Episode Text

Background

Episode text is typically the text that says some variation of Episode {x}. The Maker allows for modification of the episode text for cards that support it, similar to specifying custom season titles. This is done by specifying the episode_text_format YAML attribute as a format string in a series YAML file. For example:

series:
  Scenes from a Marriage (US) (2021):
    card_type: olivier
    episode_text_format: "Scene {episode_number_cardinal}"

Will produce cards like this:

Available Options

As shown in the example, many options are available for the format string - all of the following are shown below:

NOTE: The examples below are shown for Season 2, Episode 10 (absolute episode number 20) of Mr. Robot (2015)

Format Option	Description	Example
{season_number}	Season number of the episode	2
{season_number_cardinal}	Cardinal season number of the episode	two
{season_number_ordinal}	Ordinal season number of the episode	second
{episode_number}	Episode number of the episode	10
{episode_number_cardinal}	Cardinal episode number of the episode	ten
{episode_number_ordinal}	Ordinal episode number of the episode	tenth
{abs_number}	Absolute episode number of the episode	20
{abs_number_cardinal}	Cardinal absolute episode number of the episode	twenty
{abs_number_ordinal}	Ordinal absolute episode number of the episode	twentieth
{series_name}	Name of the series	Mr. Robot
{series_year}	Year of the series	2015
{airdate}1	Airdate (and time) of the episode	2016-09-07 15:00:00
Translations2	Any translated versions of the above cardinal/ordinal numbers	dixième
Extra Characteristics	Any extra characteristics in the datafile for this episode	-

¹This is a fairly complicated option, and is described below

²The details of this are described below

Here is how I remember the difference between cardinal and ordinal:

• Ordinal numbers indicate the order of the number (e.g. first, second, third, etc.)
• Cardinal are how you count the numbers (e.g. one, two, three, etc.)

Airdate

TCM can add the original airdate/time of the episode to the episode text. This will only be available if the episode data is actively being sourced from Sonarr, Plex, or TMDb (in other words this data cannot come from the datafile alone).

This datetime can be formatted in any way - a complete list/table of these options is available here, but a few examples are listed below:

Example episode_text_format	Output
Aired {airdate:%b %d %Y}	Aired Sep 07 2016
Day {airdate:%j} of 365	Day 251 of 365
Week {airdate:%W}/52	Week 36/52
{airdate:%A at %-H %p}	Wednesday at 3 PM

Translations

TCM can also translate the spelled versions of the cardinal and ordinal season, episode, and absolute numbers. This is disabled by default, because translating every number in every language would unnecessarily slow down TCM for most users.

If a non-English translation is desired then the language codes for the applicable languages must be entered in the global language codes option. An example of this is listed here.

NOTE: Not all languages support all combinations of cardinal and ordinal conversion - for example ordinal versions in Czech language are not implemented

Default Episode Text Format

Each card defines it's own default episode text format string. Below is a table showcasing each of these, along with an example.

Card Type	Default episode_text_format	Example
AnimeTitleCard	EPISODE {episode_number}
CutoutTitleCard	{episode_number_cardinal}
FadeTitleCard	EPISODE {episode_number}
FrameTitleCard	EPISODE {episode_number}
LandscapeTitleCard	This card does not have episode text
LogoTitleCard	EPISODE {episode_number}
OlivierTitleCard	EPISODE {episode_number_cardinal}
PosterTitlecard	Ep. {episode_number}
RomanNumeralTitleCard	{episode_number}
StandardTitleCard	EPISODE {episode_number}
StarWarsTitleCard	EPISODE {episode_number_cardinal}
TextlessTitleCard	This card does not have episode text
TintedGlassTitleCard	{series_name} | S{season_number} E{episode_number}