Please up-vote (bottom right corner) if you find this thread/poll useful and want it to reach the developers' attention.
June 12, 2013: **UPDATE**
1. Added request for play back all songs by artist, genre etc.
March 22, 2013: **UPDATE**
1. Added request for FLAC sync to iPAD and Android
2. Added request for sort by file type (e.g. FLAC, MP3 etc.) to aid with duplicate removal.
Feb 18, 2013: **UPDATE**
1. Added request for robust ID3 tag management.
2. Deleted synchronize check box as this feature is now present in PMS 0.9.7.12.
3. Deleted merge artists as this feature is now present in PMS 0.9.7.12.
4. Deleted collections at album level as this feature is now present in PMS 0.9.7.12.
Why This Poll?
I am quite fond of PLEX; however, I think its handling of music albums could use some improvement. Reading through the feature requests it appears that most people are interested in new TV and Movie features and I agree with many of the requests. But my music collection vastly exceeds my video collection and is likely to remain that way. Since I suspect that this is true of most other users I have searched through this forum in an attempt to collect the requests for new music features in a central location along with brief explanations and clarifications as necessary. Please vote on your favorite features to help give the developers some guidance. If I missed a feature please let me know and I will add it.
Playlists & Collections: Playlists are fairly self-explanatory. Collections are currently available at the artist level. Having them at the album (Christmas albums) and song (One Hit Wonders) would also be useful.
Album & Track Information: Many requests involve information stored in ID3 tags. This includes pulling genre info, displaying original artist field, composer field, etc. and ID3 tag editing. It seems that these issues could be resolved with robust ID3 tag management where Plex would allow the user to edit ID3 tags and to select which of the ID3 tags are used and which should be shown during editing, play-back, etc.
Currently only artist notes are available. Notes at the album level would be useful.
Album Collections: Anthology sets are a bit different than multi-disc sets. Neil Young: The Early Years is seven albums which should be listed separately but Billy Joel Greatest Hits is two discs best viewed as one.
Classical Music Albums: Classical music albums can be a jumble of composer, soloist, conductor, and composition. An album with Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky is not uncommon so need to label at track level. Also, the same composition may be spread over multiple tracks.
Album Management: Merge/Delete for when PLEX erroneously splits an album.
DLNA Management: See [this](http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/47113-plex-as-dlna-control-point/) thread.
Please up-vote (bottom right corner) if you find this thread/poll useful and want it to reach the developers' attention.
You have comprised a good list of features and I agree the way plex handles music needs to be addressed. I Want to add to your list with these features.
ID3 Tag Editing over Soft Database written Metadata For most Song information, Albums and Artist still stay the same, fall back on database only when unsupported by file format or metadata is not supported by ID3.
Unchecking and Checking Songs For Syncing to mobile Devices (Similar to what most of us already do with iTunes.
List Missing Tracks in the album
Multiple artists separate entries, “T-ara | Da-Vinchi” instead of “T-ara feat. Da-Vinchi” [Currently supported by writers and produces but not by artist] & detect separate artist entries in ID3 tags [at the moment it only detects one, so if you have done what i have done where there are separate entries for each artist in the id3 tags it will only list one. eg. The featured artist instead of the album artist]
Separate Tags for Album Artist and Artist at the current moment it uses the artist tag only.
Original Artist display who sung it first in the metadata and Link back to the original version if in your library.
action scripts for easy batch editing, examples “If a song is rated two stars or less uncheck this song”, “If a songs is unchecked and remains so for more than (amount of time) delete from my library”
a more audio book feature, though I will list it here as it involves ID3 Tags
If ID3 Tags Contain Chapters or if Tags or genres contains audiobook support features such as save position and chapter navigation. [I also have soundtrack albums which contain audio dramas and I like to keep the album altogether.]
At the moment Plex Either Gets the metadata information from an online database or the ID3 Tags inside of the file itself and writes it to it’s database. But it does not enable editing of those tags inside the file itself. Any information you change in the web client will therefore not be reflected back into the file.
Eg.
Original Song Name: Awesome Song
New Song Name: The Most Awesome Song
If I were then to view that file in iTunes it would still have the same name as it originally had, “Awesome Song”. But If I were to edit the song name in itunes refresh the plex server those changes would be reflected into the server, as it would detect a change in the file and update accordingly.
Missing Tracks
It wouldn’t if you were just getting your information from the id3 tags but most people get their information from databases like last.fm, discogs & musicbrainz which contain a full list of all tracks on an album.
Multiple Artists Separate Entries
So if you press enter when entering the name of a writer it creates a little bubble around that writers name that is a separate credit. This feature is not in the artist field if you press enter nothing happens.
Likewise if like me you made a seperate tag for each artist featuring in the song, the scrapper will only scrap one as that is all the field can handle.
How Two Artist Appear in MP3Tag (An Id3 Tag editor)
note: I’m not entirely sure how many formats (mp3, ogg, m4a) support multiple entries.
Separate Tags for Album Artist and Artist at the current moment it uses the artist tag only.
Yes a New Field (it is already in the id3 tags, just unused by plex), But I think I negated myself, Since I took a second look at the naming convention and as long its in the right artist folder it will be sorted correctly. I’d just prefer for it to look at the tags because they are usually up-to-date, where my folders are not.
Original Artist
Okay I admit that it doesn’t really, but i was just covering all my bases. In your album & track information list you mainly have stuff relating to the composition and writing of the actual music and not who actually sung it first. Not a lot of the artist I listen to actually write their own music and lyrics and any covers done of their songs you wouldn’t instantly know who sung it first just looking at the composer and lyricist information.
Thanks for clarifying. I have added a request for Plex to identify when album tracks are missing to the poll options.
Many requests involve information stored in ID3 tags. This includes pulling genre info, displaying original artist field, composer field, etc. and ID3 tag editing. It seems that these requests could be combined as a request for robust ID3 tag management where Plex would allow the user to edit ID3 tags and to select which of the ID3 tags are used and which should be shown during play-back. Do you agree?
It appears your request for check boxes for synchronization has been addressed with the just released version of Plex Media Server? If you agree I will remove that from the poll.
Robust ID3 Tag Management would certainly cover it, so i most definitely agree!
if it has been added to the server it's fine to delete it from the poll.
I think we mean the same.
To clarify: By "plex/web" I mean the web interface the plex server provides, this is reachable via myPlex as well as by connecting directly to the server.
I am using the (plex/)web interface mainly to play music, while using the full-blown PHT/PMC and iPad apps for video content.
The "next/previous" functionality listed is available in the PHT/PMC/iPad apps but not in the web interface. I wonder why.
I am unsure if the "resume from position" feature is available for audio content at all.
I think Playlist-Support is a really asked feature and I think someday you’ll include that feature. And for me it would be really great If we’re able to sync tose Playlists to the device (Android). So that we’re able to manage our music over plex on the device. Thanks for your work!
I agree that playlists will likely be eventually supported. However, I am beginning to suspect that upgrading the music section is a fairly low priority for most users. As of today (March 5, 2013) this thread has had 260 views with only 43 votes in the poll and only 37 votes in favor of playlists. Only 7 people have up-voted this thread. Assuming this is a representative sample of Plex users we have roughly 14% of users for whom a playlist is important enough to click a mouse button and vote. This is certainly not a criticism as everyone has their own priorities. I am just disappointed that playlists and other improvements to the music section are such a low priority for most users. Oh well, not the first time I have been in the minority.
Yes, yes! Music features are sooo behind the movie features in Plex. Moving from XBMC I'm in a lot of pain. I even wrote a lengthy post in Win PMS forum that didn't catch anyone's attention. The playlists are of course the biggest hole in Plex feature set. Come on, every player had them since 1998!
And why the plex/web can send video to remote plex clients, but not music? I mean, it's only logical that the music would be more important in this case. There could be a screen-less music client that just wouldn't be able to show any interface locally, but there always will be a screen on a video playing client.
Also, the second disks of double albums are often matched wrong, even if the first CD matches allright. So, handling double albums as one big album (assuming proper identical album tags and discnumber tags are in place, this shouldn't be difficult) would improve the matching as well.
I really miss the options to choose from a number of downloadable album/artist pictures in XBMC for each entry, rather than just one that's provided in Plex. And much better handling of user pictures too. Right now Plex either takes all the local pictures and no remotes, or no local at all. I've seen somewhere a screenshot where you could actually drag-n-drop pictures in the edit picture dialog box in plex/web. Was it not implemented in the end? It was a pretty old screenshot.
Plex is such a well-polished software, I really love that it's so seamless across the platforms. Very pretty interfaces too. So it looks even stranger that there's no playlists :ph34r: :)
EDIT: Just checked, now I can upload the custom artwork from web URL's. This was broken before. Great! :) In fact, I think I prefer the uploading from web to browsing the local media for the artwork in XBMC.Still, it'd be nice to see that drag-n-drop for the local files, just in case.
Thanks for voting and posting. Please 'Like" the original post so it percolates to the top and gets the developer's attention. Over 80 people have voted, which is wonderful, but only 19 have "Liked" the original post which is just as important.
The single thing that drives me the most insane about using Plex for music is the fact that it does not inherit my genre tags from iTunes. The tags it does provide are a complete mess and totally useless. The prospect of individually tagging over 1100 albums in Plex is not attractive, especially after taking the time to tag them all properly in iTunes.
I would like to add a feature request to the list. I also would love for Plex Media Server to be my sole authoritative music collection, and access it anywhere from PMC, iOS, Android, etc. The deal breaker for me at the moment is that the player interface makes it difficult to quickly and easily play (in order or shuffled):
1. all songs
2. all songs by artist
3. all songs by genre
4. all songs by smart playlist
It seems to only really be possible to drill down to individual album level before I see tracks to play. Sure, I can switch the display type to artist or album, or filter the albums or artists by genre (the interface for this is really slow and clunky, though), but I can't then play all matching tracks within the entire category.
Look at the iOS music app as an example. At the bottom I can instantly switch between artists, songs, albums, genres, etc. And within every single one of those lists and sub-lists, the very first option is "all ". E.g. if I view "artists", the first option is "all albums" which takes me to the all albums view. If I click into a specific artist, I see all their albums and the first option is "all songs".
With this type of quick and easy navigation, and being able to quickly and easily start playing all music for an entire genre, or artist, or (or smart playlist would be *awesome* -- e.g. recently added albums plus recently played albums plus 4-5 star rated albums), I could easily have access to my entire library from anywhere (as long as I have 3G/wifi), and I could easily sync my favourites for offline access all the time.
Thanks for your work!