Random Fun Facts idea - maybe more of a plugin idea for someone?

[ZanderKeen 72]

I think this might be more of a plugin idea than a full emby server feature idea but I don't know. I cannot code for the life of me, so I am just posting this in case someone wants to make it.

I have no clue if it would be possible or how it would even work, but I thought it would be neat for a feature if there was some way to show random "fun facts" about a movie while watching it using the notifications feature. (see image)

Maybe the server admin could drop a .txt file formatted a specific way into the movie folder and a random timer or something could pull randomized data from the .txt file? It could go a step further and have a time stamp to display the fact at a specific time in the movie. Idk if that goes beyond the scope of what plugins can do though.

A user-side toggle would be nice too but I'm sure that would be well beyond the scope of plugins. So maybe, eventually it could be an integrated emby feature?

I was just thinking and didn't want to waste an idea in case someone in the community can build off it.

It doesn't look like anyone else posted anything like it.

[RaptorCentauri 59]

This could be a fun plug-in. I don't think it would be necessary to have it be an integrated features. It would really just  need to be a subtitle file with trivia. 

[rbjtech 5284]

It's a nice idea, similiar to the 'X-Ray' on Prime for example.   The API allows you to send a message to any client and it's trivial to read from a .txt file - but the main blocker here is who is going to put the 'facts' together ?   

[crusher11 1101]

This is just a trivia subtitle track with extra steps.

[ebr 16169]

Yeah, I would think subtitles would be the best way to do this.  In fact, it could be done right now without a single line of code needing to be written.  Just create a subtitle file with the "facts".

[ZanderKeen 72]

10 hours ago, rbjtech said:

"but the main blocker here is who is going to put the 'facts' together ?   "

@rbjtech That's a good point, It would have to be someone with a lot of time on their hands.

I know if I was to do it for my own stuff, it would only be a few of the really popular films.

Using the subtitles idea is a good idea. I wasn't thinking about those but your right, that has the timestamps functionality and all.

[yocker 1247]

I'm currently at the very beginning at making a plugin for movie trivia.
Plan is to make a plugin that scrapes imdb for trivia, save it as SRT files to then be shown as subtitles in Emby.

If any one has any ideas for features for this then please say do.

[GrimReaper 4739]

11 minutes ago, yocker said:

I'm currently at the very beginning at making a plugin for movie trivia.
Plan is to make a plugin that scrapes imdb for trivia, save it as SRT files to then be shown as subtitles in Emby.

That's an awesome idea. However, for purely selfish reasons (as both myself and my household watch all media subtitled, that'd automatically exclude using trivia.srt) I'd prefer it to be sent/displayed as a toast. But I understand that I'm a minority, the only other groups I could think of, that might prefer it as I do, would be other foreign users and HoH/SDH users for whom subs are also a necessity. 

Either way - great idea.

Edited November 27, 2025 by GrimReaper

[yocker 1247]

10 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

That's an awesome idea. However, for purely selfish reasons (as both myself and my household watch all media subtitled, that'd automatically exclude using trivia.srt) I'd prefer it to be sent/displayed as a toast. But I understand that I'm a minority, the only other groups I could think of, that might prefer it as I do, would be other foreign users and HoH/SDH users for whom subs are also a necessity. 

Either way - great idea.

I agree but from how the Emby toast system works that would be impossible unless the dev team updates the toast system to have a working timeout system.
The messages would simply go away before any one got a chance to read them.

I've researched how i could actually merge the subtitles but i think that would be messed up to as it would be a wall of text and the trivia would go away as soon as new text is shown.

Edited November 27, 2025 by yocker

[GrimReaper 4739]

6 minutes ago, yocker said:

I agree but from how the Emby toast system works that would be impossible unless the dev team updates the toast system to have a worked timeout system.
The messages would simply go away before any one got a chance to read them.

I know, not likely to happen. And I know that secondary subtitle track support is also not likely to happen (at least for a foreseeable future), so I'll unfortunately not be able to consume the trivia. 

But hey, don't let that stop you by any means, it'll still be a great addition to a very large audience, let them have some fun and  enjoyment.

Edited November 27, 2025 by GrimReaper

[yocker 1247]

1 minute ago, GrimReaper said:

I know, not likely to happen. And I know that secondary subtitle track support is also not likely to happen (at least for a foreseeable future), so I'll unfortunately not be able to consume the trivia. 

But hey, don't let that stop you by any means, it'll still be a great addition to a very large audience, let them have some fun and  enjoyment.

I'm in the same boat as you so i will try and find a solution for it though!

@LukeSorry to bother but do you have any plans on fixing the toast message timeout so one can be set and have it working?

[rbjtech 5284]

By toast, I'm assuming you mean the on-screen notification ?

if yes, then I'm pretty sure you can just keep sending it every 1 sec etc and it will stay there - if that's what you require ?  Agreed the timeout nor the acknowledgement work properly - as we tried to use that during the development of the Intro-skip plugin.  

 

Edited November 28, 2025 by rbjtech

[yocker 1247]

3 hours ago, rbjtech said:

By toast, I'm assuming you mean the on-screen notification ?

if yes, then I'm pretty sure you can just keep sending it every 1 sec etc and it will stay there - if that's what you require ?  Agreed the timeout nor the acknowledgement work properly - as we tried to use that during the development of the Intro-skip plugin.  

 

From my testing they just get stacked on top of each other that way.

[ebr 16169]

19 hours ago, yocker said:

Plan is to make a plugin that scrapes imdb for trivia

Hi. If you do that, we cannot put the plugin in the catalog.  You'll need to use a publicly available API to gather your data.  Thanks.

https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Emby/wiki/Development-Policy

[yocker 1247]

1 hour ago, ebr said:

Hi. If you do that, we cannot put the plugin in the catalog.  You'll need to use a publicly available API to gather your data.  Thanks.

https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Emby/wiki/Development-Policy

Do they have an API for it?

Can see the other major databases have free API for it.
Will look into using that.
Can see there is a database for quiz facts as well, gives me an idea.

Btw. is there a plan to improve the toast notification system?

Edited November 28, 2025 by yocker

[yocker 1247]

Seems impossible to do any movie fact fetching at all with API, at least for free.
I found one thing that possible though.. Make a movie quiz instead.

 

[rechigo 364]

21 hours ago, yocker said:

From my testing they just get stacked on top of each other that way.

Yes the toast notification timeout has never worked for me in all the years I've used Emby... I've brushed it off countless times, I have a few little utilities I've made over the years with timeout parameters that are ignored. @Luke