely, but you can only chose already existing collections. However, this is something that might change in the future to allow users to create collections themselves.

Furthermore you can also add the sales agent(s) of a movie… » read more

Drupal theme version 2.0.0 is live

The announced update taking place over the weekend has been implemented. The main changes are:

• Blog and wiki migrated from WordPress and DokuWiki to the OFDb Drupal installation. The motivation to do this was mostly to maintain a single system instead of three separate ones.
• How to add cast members was reworked to offer more flexibility.
• In various places the TV show is now displayed instead of single episodes (e.g. in the filmography of an actor). Displaying less but more… » read more

Update underway

This weekend (8.-9.2.2025) I will rollout the next update for the OFDb, which will take some more time than before. Since content and entity migration is necessary, the process is somewhat more complicated.

Because I’m not sure how long it will actually take, the page stays online during the weekend. While the back-end is already up-to-date, on the front-end part you might see some hiccups like fields that are not correctly displayed in that time.

“Credited as” field added

You can now specify if a person was credited under a different name than their “official” stage name. To do so, simply use the newly created “Credited as” field when adding cast members.

Consult the Wiki for more info.

New fields added: Height and Tagline

Two new fields have been added to the OFDb: Height for the Person content type and Tagline for the TV show and Movie content types.

The first field is simply the height of a person in centimeters, and the tagline is a short text for marketing purposes frequently used in the entertainment industry.

Consult the Wiki to find out more about each field:

• Height
• … » read more

Why the ODbL?

There are many film and movie databases probably with the IMDb being the widest known one. Many of them, the IMDb included, license their content under a proprietary license. This means that you are highly restrictive to use their content/data. You might not be allowed to share some of their data about your favourite movie on your personal website, for example. Or you must use the provided API, where you are dictated the terms, whether you like them or not. And if there are changes made, you simply have to accept… » read more

Drupal theme version 1.0.0 released

Even though not really noticeable while browsing the website itself, it’s still noteworthy: the new version of the OFDb’s Drupal theme is finally released as the version 1.0.0. All features and functions currently in use are properly themed (back- and front-end), hence the decision.

If you have any feedback or found a bug, you can use the bug tracker in the git repository.

Cast and crew implemented

It took a couple of months of development (in my spare time, tough), but finally an important feature is complete: the possibility to add cast and crew to movies and episodes. No serious film database is complete without this feature!

I haven’t added the documentation of how to do so to the wiki just yet, but you can already add your favourite actors and crew members to the movies and TV shows you love.

There are still plenty of ideas on how to improve the OFDb, but I haven’t decided where to start just… » read more