Indeed, the post you quoted is from 2018 and what you mention has already been stated many times. Was simply providing an alternative until something else is created.
How is this not a feature yet. I see it requested all over the place for years and it doesn’t seem crazy difficult to implement. Add a new piece of metadata for content such as “Collection Sort Title” on top of the existing sort title, and make it only become active when a piece of content joins a collection. That wouldn’t fix the issue if the movie is used in multiple collections unfortunately, but it sounds like it would still work for the majority of users until a more elegant solution can be found.
Seriously, I’m amazed that a media server program has such a lacking collection builder.
We can’t even do basic sorts like Rating (critic, imdb, etc) and Release Date (New > Old), let alone custom sorting.
but what does the custom order do in the advanced settings?
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it does not do anything at the moment. I was mistakenly added to public build when we’re working on this. I thought the server devs hid it gonna ask again to avoid confusion
you can make a smart collection and do all of that.
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you can make a smart collection and do all of that.
Just don’t expect anyone in your family, that you share your server with, to see the content of said Smart Collection if it’s created in a TV Library as that’s a feature (broken) that isn’t available at launch of Smart Collections
from what I saw in bug report they are trying to get that fixed in an upcoming 1.23.3 but I don’t want to make false promises. It isn’t forgotten
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It’s also not exactly a clean solution though. I like Plex for organization of my media. but I have to have a collection, and then a duplicate smart collection, just to sort it? Is there any other way?
I already said we are working on custom orders for collections. You seem to be looking for some sort of sortable subfolder.
I think some clarification should be made (probably in a blog post) to explain the differences between regular collections and smart collections.
Regular collections should ONLY be used for direct sequel collections, NOT for broad collections based on things like shared universes, top lists, genres, cast, etc. Essentially Plex admins should use the same rule guidance that TMDb uses for creating collections.
This solves a number of problems. First, direct sequel (regular) collections, for the most part only need to be sorted by title or release date. Broad collections are the ones people are most likely to want sorted by things like critic rating, random, etc… and that all can be accomplished with smart collections.
Second, it fixes the show/hide conflicts that occurred when you had an item in multiple collections that have different show/hide rules.
I’m a heavy collection user and am extremely anaI about how my libraries are organized. I have 800+ collections and most issues with sort order and show/hide conflicts can be solved using the correct type of collection. Yes, custom ordering and the issues with TV libraries need to be fixed, but I keep seeing people complain about things that can already be accomplished in Plex.
Beyond all this, if you use the utility Plex Meta Manager which creates smart collections using sharing labels. You can essentially automate lists like Trakt Trending, Top Lists, etc. and it fit perfectly into the new collection paradigm.
Smart collections are based on filters like a smart playlist
regular collections are manually made via a collections tag
Auto collection are reg collections with a tag auto added to items based on info at themovieDB
The custom sort feature being made for this request will allow for any manual order someone wants in the collection and will not be forced to edit the sort title that is only used for alpha sort. Folks will be able to make Machete order. or whatever but keep the main library in alpha order
I would say trying to force folks into whatever TMDB says can be included in the content of.a collection is never going to work IMO. I’m not breaking up my Marvel Collection. and folks should be able to make custom one like a Christmas Movie collection ready to promote on home screen during holidays and should be able to add whatever movie they want regardless of whatever folks think Die Hard is.
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I would say trying to force folks into whatever TMDB says can be included in the content of.a collection is never going to work IMO. I’m not breaking up my Marvel Collection. and folks should be able to make custom one like a Christmas Movie collection ready to promote on home screen during holidays and should be able to add whatever movie they want regardless of whatever folks think Die Hard is.
I didn’t suggest people break up collections or stop having collections to display on their home screen (I’m kinda baffled how you got that from what I posted). I also didn’t say custom order shouldn’t be an option. What I did was suggest ways to accomplish what certain people want given the constraints Plex has given us.
Broad collections like the MCU and Christmas collections can be handled via smart collections. Doing so helps workaround the collection show/hide conflict that has existed for ages (Collection Display Issue - #29 by Skagabomb). They can also still be posted on the homescren.
It’s not about forcing people to only create collections TMDb allows, it’s about explaining to people which collection type is best for the situation. There are people in this thread, in other threads, on the Plex subreddit, that don’t understand the differences.
That sounds really awkward to me. I can understand it for MCU, but I went backwards and use a normal collection for it now.
Christmas doesn’t make any sense to me. Studio=Hallmark && Title contains Christmas/Holiday/Winter/Sleigh/Merry/Santa/Claus/Mistletoe??
But I don’t hide items that are in collections. I don’t want to have to remember that a movie is in a collection, or what that collection might be named.
Christmas doesn’t make any sense to me. Studio=Hallmark && Title contains Christmas/Holiday/Winter/Sleigh/Merry/Santa/Claus/Mistletoe??
To transform your manually created collections to smart collection use the Share Tag. Select all items in the collection and tag them, then create a collection based on the tag. When adding in the future, just tag the item instead of using the collection field.
For MCU, I just make a smart collection containing all the individual collections + the single movies. Since Plex, adds movies to the individual collections for me (ie. new Guardians movies willl show up in the Guardians collection), I don’t have to do much managing.
But I don’t hide items that are in collections. I don’t want to have to remember that a movie is in a collection, or what that collection might be named.
The show/hide conflict was an issue for precisely that reason. Broad collections like Christmas or MCU or Brad Pitt are collections where the contents isn’t obvious, most people would want to show the items in that collection. For direct sequel collections like trilogies, many people would like to hide those items under the collection to save space. In that situation the contents would be obvious.
Unfortunately if you use regular collections for both cases a conflict arises in Plex. You can’t hide one and show the other. If you change all your broad collections to smart collections, you can get around that conflict.
The only flaw this method introduces is that right now it doesn’t seem like Smart Collections are paired across libraries. So you’re MCU movie collection won’t show the TV collection at the bottom. It’s a game of trade-offs, lol.
Wanted to be clear that when it is added it won’t be for smart collections which will follow whatever sort order was set on the filter when it was created. to edit a smart collection sort need to edit the filters sort like when editing a smart playlist.
only “dumb” collections will have the custom option.
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Well that’s incredibly disappointing.
I hope Plex plans to address the show/hide conflict, because that will again become an issue if Plex wants “dumb” collections to be home to broad collections that might require machete order. And of course this will be ignored.
@TheMovieContinuum This is such a terrible take. The last line is even worse. You don’t get to decide what Plex decides to use money on or what they prioritize. You are supporting their development as a whole, it’s to support them, however they choose to use it, and isn’t about you.
As for the rest, the comparison of plex sorting options to requesting the things of the film industry is absolutely asinine. A more appropriate one would be comparing it to sorting say, your collection of DVD/BluRays at home years back.
Since you say you can’t grasp this, I’ll give you a for instance:
I have collections of film franchises, & films and their sequels, ie: Harry Potter Collection, Jumanji Collection, etc. That’s all well and great. Now imagine I want to make a collection that is strictly kids-appropriate movies, so I make another collection and add these same films. This is where the problem comes in.
If I group all these together and the selection sorts by year, I’m gonna have Fantasia (1940’s) towards the beginning, a bunch of random other movies, then Fantasia 2000 (2000). Not gonna work. So, I decide, hey, I’ll have the collection sort alphabetically instead. Now the problem is, there’s a string of Harry Potter films that are completely out of proper sort/release order.
In the DVD/BluRay days I could keep all the ‘kids’ movies in one area, then keep their franchises/release dates sorted properly. Sadly moving to plex, this can’t be done the same way (currently). It’s not a crazy idea for people to want or ask for the possibility of sorting this way. (Or perhaps even a collections within collections / nested collections feature so franchises within a collection could be sorted/grouped by collections within collections.) The only alternative to this sadly at the moment would be to make an entirely new library for certain films (ie: kids movies, or whatever else) and then recreate collections/sorting within that, which isn’t ideal.
Additionally, please stick to the forum rules and community guidelines here, particularly the one that states: - " * Constructive criticism is welcome, but criticize ideas , not people." - If you want to tell people that "you’ve got problems if you have enough time to watch everything in order, straight through" like you did, don’t post here anymore and simply go somewhere else. I find it hilarious and ironic that you had that sentiment during the pandemic of all times, when many people have much more time at home than ever before.
Additionally, Plex was designed to simplify the home theatre experience of your media collection. While you might not grasp that and think having to go to google and search every time you sit down to watch movies is the ‘easy-peasy’ way as you stated, It’s really not. (But admittedly the idea of you walking up to your DVD/BluRay collection at one point but having to consult some outside piece for reference material before choosing your movie is pretty hilarious, I’m not gonna lie. Thanks for the chuckle)
[Edit: Guess the guy’s post this was in reply to was removed by admins or something, in case the context doesn’t make sense if someone was surfing through, lol ]
Don’t need to take my own advice, I said the take was terrible, and that your comparison was poor. These are criticizing the ideas, not YOU as a person, in contrast to you previously telling someone ‘they have problems’ if they have enough time to watch everything in order straight through.
You go off yet again in regard to how plex uses their money, and even try (and fail) to use my statement against me, when the only person who made the statement of
“As a paying member, I don’t want Plex to waste my money on frivolous development that serves no useful function… or does not enhance the app interface”
was you. Again, as previously stated, Plex can spend their money from you on literally whatever they want to. If you don’t like where that money goes, you can simply speak with your wallet and not support and find another project. In the end, I trust their overall development and decision making, which is part of why I made the monetary commitment with my plex pass for my home theatre. (Still spelled correctly, lol)
Thanks again for the chuckles though. (Or as you put it, ‘going ballistic’ 
)
Whatever. Not wasting anymore time on responding to your personal issues. Get some help man.
Oh thank God I figured out how to block you permanently. Problem solved.
And it appears we’re good to go 
From the release notes of Plex Web version 4.60.1
NEW:
- Added the ability to set custom order of manual Collections with drag and drop
