In my tests this was only sucessful if these editions were already stored in separate folders before. Then the renaming didn’t cause the item to get added “as new”.
But if there were several editions in a common folder, at least one of them got recognized as new.
It’s only temporary
@gregor.smith It’s been a long wait for sure, but completely worth it! I’m planning out how I’m going to merge my 4K and normal libraries to take advantage of edition and version support.
There have only ever really been 2 feature’s I’ve wanted to see come to Plex, and been waiting a loooooong time for - they would be this, and that damn default quality… Maybe that’ll be next? fingers crossed
This is a wonderful addition to plex: a big “Thank you” to Plex employees for providing this!
But I am wondering about how these brackets work when a filename also pointing to a different online database from the default one?
For example, if you want your show(s) to be indexed using imdb, you add {imdb-ID#} to the filename. To create various editions for the same show, you add {edition- ED_Name}.
My initial questions are:
Does Multiple Editions support a filename with both a non-default database pointer (eg., imdb) & edition identifier at the time time?
What is the correct syntax here: Is the syntax {imdb-ID#} {edition- ED_Name} or {imdb-ID# [perhaps a comma, etc here to separate] edition- ED_Name}, {imdb-ID#} {edition- ED_Name} etc…?
Are these flags order important, meaning the {imdb-ID#} must be in a particular location and the {edition- ED_Name} only be located at the very end?
No directly. As mentioned in our support articles, adding the edition information to a filename will cause the scanner to treat it as new.
I haven’t tried but a possible work around could be to first rename the edition field in the UI. Then rename the file to the same edition and rescan. Since the edition already exists, it should reuse the old data.
We don’t support TV shows for this. But for movies. You can have both sets of brackets. Does not matter which comes first.
Are there plans to add support for tv shows?
Thanks for listening to our requests and including this functionality. Much of us would like entries to be collapsed into a single library entry with the option to select the editions - is this a planned enhancement on the roadmap? For me personally, I have some anime that’s also dubbed that I don’t want duplicated.
We’re not done with this feature. We just have to see what makes sense and what is possible without having to re-engineer everything.
Understood! Just wanted to make sure my usecase mentioned above also makes it into the conversation. Thanks again for your tireless work.
Not just your use case. I’m all for a single entry in the library. Apart from the fact that, that is the way I would like editions presented, if I don’t rename (or change the cover art) the edition there is no way to tell them apart from the library browser.
yes yes, I meant to emphasis that “editions” should not be the only dimension to be collapsed but there should be a consideration for multiple languages as well.
Yup. I do this too. If I want to add something without it coming up in my recently added list, I change the time, add it, scan for changes, then correct the time. I will then have to refresh the metadata.
An editable “Date Added” field would go a long way.
It would be so nice, if I could change the filename from within plex and/or change the added to library date from within plex. both no rocket science.
So… if the movie isn’t in a collection like Space Battles or King of the Bracelet It’s pretty easy to give you pretty much exactly what you are asking for. Something I’ve been doing manually for awhile, ever since collections got the option to hide items.
Just create a collection with the Movie Title, add all versions of the movie to the collection, & set it to not shown items in the collection. Then get a Background & Poster, maybe a description & you have the movies grouped.
Here’s an example of one I haven’t updated to the new Editions setup yet that was used on a Split Movie. The movie had a version that my niece saw on Netflix that had different voice actors for some characters & scenes cut differently than on the Bluray. I got ahold of a Canadian copy so she could watch whichever & since it was for a 5 year old it needed to be easy & visually identifiable by someone still learning to read
The only time this would be a problem is when the movie is already in a collection. Because you can’t have a collection within another collection… Though that would probably solve that issue pretty well methinks…
The biggest problem there is that dropdowns don’t work well on most devices. With a remote they are not good, some devices handle them better than others, but none of them is a good way, they aren’t great on touchscreens most of the time either, though they do work better than a remote usually. So while a dropdown sounds nice & looks nice in a mock-up it in practice it’s not going to turn out so nicely. Just try to add an item to a playlist from the TV remote & expect that we’ll end up with something along those lines… No thank you
not a solution exactly but a workaround for those who want just an edition & everything else only visible within it would be to add all other editions to a collection called something like The Others & have the Sort order set to something like zzzzzzzzzDontLookAtMe & set it to hide items in the collection. Then it shows up at the bottom of the Library, so doesn’t clutter the scrolling at least, & you can only see the other editions inside the 1 that’s in the library. The other editions section is still not in a convenient place, but it’s a decent work around while waiting for a better solution to appear. Other people have referenced the idea but I don’t think it was directly said how to do it. Hope it helps
When I saw this I thought you said “A Random Option” which immediately made me think of the movie Clue. When it was in theaters it had I think 4 different endings, that depending on the theater you went to it was a different print. The DVD/VHS/Bluray version kinda combined all the endings together, but I’m told the movie had scenes cut differently in the different versions as well. Now I want a way to make it play a random version & to find all the different endings if they still exist…
I haven’t noticed this. What device are you using that don’t work well?
Aside from being buried under the generic “more” menu where people still wouldn’t know to look, the drop menus work fine from a functional standpoint on my Android TVs.
I agree with another comment though. Plex could easily show the current edition hub of posters above the cast just like the TV seasons are displayed and that would probably give the best of both worlds. Easy discoverability and showing custom posters for those that change them.
Do you have examples?
Most things on AndroidTV/GoogleTV/FireTV avoid drop menus & use tabbed or layered menus or the like instead.
Most of the time when I run into dropdowns it’s with less put-together things so I don’t have a lot of examples, but a few years ago you saw them more, & they always were unintuitive to use, similar to the Plex on Android TV interface when you hold down on a movie/episode & try to Add it to a Playlist, though that one is like halfway a drop down & one of the worst IMO, but shows some of the problems that you run into. & a lot of it is not intuitive but wouldn’t be so bad if they all worked the same way, but every place where you used to encounter them they seemed to work differently.
Just Make Sense so that the average person just understands to do it.Then for touchscreens dropdowns can be bad, especially on cheaper devices that have less-responsive touchscreens, or just smaller screens. Even on better devices that are moderate in size like non-phablet phones dropdowns can be quite annoying.
If you have examples of dropdowns intended to be used with a remote for AndroidTV devices that work well, even if they aren’t intuitive, I’d love to see what you are referring to, but I find they look nice, but are intended for use with a mouse, & work decently on large touchscreens, but nothing else
The dropdowns I use regularly are the Audio track selector. It works similarly to how a dropdown list in a mobile browser is presented by hijacking the “drop down” part and going full screen with a list of items. It shows which item is currently selected and when you click one one it selects and collapses.
I would expect the edition selector to be a simple list and behave the same way as the audio and subtitle selectors. It would not be like the Add to Playlist selector, which I agree is pretty clunky.
If they used a simple dropdown, it would be for merged entries. It would need to just tell Plex which video to play and would not flip to another library item like the current edition selector does. Also, it kind of needs to be top level for discoverability and because it would affect the other audio and subtitle options under the “more” button.
Ah, yeah, that’s what I was referring to when I said that they use a Layered Menu instead of a Dropdown. You click on something & it opens another layer/overlay on top of something to distinguish it. That’s not a Dropmenu, though I can see that working alright.
I DID, however, find an actual dropdown that works intuitively, so much so that I forgot that it was even a dropdown, though I don’t use it much. If you are in a library & go to the sort or filter options at the top of the page. But if it’s like that I’m okay with it, though I think I would still probably prefer an Embedded Collection format for many things because of different artwork & different special features. But either would be an improvement
