Launching-PVD-for-the-First-Time

There are two ways to launch PVD, by running:

1. viddb.exe, or
2. portable.bat

Regardless of the method you choose (the differences will be explained in a moment), you will be presented with the following window:

Window Layout

Along the top of the window, below the application title bar, is your menu bar. Below that is the tool bar. On the left side of the screen is your list of movies or people, depending upon which view you are in. By default, PVD launches in Movies view. PVD will remember which view you were last in upon subsequent launches.

The list of movies can be presented in various different formats (see Preferences for more info). And on the right we have the currently selected movie displayed along with various movie details. The status bar on the bottom shows application details, such as record count, etc.

PORTABLE.BAT vs VIDDB.EXE

If you run viddb.exe you will launch PVD normally. By launching PVD via portable.bat, the configuration file is saved locally, rather than in your program settings folder. The only real difference between the two is that the batch file uses the -portable command line parameter when executing the program (see Command Line Parameters below). The advantage to this is that you can test a version of PVD without impacting your production configuration settings.

Command Line Parameters

Here is a list of available command line options:

parameter	purpose
-showhidden	show hidden files in File select dialog
-readonly	prevents any editing of the database
-noconfig	hide settings
-debug	writes operational data to a LOG file
-showfloppy	show available floppy drives within File select dialog which are hidden/ignored by default
-portable	writes the program configuration in the current directory
-addmovie="title"
-addfile="video_file_path"
-selectmovie="title"
-selectperson="name"

How to use command line parameters

To use a command line parameter:

1. Start -> Run
2. Enter: "PVD Path\viddb.exe" -debug

or

1. Right click PVD shortcut -> Properties
2. Add -debug to Target, so that it looks like: "PVD Path\viddb.exe" -debug

---