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FR: Improve User Access / Parental Control


VladTepz

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VladTepz

Hi all, I'm fairly new to Emby but have been a XBMC/KODI + MySQL user for many years. I've been messing around every now and then with Plex & Emby looking for a streaming/transcoding solution but it has always fell flat, do to lack of support for specific needed features in my case.

 

Until now... Emby, along with the Beta Kodi addon is pretty much the holy grail I've been searching for, for many years. There's is just 1 slight nuisance, that I have a workaround for, but think it could be handle so much better without having to do a workaround.

 

User Access / Parental Control.....

 

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A little info on my setup, I have 4 main users:

 

-My Wife & Myself

-My Parents

-My Son

-My Other Son

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Media Library Setup:

Movies-
      -Movies 3D
      -Movies Main
TV-
      -TV Kids (Cartoons & some Anime that the adults don't want to see)
      -TV Main

My Issue:

 

#1 - Now that the kids are getting older, they are getting more interested in Non Cartoon shows, But still want access to their cartoons.

#2 - Each child wants Only specific cartoons shown & specific shows from the TV-Main

#3 - I only want Movies that have been watched, to show up for the kids account. They are still young enough to hang out with their old folks & watch movies with them but old enough to just watch them on their own if they had access. ;)

 

Their are more scenarios, but these 3 get to the heart of the issue.

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Using the User Access / Parental Controls works to a point. The issue is that using access & tags to block content works....Until new Shows or Movies are added to the library...Then there is need to go into the library, set new blocking tags to the new content. In the meantime, before I get to add these blocking tags, the users that I intend to block, have access to the new media.....& hopefully I don't forget that I need to block it....

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My current workaround is to have a separate share folder, with separate user folders, with separate media folder & cherry pick the content using Symlinks...

Shared Media-
            -Main
                  -Movies
                  -TV
            -Parents
                  -Movies
                  -TV       (Specific shows from TV Main Media folder using Symlinks)
            -Child-1
                  -Movies   (Specific Movies from Movies Main Media folder using Symlinks)
                  -TV       (Specific shows from TV Kids & TV Main Media folder using Symlinks)
            -Child-2
                  -Movies   (Specific Movies from Movies Main Media folder using Symlinks)
                  -TV       (Specific shows from TV Kids & TV Main Media folder using Symlinks)

Then I need to scan 7 Different libraries with some libraries having overlapping/duplicate shows/movies.

Then using User Access control to only allow specific users to their specific libraries.

 

Using this method works, but specific Shows or Movies are scanned into the library up to 4 times each in my case....

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Proposed Solution(s):

 

Simple from my viewpoint, but understandable maybe not so simple from a technical/programming standpoint.

 

#1 - Allow Library Access control down to the show/movie folder level

 

#2 - Parental Control, Use an "Allow content with tags" instead of a "Block content with tags" switch.

 

IMO, #2 would probably be the best option & the easiest for home users to use. It would allow admins to cherry pick what is allowed with a catchall block until the admin has had a chance to review any new content & decide if & whom may access it.

 

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Hopefully I made this as easy to read & understand as possible.

 

Thanks fro making a great product & I hope to be using it much more in the future...

 

-Mike (New Emby User)

 

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Yeah, #2 sounds like the better option to me - equivalent to the "Block items with no rating" option.

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  • 2 weeks later...
VladTepz

Well, after taking a few days learning the code & compiling a few tests...

 

I did have some progress, I was able to hide/show items in the Metadata Manager although with some Null errors, but no items would show in the Library Views during any of my tests.

 

The way that Tags are handled by Parental Controls, Fixing/Adding a way to "Allow content with tags" or even just blocking content with no Tags is beyond my skill set after really examining the way it is handled. It looks like some major rewriting of code would need be involved to achieve this.

 

I truly hope somebody with more coding skill than me can tackle this soon. The "Block content with tags" falls short in Parental Controls because there is no way to block new content, which may be inappropriate, without manually adding tags after the fact. In the meanwhile, any new content is available to all.

 

-Mike (New Emby User & C# noob)

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  • 2 months later...

I would like to see allowing by Tag as well.

We have a little 4 year old and not all G rated movies are fully suitable for her yet.

We do select the movies for her and don't let her browse yet by herself, but she always sees them zipping by and sometimes asks for them.

I know I could create multiple movies folders and then have them merge, but just adding a Tag to a movie she is allowed to see now just seams cleaner.

 

But do also keep the block. I can see that someone would like to have a large library of movies that guests can browse, but they may want to keep some movies out of the guest library and only in their own.

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I would like to see allowing by Tag as well.

We have a little 4 year old and not all G rated movies are fully suitable for her yet.

We do select the movies for her and don't let her browse yet by herself, but she always sees them zipping by and sometimes asks for them.

I know I could create multiple movies folders and then have them merge, but just adding a Tag to a movie she is allowed to see now just seams cleaner.

 

 

You can do this now with a custom rating.  Just set the custom rating on the ones you don't want her to see to "PG" (or anything else higher than her max rating).

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