Plugin: Home Screen Companion (formerly AutoTag)

[crusher11 1133]

47 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

The Home section can be filtered by more than a single tag - so just create more descriptive tag names in the Plugin and add them ALL to the home section filter.   Then you'll know exactly which filters are being used for what items ... 

But the schedule override won't work the way I want it to if I do that.

[LongMan 116]

On 3/4/2026 at 5:18 PM, soderlund said:

Warning
No longer support for Emby server version 4.9.x.x. Requires 4.10+

@soderlundDoes this means that the plugin does not work with 4.9.x.x version at all? Not even as auto tagger? I understand that the Home screen enhancements will not work, however,  how about the smart playlist features?

 

Edit: Asking because my 4.9.3.0 server shows New update: v3.1.2.0 available

Edited Tuesday at 09:53 PM by LongMan

[soderlund 103]

7 hours ago, crusher11 said:

It would be good to have a visual indication of whether or not a rule is being applied, and what tag it's applying. At the moment I have to dig into each scheduled rule individually to check its date range, and dig into each rule to see which tag it applies.

I have a ton of media that's tagged “spotlight”  right now and shouldn't be, and it's a challenge to try and figure out where it's gone wrong.

5 hours ago, crusher11 said:

But the schedule override won't work the way I want it to if I do that.

 

I'm of gonna have to agree with rbjtech on this. Try to name your groups very specific so you know what they are supposed to do. 
Use the native/built in home screen section manager to add multiple tags. Then you can have a home screen row with both "spotlight", "christmas_spotlight", "halloween_spotlight" for the same row.

That might be easier to administer with scheduler, and not using the override setting for all. 

I don't really see what more visual things to add. I don't want to clutter the UI. 

To be honest this sound like trap you have set up for yourself... But give me a good example and it would be easier what type of flags/visuals you want. A picture in Paint is very helpful! 

1 hour ago, LongMan said:

@soderlundDoes this means that the plugin does not work with 4.9.x.x version at all? Not even as auto tagger? I understand that the Home screen enhancements will not work, however,  how about the smart playlist features?

 

Edit: Asking because my 4.9.3.0 server shows New update: v3.1.2.0 available

The plugin would not load if running 4.9.3.0. 

From plugin version 3.0 it's built with assets from the beta server that's not available for server v4.9.3. You could give it a try, but my guess is that the plugin wont load in. 

From my experience the Emby devs are releasing very stable betas. I have always used the beta for my live/production server, with very few issues. Th latest beta gives huge improvements to Emby, so i kind of suggest to try it out! Releasing it as stable is probably not too far away either. 

[crusher11 1133]

4 hours ago, soderlund said:

But give me a good example and it would be easier what type of flags/visuals you want.

Well, at the moment the “schedule priority” label has an orange dot on it. Making it a green dot when the schedule is active would make sense.

 

4 hours ago, soderlund said:

That might be easier to administer with scheduler, and not using the override setting for all. 

I have, so far, 13 overrides. Handling all that manually would be a nightmare.

[chander421 17]

As I continue testing this great plugin, I've noticed that some titles in my mdblist playlists aren't being recognized or matched in Emby... I don't understand why; I can't see anything in the logs, and the movie IDs are the same (IMDb and TMDB IDs).

For example, the movie *Douce* (1943) (https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/63771-douce) is listed in my list on mdblist but never in Emby?

And the more I check the matches, the more I realize there are unmatched items here and there.

Any idea why?

 

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

Edited Wednesday at 08:40 AM by chander421

[soderlund 103]

8 hours ago, crusher11 said:

Well, at the moment the “schedule priority” label has an orange dot on it. Making it a green dot when the schedule is active would make sense.

Sure, that makes sense and is a nice touch. I’ll see what I can do!  

3 hours ago, chander421 said:

As I continue testing this great plugin, I've noticed that some titles in my mdblist playlists aren't being recognized or matched in Emby... I don't understand why; I can't see anything in the logs, and the movie IDs are the same (IMDb and TMDB IDs).

For example, the movie *Douce* (1943) (https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/63771-douce) is listed in my list on mdblist but never in Emby?

And the more I check the matches, the more I realize there are unmatched items here and there.

Any idea why?

 

  Reveal hidden contents

  Reveal hidden contents

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Nope, no idea at all.. My first guess would be that it doesn’t have an IMDb ID in Emby or MDBList, since matching is done only with that id. But if you already have checked that I don’t know.. 

And it’s always the same movie missing after running the plugin multiple times? 
could you try to create a new list with only that movie and then add to the plugin, what happens then? 

[chander421 17]

That's weird—so I created a list on mdblist with just that movie and added the source in emby (your plugin) to a new list, and this time it works...

Edited Wednesday at 01:23 PM by chander421

[LongMan 116]

14 hours ago, soderlund said:

From my experience the Emby devs are releasing very stable betas. I have always used the beta for my live/production server, with very few issues. Th latest beta gives huge improvements to Emby, so i kind of suggest to try it out! Releasing it as stable is probably not too far away either. 

I use the smart playlist plugin to make collections that I use in ersatz tv. That is really what delays my updating the server. From what I am seeing this plugin does most of it. 
What I am uncertain about is whether it tag specific seasons of a given show.
eg.  I use the query below to generate a collection of seasons of shows that has been watched in the last few months
Type: Collection, EpiMode: Season, SourceType: MediaItems

WHERE

(Media Type is Episode)

AND

(Last Played is in the last Type: Weeks, Value: 12 for Any User) 

The key here is that it only tags seasons watch recently other seasons in the respective shows are not tagged. When the results is viewed (in the plugin) it is individual seasons for the shows. ie it outputs a collection of seasons not shows or episodes

Edited Wednesday at 01:35 PM by LongMan

[soderlund 103]

4 minutes ago, chander421 said:

That's weird—so I created a list on mdblist with just that movie and added the source in emby (your plugin) to a new list, and this time it works...

Good, then we know the matching works correctly. The only think I can think about is if the tags are written too fast and Emby database doesn’t catch up. It’s supposed to be put in a que but I’ll look into it and see if I can put a small wait in between. 
 

But if it’s always the same movie despite multiple runs that doesn’t get added this theory might be long fetched.. 

I will have a look and see if can find anything. Thanks for reporting! 

[chander421 17]

After doing some digging and checking the mdblist API, it turns out that this movie isn't included in the list in question via the API, but it does appear via the API for the new test list...

Actually, no, IT IS included in the API list (it's just that the list was initially limited to 1,000 items...)

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 01:50 PM by chander421

[soderlund 103]

13 minutes ago, LongMan said:

I use the smart playlist plugin to make collections that I use in ersatz tv. That is really what delays my updating the server. From what I am seeing this plugin does most of it. 
What I am uncertain about is whether it tag specific seasons of a given show.
eg.  I use the query below to generate a collection of seasons of shows that has been watched in the last few months
Type: Collection, EpiMode: Season, SourceType: MediaItems

WHERE

(Media Type is Episode)

AND

(Last Played is in the last Type: Weeks, Value: 12 for Any User) 

The key here is that it only tags seasons watch recently other seasons in the respective shows are not tagged. When the results is viewed (in the plugin) it season individual seasons for the shows. ie it outputs a collection of seasons not shows or episodes

I believe the smart playlist plugin still works in the beta. I have it installed (but not using), so I can semi-confirm this. 
 

My plugin does not support to tag/create collection for a specific season. I could look into adding this as well, but currently no support. 
 

From your example the Home Screen Plugin can create a collection based on the episodes or full show that users have been watching in the last week. 
 

Just to confirm, if any user have watch S04E07 of scrubs, then you want the whole season 4 to end up in a collection? 

[LongMan 116]

4 minutes ago, soderlund said:

Just to confirm, if any user have watch S04E07 of scrubs, then you want the whole season 4 to end up in a collection? 

That is the way the plugin works and it is fine by me. I use it to put the season on a marathon channel which shows the seasons that are trending

Edited Wednesday at 01:51 PM by LongMan

[soderlund 103]

6 minutes ago, chander421 said:

After doing some digging and checking the mdblist API, it turns out that this movie isn't included in the list in question via the API, but it does appear via the API for the new test list...

So it doesn't seem to be a problem with your plugin! Which makes it seem even harder to fix now...

 

  Hide contents

 

Oh.. that’s a tough one.. 

My best advice would be to recreate the filters in a new list then and hope it fixes it. Or wait for the current one to refresh (if it’s a dynamic list). 

[soderlund 103]

2 minutes ago, LongMan said:

That the way the plugin works and it is fine by me. I use it to put the season on a marathon channel which shows the seasons that are trending

Nice idea I’ll put this down on my to-do list for next release. Shouldn’t be too hard to fix. 

[shinedou 7]

3 hours ago, LongMan said:

I use the smart playlist plugin to make collections that I use in ersatz tv. That is really what delays my updating the server.

I use smart playlist to feed ersatz as well. I have been testing with the beta server and it appears the smart playlist plugin is working for me. How long that will last is another question, that's why I am excited about this new plugin.

[chander421 17]

Quote

Oh.. that’s a tough one.. 

My best advice would be to recreate the filters in a new list then and hope it fixes it. Or wait for the current one to refresh (if it’s a dynamic list). 

Actually, no, IT IS included in the API list (it's just that the list was initially limited to 1,000 items...), so I guess it's actually a synchronization issue with the plugin?

[shinedou 7]

4 minutes ago, shinedou said:

I use smart playlist to feed ersatz as well. I have been testing with the beta server and it appears the smart playlist plugin is working for me. How long that will last is another question, that's why I am excited about this new plugin.

And what makes this plugin more promising than the smart playlist plugin is the ability to have smart tags. I much rather work with tags than collections.

Edited Wednesday at 04:36 PM by shinedou
corrected spelling

[soderlund 103]

3 hours ago, chander421 said:

Actually, no, IT IS included in the API list (it's just that the list was initially limited to 1,000 items...), so I guess it's actually a synchronization issue with the plugin?

Nice find! That's the issue, the plugin didn't work with pagination, so it only fetched 1000 items. This is now fixed this for upcoming release. 

 

3 hours ago, shinedou said:

And what makes this plugin more promising than the smart playlist plugin is the ability to have smart tags. I much rather work with tags than collections.

Yeah, and that's the whole reason i started this project with the plugin. Tag are almost invisible for the user but we can do so much with it. Collections will quickly be cluttered if we have like 20 + for just the purpose of populating the home screen rows.  

[soderlund 103]

New stable release -  Version 3.2.0.0
Download .dll and full release notes: https://github.com/soderlund91/HomeScreenCompanion/releases/tag/v3.2.0.0

This updates bring some new AI features and a remade way to set tags an create collections.
Also adapting the home screen section filters with Emby server 4.10.0.6 where we now can add a filter for watched/unwatched status.
And as always some fixes.

IMPORTANT! 
Minimum required Emby server v4.10.0.6

Note
Make sure to back up your settings before updating, just in case. Both the plugin and Emby (user data)

Note
Included a .NET V6 release, this is for MacOS or legacy support. This version is NOT tested.

 

New features

• Added AI-generated lists as an option for source.

 

Updates & Improvements

• Updated home screen section settings in according with Emby server 4.10.0.6. Now we can select to filter with play-status. (currently Emby server is having bugs with this feature, but this plugin will support the function)
• When selecting Media Type = Episode, there is now an option to also check towards the parent series (tree crawl) if the series match.

Added ability to enter multiple options in text fields, separated by comma. For example

Actor=Tom Hanks, Idris Elba, Edward Norton
Studio=Netflix, HBO, etc
Overview=Christmas, halloween

 

• Added function for better control of tags and collections: Remade tag/collection logic for Media Type=Episode (introduced in v3.1.2.0). In previous release this was made so episodes where tagged or added to collections. This logic is now moved into the Tag and Collection tabs. See below for more info.
  If you where using this to tag episodes, make sure to update according to the new way to set tags to episodes!

 

Fixes

• UI: Some smaller UI fixes
• Bug fix: Fixed an issue where external list from MDBList only fetched up to 1000 items. This is now unlimited.

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

New way to select Tag and Collection level

You can now control at which level tags and collections are applied when using the MediaInfo (smart filter) source — independently for tags and collections.
Tag tab — a new "For TV shows, tag at level" section lets you choose one or more of: Series, Season, Episode.
Collection tab — a new "For TV shows, add to collection at level" section with the same options.

These two settings are fully independent. For example, you can tag individual episodes while adding the parent series to a collection — all from the same filter.

How scan scope and output level work:
The filter determines what gets scanned. By default, the scanner processes movies and series. Adding a Media Type = Episode filter rule switches the scanner to episode-level, giving you access to episode-specific metadata.

The tab checkboxes determine where the result goes, regardless of what was scanned:

Filters/Scanning	Tagging/Collection	Result
Scanning series	Seasons	all seasons of matched series
Scanning series	Episode	all episodes of matched series
Scanning episodes	Series	the parent series is tagged/collected
Scanning episodes	Season	the parent season is tagged/collected

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Information about the new AI feature

This function is 100% optional. Just type what you want and the selected AI will give you a response that is already adapted for the plugin to read.
It's enough to type "Give me good horror movies", and the plugin will also add (invisible to the user) instructions.

NOTE
The AI function will NEVER send any sensitive data. No user ID, no usernames, no server information etc. See below for exactly what information that is sent

Below is the full promt that the plugin will send.

You are a movie and TV show recommendation assistant. Respond ONLY with a valid JSON array. No explanation, no markdown, no code fences. Each item must have these fields: "title" (string, required), "year" (integer or null), "imdb_id" (string starting with "tt" if known, otherwise null), "type" ("movie" or "show"). Return exactly the items requested. Do not add any commentary. Example: [{"title":"Inception","year":2010,"imdb_id":"tt1375666","type":"movie"}]

Give me good horror movies (This is the user promt)

Return up to 20 items.

 

Below is if you also select to send latest watch history

You are a movie and TV show recommendation assistant. Respond ONLY with a valid JSON array. No explanation, no markdown, no code fences. Each item must have these fields: "title" (string, required), "year" (integer or null), "imdb_id" (string starting with "tt" if known, otherwise null), "type" ("movie" or "show"). Return exactly the items requested. Do not add any commentary. Example: [{"title":"Inception","year":2010,"imdb_id":"tt1375666","type":"movie"}]

The user has recently watched these movies and TV shows (most recent first):
- Oppenheimer (2023) [movie]
- The Bear (2022) [show]
- Inception (2010) [movie]
Use this to personalize your recommendations.

Give me good horror movies (This is the user promt)

Return up to 20 items.

 

HomeScreenCompanion_NET6_MacOS.dll HomeScreenCompanion.dll

Edited 7 hours ago by soderlund

[LongMan 116]

I made a test instance of Emby to have a look at the plugin, and I must say it is NICE. VERY NICE. Excellent work. Not really a fan of the AI craze but your ideas seems to be quite useful and non intrusive. Could be a nice addition to suggested videos.

I must have over looked it, but the plugin does not seem to handle music videos at all. Did I miss something?

I also have to say thanks for the detailed write ups. They have made the plugin easier to understand and also make your intent for each feature very clear. I, and I suspect others, are truly grateful for that.

A Million thanks,
LongMan

[soderlund 103]

2 hours ago, LongMan said:

I made a test instance of Emby to have a look at the plugin, and I must say it is NICE. VERY NICE. Excellent work. Not really a fan of the AI craze but your ideas seems to be quite useful and non intrusive. Could be a nice addition to suggested videos.

I must have over looked it, but the plugin does not seem to handle music videos at all. Did I miss something?

I also have to say thanks for the detailed write ups. They have made the plugin easier to understand and also make your intent for each feature very clear. I, and I suspect others, are truly grateful for that.

A Million thanks,
LongMan

Thanks for the kind words! Truly, that made me happy to read  

You are spot on with the AI, it is very useful but I absolutely don’t want to make it intrusive or give away sensitive information. 

You are correct regarding music and music videos. Nothing I use myself so I haven’t really thought about it. 
When this plugin has reach a mature state (which it almost is now) that might be a thing to add support for as well.