I started out planning to expand the functionality of my program NameCheck. However, halfway through the first attempt to create the new version I realized that it was a mistake. The program that I was trying to create did not have the same goal as NameCheck. NameCheck was specifically written to  find "cross contaminating" credits. By that i mean that you have "A credited as B" in some profiles and "B credited as A" in others.

So I decided that this new this development was going to become its own program, now named CreditVariants. It was inspired by DJ Doena's plugin "Find Name Duplicates". If it had turned out to do exactly the same thing as his plugin, then I probably would have discarded it.

It took me three tries to get the functionality that I intended. And when I compared it to DJ's plugin I was surprised to see how different it turned out to be. We clearly use different methods to find variants. DJ finds some that I don't find and I find some that DJ doesn't find.

One marked difference is that DJ's plugin takes a l-o-n-g time to process the collection. That is (at least partly) because DJ processes both cast and crew. In this version I only target cast. I may add crew in a later version, if anyone asks for it.

If you already have an XML export file, then CreditVariants is quite fast. Even if you have to do an export, it's faster than the plugin.

Anyway, enough chit-chat. Here is what it looks like:



I would suggest that you test both CreditVariants and DJ's plugin, so you can see for yourself which one does what.
You can download version 1.0 of CreditVariants here.

Oops, I did it again!

I released a program only to find a bug the very next day. I thought I had tested it well, and then I double clicked on a name that contained an apostrophy, and BOOM! 

Oh, well, that gave me a reason to implement a new feature at the same time as I fixed the bug. Entries with inconsistent names - that is, entries that need a common name fix - are now displayed in red (and italics, for those who may be color blind).



Get version 1.1.0 now! (Before I find another bug  )

Yes and yes, sort of. I prefer to export just Owned, but you can export everything if you want.
For easy export, you may want to create a command file. A text file to export everything can look like this:

ClearAllFilters
ExportXMLAll E:\DvdProfilerExport\AllCollection.xml

Or if you want just Owned:

CollectionType Owned
ClearAllFilters
ExportXMLFiltered E:\DvdProfilerExport\Owned.xml

Save the text file somewhere where you can find it again    and use File / Run command file to execute it. (And you probably want to specify a different path for saving the XML file.)

Or, if you want to keep an up-to-date XML export without any effort, you might take a look at DvdpScheduler.
I personally use that to export my Owned collection every night, and take a backup twice a month.

Edit: Actually when I think about it, you probably don't need the ClearAllFilters when exporting everything, just when you want to export a specifiy collection.

Thanks for the explanation. I think, I have to investigate into your achievments a little bit deeper...

And for the records: Mr. Buckley has already a common name thread assigned...

I downloaded your program today but ran into problems when trying to import my XML file.  This is on a Windows 10 PC.

Quote:
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at ProfilerData.clsProfile.ScanObjects(XmlNode Profile) in C:\users\user\documents\Visual Studio 2017\Projects\ProfilerData\clsProfile.vb:line 296

and

Quote:
System.ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: source at System.Linq.Enumerable.Count[TSource](|Enumerable`1 source) at ProfilerData.ProData.m_bw_DoWork(Object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e) in C:\Users\User\Documents\Visual Studio 2017\Projects\ProfilerData\ProfilerData\ProData.vb:line 145

---------------

The post above was a middle-of-the-night answer, and perhaps a bit too brief. So let me explain a bit better.

In a full export, there is always a section for crew. If there is no crew in the profile, there is still a placeholder, a <Credits/> tag. If you make an export with the Crew checkbox unchecked, there will be no placeholder in the XML file. That's what causes the problem.

Had I been aware of this back when I created ProfilerData.dll I could have taken this in account. Going back in there now seems more work than the problem is worth. So, for now at least, it is a requirement that a full export is used.

Good to hear that it's working for you, Scott! Thanks for your feedback.

By the way, I just tested checking Crew and setting the max number to zero. That works. You get an empty <Credit/> tag for every profile. Just in case file space is critical ...

It turned out the fix to ProfilerData.dll wasn't as complicated as I feared, so I took care of the problem with missing Crew. So now you can exclude anything in the export, and the program will not crash. You can even exclude Cast without causing a crash, but it will rather limit the usefulness 

To sweeten things a little bit, I have included a help file now, in version 1.1.1.