How to increase the # of genre tags and cast members displayed in Plex / Web

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1

I'm new here and recently starting using Plex Media Server so my apologies to the mods / devs in advance if this type of thing is not allowed, but I've seen a lot of people complaining about the cast not being editable. 

 

Note - unless you've edited code before I wouldn't recommend you do this, although it's very simple and basically find and replace.  Of course make sure to make a backup copy of the original file but as long as you only change the 2 numbers I reference below, you should be fine.  Also, I DID NOT have to re-start Plex Media Server for this to take effect, just had to refresh the page.  

 

This was really bugging me as I use Plex/Web a lot and it would only show 2 genre tags and 3 cast member tags.  Well it turns out there's a simple change in a JavaScript file to edit the # of "maxTags" for those 2.  What happens is when it pulls the MetaData from TheMovieDB it pulls the actors in the order in which they're added to the website, but sometimes you miss some of the bigger actors in the movie because they're listed outside of that top 3.  Luckily all of the actors and genre tags are scraped and added to the database, so it's simply a matter of displaying them in Plex/Web. 

 
On Windows 7 the file is located at:
C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Plex Media Server\Plug-ins\WebClient.bundle\Contents\Resources\js\plex.js
 
Should be easy to find on other OS's by looking at the path above. 
 
CAST
 
Find (line 1606 for me):
model:this.model,key:"actor",tags:n,maxLen:50,maxTags:3
 
Replace 3 with # that you want.  I used 8 and it works perfectly as that should get most of the main actors in the movie, although you could probably add more as it's wrapped in a SPAN that wraps lines nicely. 
 
GENRE
 
Find (line 1604 for me):
model:this.model,key:"genre",tags:i,maxLen:50,maxTags:2
 
Replace 2 with # that you want.  I used 5 as many movies have more than 2 genres associated with them but 5 seemed like enough. 
 
Attached is a screenshot showing these changes in effect.  All cast members and genres are clickable and now I'm a happy guy and I hope that this helps out someone else.  Again if this type of thing is frowned upon then I apologize in advance, just trying to help people out. 
 
![post-163530-0-84822000-1379133037.png|690x277](upload://l0utnEdWPbBjTICb3x2xEjV2Igu.png)

 

2

I wouldn't say this is frowned upon, but be aware that your changes will be overwritten when the Plex/Web bundle updates. Nice work digging into the code though. :)

3

I wouldn't say this is frowned upon, but be aware that your changes will be overwritten when the Plex/Web bundle updates. Nice work digging into the code though. :)

Ah that's good to know that an update will change this so thank you for letting me know.  And thank you :)

4

I wouldn't say this is frowned upon, but be aware that your changes will be overwritten when the Plex/Web bundle updates. Nice work digging into the code though. :)

Sooooo, any chance the changes will ever become unnecessary?  ^_^

5

Sooooo, any chance the changes will ever become unnecessary?  ^_^

The best way to do that would probably be to add a new option for it in the settings menu.
Then everyone can modify these numbers to suit their own taste in verbosity...
(Though there should be limits to the numbers in the option routine, so people can't go crazy with it.)

Best regards: dlanor
6

Sooooo, any chance the changes will ever become unnecessary?  ^_^

It's possible we make this configurable in the future.

7

That would be nice.  It doesn't take long to switch it even when the file has been reset, but it would still be nice to see the default increase and/or a setting put in place.  I'm just curious about the decision to limit it to 2 genre tags (semi-understandable) and 3 cast members (very strange and small limit). 

8

These limits are to keep the preplay views from getting overwhelming and cluttered. The most important cast members are supposed to be listed first but I think there are some issues with the agents preventing this in some case, which needs to be worked out separately.

9

Oh I see.  Yeah the cast members are not listed properly on themoviedb and probably half of the time you miss the main actors in the movie.  Thanks for the response though. 

10

I have been checking some 20 movies to see in what order the actores are listed in and I agree with Jasonbm76 about the order issue. I did the checking by looking at the XML tags. 

I support Dlanors idea. 

11

Hi,

I'am using a iMac, and found the file you mentioned.

I have changed the tags by "actor" from 3 to 6, but in Plex I don't see 6 actors, I see only 3, I have restarted Plex, and I have restarted my iMac, I have updated my Library.

I use the agent: MovieMeter.

When I try this for the movie "The Factory" in Plex I don't see the actor John Cusack, when I look in MovieMeter, he is the first actor to be mentioned, and the most important one.

What am I doing wrong?

12

Sadly this is one of those things that keeps Plex from being first class.  And it gets worse - try looking up movies by actor - I have several Tom Hank's movies and, amongh other, doesn't show up!!!!!  Why isn't something as basic as this being corrected? 

13

Yep I've gotten tired of making this change over and over as it gets overwritten every time there's a Plex update.  

Knoppie sorry I didn't see your reply earlier but it sounds like a caching issue for you.  Try clearing your cache and open up Plex/Web again.  Just remember you'll have to change this at least weekly as it continually gets overwritten and gets tiresome. 

14

I know this is an old thread, but might as well add to it instead of a new thread.  I concur providing the option to edit the actors would be nice.  For example, Oblivion as presented in Plex does not show Tom Cruise.  He is the star of the movie.  I cannot search for Tom Cruise in the Filter of Actors as his name is not there.  I understand losing Fassbender in X-men First class because there are several names, but not Tom Cruise in most of his movies.  I cannot search either Fassbender or Cruise and both are prominent in the movies mentioned.  A minor issue, so this is not a complaint, just adding another vote for actor editing.  Otherwise, Plex is impressive.  Thank you to the developers for the work.

15

I know this is an old thread, but might as well add to it instead of a new thread.  I concur providing the option to edit the actors would be nice.  For example, Oblivion as presented in Plex does not show Tom Cruise.  He is the star of the movie.  I cannot search for Tom Cruise in the Filter of Actors as his name is not there.  I understand losing Fassbender in X-men First class because there are several names, but not Tom Cruise in most of his movies.  I cannot search either Fassbender or Cruise and both are prominent in the movies mentioned.  A minor issue, so this is not a complaint, just adding another vote for actor editing.  Otherwise, Plex is impressive.  Thank you to the developers for the work.

You just need to change your agents and put the movie database above freebase. Freebase returns the actors in no particular order so the list you see is that.. the movie database returns the 'stars' first.

16

TMDB returns them in the order they were input into the system there.  They don't sort the entries by 'star' either.  Unless that's changed very recently that is.  

17

It's possible we make this configurable in the future.

I'd like that.

18

I'd like to see this as a configurable setting in the future as well.

19

+1 - Although maybe not one of the more common use cases, this would be very helpful for Home Videos with many family members listed as Cast so that you can view all home videos with X family member.

20

I just want to say thanks to Jasonbm76 for figuring out how to change this.  It's been well over a year since this thread started and I'm surprised that there is still no option to change the number of actors listed within Plex settings.  This is one of the many little details that keep Plex from being the best, as it seems like it wouldn't be too complicated to have this as a configurable option.