Add the ability to add custom section in "Suggestion"

[WzfTest 12]

Hi !

I would love to be able to add my own sections and be able to sort them in whatever order I want.

Add sections with custom titles and filters, with different sorting modes (Randomly is the most important for me).

THANKS !

[ebr 15663]

I believe this request, which is really going to be more like "Smart Views" would do what you want.

 

[Warzonefury 12]

No, not just a playlist. It would be directly integrated into the top menus of films and series, I show you with photoshop montages.

Being able to create groups of films or series with personalized filters and sorts, naming these groups as you want and being able to put them in the order you want.

 

I show you what it looks like on my Plex:

 

[ebr 15663]

How would that be different from a "Smart View" if we allowed you to put them on that suggestions page as well as the home page?

[Warzonefury 12]

If we just stop at a playlist, yes, it's the same thing. But the playlists are displayed on the sidebar... I like when there's as little as possible, that it's not overloaded everywhere.

People are boring, they quickly get lost when there are too many things in the menus.

Is there a possibility to not display playlists on the sidebar? I did not find

[ebr 15663]

Again, we're planning more of a smart view feature rather than just a Playlist. 

[rbjtech 4996]

I've actually been playing with this - adding those 'rows' as dynamic emby Channels.   

Proof of concept is working ok - but nowhere near ready for any sort of release.

@ebr - This has been 'in the works' for years now - I know you cannot give a date, but is this something that will make it 'this year' or is it still into next year or beyond ?   

Basically, I don't want to put a lot of effort into a Plugin that will get replaced in the Core ...  ?

Thanks.

[Luke 40067]

I'm hoping to get to smart views and playlists after 4.8.

[Riddler84 54]

2 hours ago, Luke said:

I'm hoping to get to smart views and playlists after 4.8.

Glad to hear that. But what does "smart view" mean exactly? Just a smart collection as well as smart playlists? Or is this really meant like a customizable Frontend-View like custom pages or frontend rows?

Because that's something that is long overdue in my opinion. The only content you can find on the front page is the stuff that was recently added and the stuff you're currently watching. No recommendations, no dynamic content!

But having Smart Collections, that doesn't have to be manually updated every time, would be a nice start. I'm currently in the process of writing a script that will automatically create and maintain my collections based on IMDB tags, which I import with another script. So it would be nice to have Smart Collections, so I'd had one script less^^

But the problem persists, that even with a nice bunch of collections, you have to go to the collections library and browse them. That's almost never happen. They have to be used as content for the front page in a way, that you see something new every time you visit it.

[Luke 40067]

Quote

Glad to hear that. But what does "smart view" mean exactly? Just a smart collection as well as smart playlists?

It's really the same idea as a smart playlist but with a different layout.

[rbjtech 4996]

9 hours ago, Riddler84 said:

Glad to hear that. But what does "smart view" mean exactly? Just a smart collection as well as smart playlists? Or is this really meant like a customizable Frontend-View like custom pages or frontend rows?

Because that's something that is long overdue in my opinion. The only content you can find on the front page is the stuff that was recently added and the stuff you're currently watching. No recommendations, no dynamic content!

But having Smart Collections, that doesn't have to be manually updated every time, would be a nice start. I'm currently in the process of writing a script that will automatically create and maintain my collections based on IMDB tags, which I import with another script. So it would be nice to have Smart Collections, so I'd had one script less^^

But the problem persists, that even with a nice bunch of collections, you have to go to the collections library and browse them. That's almost never happen. They have to be used as content for the front page in a way, that you see something new every time you visit it.

So all of the above has been attempted to some extent with various solutions over the last couple of years - we have Smart Playlist Plugins, Top Picks Plugins, Recommendation Scripts, Spotlight Scripts etc - but they all ultimately have the same concept - which is to bring filtered content to the 'front row'.   

Emby 'Channels' allow this fairly easily - but one of the major hurdles has always been 'duplicates' being shown - ie your Channel may show lets say 80's Movies, but all those 80's Movies in your main Movie library now show two entries for each 80's Movie... 

12 hours ago, Luke said:

I'm hoping to get to smart views and playlists after 4.8.

Excellent - this has been #1 on the FR's forever - and having a Core solution to even a simple filter based system to show the results as configurable Channels will be a game changer for many.   I'm still going to play with my Proof of Concept as it's interesting learning - but good to know this feature is finally on it's way in the not too distant future    Thanks @Luke

Edited August 11, 2023 by rbjtech

[adminExitium 295]

12 hours ago, Luke said:

after 4.8

The 4.8 beta seems to have been running forever now. Are there still any features or enhancements targeted for 4.8 or is it just pending bugs that need to be addressed? Just curious so I can temper my expectations for this feature accordingly...

[Riddler84 54]

7 hours ago, Luke said:

It's really the same idea as a smart playlist but with a different layout.

You mean like the Smart Playlist Plugin? Would that come with more sorting options for collections? Right now, we only have sort title and release date. We can't even choose between ASC and DESC. Additionally, it would be nice to be able to sort them manually, maybe per drag & drop or a metadata setting.

5 hours ago, rbjtech said:

So all of the above has been attempted to some extent with various solutions over the last couple of years - we have Smart Playlist Plugins, Top Picks Plugins, Recommendation Scripts, Spotlight Scripts etc - but they all ultimately have the same concept - which is to bring filtered content to the 'front row'.   

Emby 'Channels' allow this fairly easily - but one of the major hurdles has always been 'duplicates' being shown - ie your Channel may show lets say 80's Movies, but all those 80's Movies in your main Movie library now show two entries for each 80's Movie... 

I know. And I used many of these for some time. But aside from some downsides coming from the plugins itself, they all share the same flaw. You mentioned it already. They're all create additional libraries and are making duplicates of the items. It produces more fragmentation and can be just confusing for users. For this reason, I don't use the Trailers Plugin either. Also for the reason, that it still can't show trailers in my language, even after all that time.

And to date I didn't know of any plugin, that can bring content of collections on the frontpage or make a real dynamic frontpage with fresh content at every visit. I guess I'd just like to have a native solution which gives you more freedom over how the content is presented. Right now it's just the libraries basically, but almost no presentation of content you can browse through. Even the recommendations page is just showing you the same every time, based on the latest things you watched. It adds one row every time you watch a movie, basically putting the "more like that" row from the movie details page onto the recommendation page.

[Luke 40067]

3 hours ago, Riddler84 said:

You mean like the Smart Playlist Plugin? Would that come with more sorting options for collections? Right now, we only have sort title and release date. We can't even choose between ASC and DESC. Additionally, it would be nice to be able to sort them manually, maybe per drag & drop or a metadata setting.

I know. And I used many of these for some time. But aside from some downsides coming from the plugins itself, they all share the same flaw. You mentioned it already. They're all create additional libraries and are making duplicates of the items. It produces more fragmentation and can be just confusing for users. For this reason, I don't use the Trailers Plugin either. Also for the reason, that it still can't show trailers in my language, even after all that time.

And to date I didn't know of any plugin, that can bring content of collections on the frontpage or make a real dynamic frontpage with fresh content at every visit. I guess I'd just like to have a native solution which gives you more freedom over how the content is presented. Right now it's just the libraries basically, but almost no presentation of content you can browse through. Even the recommendations page is just showing you the same every time, based on the latest things you watched. It adds one row every time you watch a movie, basically putting the "more like that" row from the movie details page onto the recommendation page.

Collections will have sorting controls right on the detail screen in the upcoming 4.8 server release.

[polaris70 12]

Luke, can you add  a option " Suggestions" that can be showed on the Home Screen for Movie and TV show so that I can see on the Home Screen " Because you watched....".

Thank you!

[Luke 40067]

56 minutes ago, polaris70 said:

Luke, can you add  a option " Suggestions" that can be showed on the Home Screen for Movie and TV show so that I can see on the Home Screen " Because you watched....".

Thank you!

Hi, more control over home screen sections is planned for future updates. Thanks.

[skank 85]

These smart playlists will be in 4.8 server?

I'm waiting for this for a long time too

[snoopy89 0]

Any update about this? would be super useful.

[skank 85]

On 8/11/2023 at 10:49 AM, adminExitium said:

The 4.8 beta seems to have been running forever now. Are there still any features or enhancements targeted for 4.8 or is it just pending bugs that need to be addressed? Just curious so I can temper my expectations for this feature accordingly...

@Luke we are at 4.8.1 now... is this still work in progress? i hoped it would be there in 4.8 but its very quiet here...

[skank 85]

On 8/10/2023 at 10:29 PM, Luke said:

I'm hoping to get to smart views and playlists after 4.8.

Any update on this Luke?

[Luke 40067]

8 hours ago, skank said:

Any update on this Luke?

Hi, not yet but hopefully soon.

[rbjtech 4996]

On 11/08/2023 at 08:04, rbjtech said:

So all of the above has been attempted to some extent with various solutions over the last couple of years - we have Smart Playlist Plugins, Top Picks Plugins, Recommendation Scripts, Spotlight Scripts etc - but they all ultimately have the same concept - which is to bring filtered content to the 'front row'.   

Emby 'Channels' allow this fairly easily - but one of the major hurdles has always been 'duplicates' being shown - ie your Channel may show lets say 80's Movies, but all those 80's Movies in your main Movie library now show two entries for each 80's Movie... 

Excellent - this has been #1 on the FR's forever - and having a Core solution to even a simple filter based system to show the results as configurable Channels will be a game changer for many.   I'm still going to play with my Proof of Concept as it's interesting learning - but good to know this feature is finally on it's way in the not too distant future    Thanks @Luke

@Luke- Hi - so are we any closer to Home Screen Smart rows/libraries/channels - based on smartlists ?

I halted my own efforts to get this 'working' (hacked) but stopped as you advised it was something you were hopefully working on back in August of last year post the 4.8 release...    Its now 9 months later - 4.8 has been and gone - Is it even on the cards ?

If not, then I'll carry on with my own 'hack' (and now wish I had just carried on with it..) as my own users are now fed up waiting for this essential missing feature ...

[unrais 11]

On 26/04/2024 at 11:24, rbjtech said:

 

If not, then I'll carry on with my own 'hack' (and now wish I had just carried on with it..) as my own users are now fed up waiting for this essential missing feature ...

Yea I wouldn't hold my breath. It's been a feature request for like 8 years, and there's currently still no hint that they've made a start on it, so it's still probably 2 years away at least. I just wish there was a better middle ground between feature dev & bug/maintenance dev. Plex seem to lean too heavily toward feature dev (to the point of adding features nobody asked for), and Emby leans too heavily towards maintenance dev, and even when they do add a feature, it takes ages and is miniscule (profile pins, a 'collection' row that only shows the list of collections lol).

It'd be great to get better transparency with their dev. A road map at least. But even better would be if they adopted development cycles similar to the likes of Blender etc, where they have a well structured release cycle:



Even if Emby only did an on/off cycle between something like the above & then a cycle of pure bug fixing/maintenance, it'd still yield better feature development & user engagement than what we currently have.

[skank 85]

Still no change here?

[Riddler84 54]

5 hours ago, skank said:

Still no change here?

Nope. Emby is probably the best software for a self-hosted media server right now, but the lack of transparency drives me crazy. I don't want them to tell me everything, but I'd like to know if they're working on anything bigger than bugfixes and small improvements here and there.

What the OP of this thread wants, is implemented in Plex for many years now. The libraries and the frontpage are just needing more diversity and customization options asap. Even Jellyfin is slightly ahead of Emby in that regard.

Edited September 22, 2024 by Riddler84