Plugin: Home Screen Companion

[crusher11 1302]

On 9/4/2026 at 2:20 AM, crusher11 said:

I have a rule set up to tag all the movies in my James Bond collection. It's tagged everything except the Connery entries; no idea why that would be?

Scratch that, user error.

[Mister_U 8]

Hi team,

First of all, thank you so much for this module—it looks very promising!

 

No matter how much I try, I can't figure out how to get it to generate a dynamic list that randomly selects 50 movies or TV shows from the local database to promote the available content.

 

Could you please help me out?

[STR8 77]

I'm far from an expert but I will try to help @Mister_Udid you?

1. In the HSC go to Top List

2. Create New

3. Choose how to create the list Manual or Tags (I did Tags) you will see a list and how many movies are included in the individual tag list shown

4. Select a tag / tag list

5. Select users that will have access to the list

6. Enter 50 in Max items and save it will say if it was created and successful 

7. Go to user settings, home screen under display and you should see your Top List at the very bottom of the list of your Home Sections which will show on the actual Emby home page all the way at the bottom until moved   

 

[sh0rty 773]

@soderlundThanks for this great plugin I waited so long to use it finally. I'm really late to the party with this great plugin since main server is on stable and finally updated to a supported version.

Few questions just to make clear I understand this right. 
1. I added a MDBlist as external list under Source in Tag & Collection.
2. Then I added a Tag Name for the items out of this list in my library.
3. Then I went into Top-Lists and added a list with the source by Tag and chose the tag I set up in point 2.
4. At the end I ran a full sync.
5. Library is created and shown as list with top list badge on homecreen of the selected users.

Now to the questions:
1. Is this the correct way or did I overcomplicate something here?
2. Not all thumbs have the top list badge. I ran several runs and recreated the list multiple times, there are always images with no top list badge.


3. Is it usual behaviour that all items in this Companion created list do show multiversion for the video file or is there a setting I'm missing?

Edited Thursday at 05:31 PM by sh0rty

[Mister_U 8]

15 hours ago, STR8 said:

I'm far from an expert but I will try to help @Mister_Udid you?

1. In the HSC go to Top List

2. Create New

3. Choose how to create the list Manual or Tags (I did Tags) you will see a list and how many movies are included in the individual tag list shown

4. Select a tag / tag list

5. Select users that will have access to the list

6. Enter 50 in Max items and save it will say if it was created and successful 

7. Go to user settings, home screen under display and you should see your Top List at the very bottom of the list of your Home Sections which will show on the actual Emby home page all the way at the bottom until moved   

 

Thanks for the feedback.
But I'd like something random that refreshes every 7 days, for example.

[seanbuff 1413]

2 minutes ago, Mister_U said:

Thanks for the feedback.
But I'd like something random that refreshes every 7 days, for example.

You can achieve that by creating a 'Dynamic Media' home screen section, selecting your media type, choosing Genre or Tags and a sort order of 'Random'

You cannot however choose how often it randomizes. The row will randomize your selection every time the home screen is refreshed.

[Moondoggie28 2]

Quick question regarding this plugin - does this automatically remove all of the "Latest Added" of the moves and TV shows that is set to the default for Emby? If so, is there a way to create a list for newly added?

[crusher11 1302]

Has Trakt changed the way they handle APIs? I had a trakt list that used to work, and no longer does.

[Anderella 19]

10 hours ago, crusher11 said:

Has Trakt changed the way they handle APIs? I had a trakt list that used to work, and no longer does.

Just tried my trakt-list, import worked.

Probably you know..... but for safety: I started with trakt list and this great plugin a few days ago, first import didn't work.

After becoming a vip member on trakt and adding the client ID (settings home screen companion) it worked.

[crusher11 1302]

Do you need to be a VIP member? I've never been a VIP and I had trakt lists working in the past.

[Anderella 19]

Maybe they changed. Without VIP and without client ID my linked lists didn't import. Afterwards they did.

[vdrover 66]

Great plugin!

I'd love it if it could be expanded to add the ability to sync user settings like the following:

• Profile > Playback (transcoding, max streams and bitrate)
• Access > Library Access
• Parental Controls

These would be great additions for users managing multiple users.

https://github.com/soderlund91/HomeScreenCompanion/issues/12

[crusher11 1302]

How are any of those related in any way to anything this plugin does?

[soderlund 169]

Hi all! First of, sorry for the absence on both forum and developement. I have been prioritizing life for a while but now I'm starting to get some more time to keep developing the plugin! 

And finally, Emby has released a new stable version! This will probably increase get the userbase for the plugin a lot! Extremely exciting but will probably render more bug reports and so on. For now I believe the plugin is pretty solid, so to start with I'm gonna try to fix the current bugs. Still have a lot going on i life that is my first priority.  

So sorry for late reply's but I'm slowly starting to get back! 

 

On 8/31/2026 at 5:45 AM, seanbuff said:

Yes I already reported this issue further up on this page 

Hopefully we'll see a fix for it soon.

This will be the first thing I'm gonna look into. Hopefully it's an easy fix! 

On 9/5/2026 at 1:42 PM, Anderella said:

 

Hi,

first of all: thank you so much for this incredible work and breathtaking plugin!

I know you are very busy right now….. I will be patient, all the best for you….

and maybe some questions can be answered by other users.

 

Is there a reason, why this plugin is not placed in the plugin repository?

(Some time ago I read about the plan that „manually“ plugin installations will be supported a bit easier (to copy them in the right folder)…. Any progress on that?

 

As my personal focus and goals for this nice feature are „best-of“ movie rankings, like top 250 IMDB movies or the top 100 Sight & Sound Movies of all time….

I created two layouts and the reference files in my library. Basically everything worked great and the result impressed me.

 

Some questions:

1) As the main purpose for this list is the „ranking“…. Is there any chance to add the ranking number in front of the playlist? (01, 02, 03,…)

2) Is it possible to kind of ADD this ranking/numbering also to the Collection and HomeScreen-Exports? As far as I found out, Collection Export and HomeScreen Creation looses the ranking.

3) As I have – for some movies – different versions and/or formats (DVD-Rip, BLU-RAY-Rip, TV-Recordings) in my library, is there a solution to sort those matches by resolution (best to worst) or by source-type or by folder sequence? (before the plugin chooses the „match“)

4) Is it thinkable to also include „placeholders“/missing movies to he list?

As I’m working on filling up my library, it would be terrific, if I could see, which top-ranked movies are still missing in my collection.

Thank you for inputs and thoughts!

 

For the plugin catalog - yes there is a reason. Emby was still in beta and the plugin needed some more time for testing. Now that Emby has released a new stable version my ambition was/is to put this into the catalog. Altough - this will also increase the need for support for both bugs and "dumb" questions. And for now I'm not sure i have the time to keep up with higher demand.. We'll se. Im leaning towards posting the plugin to the catalog and being very clear about the limited support. 

 

1) Well, the main purpose for thius plugin (for me) has alwas been to get some better home screen. To be able to customize the sections with curated media. The top-list is more of a "nice to have" feature. I'm not sure what you mean with "in fornt of the playlist"? Like in the name of the playlist? 

2) Yeah, maybe. TBH the backup function came in pretty early in developement, so I have probably forgotten/overlooked to backup the functions added later on. I'll put it on my list to look into! 

3) I dont think so.. Emby itself choose the version for you based of media player, connection type etc. 

4) Yes and no. It could be done, but it will require a lot of work and I don't believe placeholders should be used for a media server where you have all the media on your hard drive. 
Are you sure a movie is coming soon? Maybe you cant get your hands on it.. I believe a self hosted media server should only show what is available. Otherwise use Netflix.. 

If you really want this i guess you can create a local folder on you server where you create a new textfile, rename it to the movie and year and the file ending with .strm. This will fool Emby that "oh here is a movie with this name, ill add it". Then use the plugin to create a section only using media from this folder. 
For example for the filename: "Fast and furious 73 (2028).strm"

On 9/10/2026 at 6:23 PM, Mister_U said:

Hi team,

First of all, thank you so much for this module—it looks very promising!

 

No matter how much I try, I can't figure out how to get it to generate a dynamic list that randomly selects 50 movies or TV shows from the local database to promote the available content.

 

Could you please help me out?

You could play with the AI generated list, and have it do a new list every X days. The movies that the AI will suggest AND found i your library will be tagged. 
Example promt: "Give me a random mixed list of 150 movies and shows"
Then limit the list to 50 items

OR

Create a home section with all your media (or selected), then use "random" sort order. This will randomize the content every time the user loads the home screen. 

On 9/10/2026 at 7:23 PM, sh0rty said:

@soderlundThanks for this great plugin I waited so long to use it finally. I'm really late to the party with this great plugin since main server is on stable and finally updated to a supported version.

Few questions just to make clear I understand this right. 
1. I added a MDBlist as external list under Source in Tag & Collection.
2. Then I added a Tag Name for the items out of this list in my library.
3. Then I went into Top-Lists and added a list with the source by Tag and chose the tag I set up in point 2.
4. At the end I ran a full sync.
5. Library is created and shown as list with top list badge on homecreen of the selected users.

Now to the questions:
1. Is this the correct way or did I overcomplicate something here?
2. Not all thumbs have the top list badge. I ran several runs and recreated the list multiple times, there are always images with no top list badge.


3. Is it usual behaviour that all items in this Companion created list do show multiversion for the video file or is there a setting I'm missing?

1) Yes that is the mos efficent way to do it. You first create a tag, then use that tag for the top list. 
The movies with the tag will change over time, and the top list will auto update. 

2) This could happen when the thumb haven't been identified by the server first. The way the plugin works is to download the existing image, remake it with a number on it, and then tell emby to "use this image instead". 
So in your example, the thumb for scary movie wasn't available at the time to download, and when added as top list item Emby did a metadata scan for this. I will look into this a bit more to see if i can find a better way to to this. 

3) Yes, this is expected.
This is because we set up a new library for the top-list. And if we have the same movie in two libraries, you would normally get some UI quirks. So to dix the problems the plugin merges the two files. I could explain deeper if you would like, but yes this is normal and a must for this to work properly. 

On 9/11/2026 at 10:44 PM, Moondoggie28 said:

Quick question regarding this plugin - does this automatically remove all of the "Latest Added" of the moves and TV shows that is set to the default for Emby? If so, is there a way to create a list for newly added?

No, the plugin does not remove anything unless you manually do so. 

6 hours ago, crusher11 said:

Do you need to be a VIP member? I've never been a VIP and I had trakt lists working in the past.

Any more info on this? I would love to hear if you found out something! 

4 hours ago, vdrover said:

Great plugin!

I'd love it if it could be expanded to add the ability to sync user settings like the following:

• Profile > Playback (transcoding, max streams and bitrate)
• Access > Library Access
• Parental Controls

These would be great additions for users managing multiple users.

https://github.com/soderlund91/HomeScreenCompanion/issues/12

This could be done in native Emby settings. This plugin only focusing of copying the home screen sections between users. 

Edited 15 minutes ago by soderlund