I know Plex used the term “Collections” to mean something else. Maybe if they called them “Box Sets” that could help clarify the difference?
WMC, Emby, and XBMC are all content with the movies being in a subfolder with an xml file that explains the collection of movies there are a box set with < type >BoxSet < /type > being in the xml file. Media Center Master can even define custom artwork and descriptions for this box set.
When I need to see all the movies all at once without going into the box sets to see them, like the way Plex displays the movies now, I can tell Media Center Master to “Flatten” the view. Then I disable “Flatten” when I want the directory-tree style of viewing the movies.
Movie collections aren’t always in box sets, though. I have all the Harry Potter movies, for instance, but I bought them individually. And, as in the case of the original Star Wars movies, the box sets may have different versions of the movies than the individually-purchased ones.
You’re right, they’re not always. But the idea is the same. Use a term that’s different than collection which has already been defined as something else. Sets. Series. Group. Anthology. Compendium. Compilation. Treasury.
Love the conversation – that said, considering that this thread is 3 years old, I think it is safe to say that Plex developers are simply not interested in our requests for features.
Ravensorb, don’t give up. It took them several years to invoke “Plex Home” which was their answer to incorporating parental controls. I asked if they would let us assign pictures for the different users, which they said they were interested in doing, but it’s been a year+half since I mentioned that.
I’m just curious that a feature like this (collections), is available on the project they forked from, originally called XBMC, now called Kodi. Which means they either disabled it, took it out, or maybe even forked it from XBMC before it was a standard feature on there.
All, if you haven’t already please go to above thread and LIKE the original post to vote this feature up as it’s currently only 13th in the priority features list.
TL;DR;
I have made some movie collections manually, and those work when i look for them through the filter interface, BUT I would like a movie’s page to show me what collections it’s currently in, and give me a way to jump to that collection.
The movie page could also possibly be extended to list out the other movies in the collection(s) at the bottom of the page, since they are related movies that you might also wish to watch (much like Netflix does).
All, if you haven’t already please go to above thread and LIKE the original post to vote this feature up as it’s currently only 13th in the priority features list.
A good illustration of why we need to avoid spreading votes out among several duplicate feature requests. There are three items on that list dealing with Collections. Combined, their score would move it up to as high as 4th (although some of those votes are probably duplicates, where the same person voted in each thread).
Plex Devs don’t implement features depending on what place they are in popularity.
Though indeed, popular requests often get more attention than those features with only 5 or 10 votes, a feature being first most popular over being tenth most popular does not affect the order in which something will get entered.
A good point of reference is the sticky post “Top Feature Requests”.
It too even says not to presume highest = most likely to be implemented.
I asked point blank how many votes Discovery had before it was implemented. The answer? 2! 2 votes and it had to come through before some requests that have sat for YEARS and over 1000 votes. Don’t spin me up again. My heart medication prescription is out of refills until next week…
I have been building HTPC’s since 2010(when the software finally got good enough) I used XBMC for many years thanks to it’s ability to fit many different needs. Last fall I made the hard decision to leave the established custom features of XBMC/KODI and switch to Plex for a foundation that better supports mobility. After 6mo I’ve gotten my media reformatted to the Plex standards. While Pros/Cons for the switch to Plex is been neck and neck mainly due to the of the loss collection support.
Now it seems we ALL understand that the primitive tagging/filtering function exist within plex allowing collections to work on a basic level. However what so many of us are looking for is the “operational GUI.” Something that will allow us to CONSOLIDATE the main screen, especially needed for large libraries. Scrolling A-Z through 500 movies isn’t efficient.
We are looking for ONE piece of art from the main library links to the collection playlist with collection info. So many suggestions to add this feature would require massive work. I beg to differ! The structure of plex doesn’t have to changed too much. Because Plex uses filters grouping to a sing art tile would be possible without much modification. Allow the Single tile to automatically hide the individual items selected to be grouped. When the art/collection tile is selected on the main screen it reverses the filter to only show the collection. These functions are already there just not as dressed up.
Below is dunebuggy’s version of what this might look like.
@dunebuggy said:
I’m upvoting this as well. I think I requested pretty much this exact feature 3.5 years ago - ie the ability to not just create a collection, but view your collection on a nicely formatted page so that it feels like more than mere tagging.
The single most annoying thing with Plex is this single view of movies (I know I can set folders but that is messy). It is the one thing stopping me recommending Plex as the complete solution for my needs.
@MovieFan.Plex said:
Not quite true. Plex Home Theater was a fork of the playback portion from XBMC. Plex Media Server is a totally different thing and has no relation to XBMC.
What you say is correct, Plex Media Server is an entirely different beast than the playback portion that was forked from XBMC.
But the truth is that the collection feature really is not related to Plex Media Server at all and mostly a function of Display and playback. All the server needs is to know is the location of the file.
It is the Library Display and Scraping that needs to support the collection data already provided by TMDB to implement this.
What makes it a bit more challenging is it requires changes to the Plex Database which shouldn’t be too hard since it already has a place marker for Collections in it’s tag system.
Just take that column out of the Tags and put it in it’s own place.
99% of the changes needed are to the display code of the various client apps.
Most of that code is already half done in the form of the TV Show Display pages.
The same display format used for TV Show and seasons could be easily manipulated to display Collections where each Collection page shows an initial page similar to the TV Show, the movies in the collection is displayed like a season and that movie page instead of Episodes could display the multiple cuts and versions of that movie as well as any Extras associated with that movie.
I now have a 20TB Movie collection and I can no longer use Plex to find movies unless they show up on the Recent Additions section.
Sure I can use Search but the issue is if a friend comes over and wants to pick a movie to watch by the time he gets through the list it’s time to go home!
And yes there are a lot of features people want that may get more votes than this…
But none of those features are going to make the other playback media players moot and no longer needed.
I would love to deprecate my HTPC and dump XBMC if Plex was actually usable from a I’m Bored lets pick a movie to watch standpoint.
The way it is now it’s only useful for mobile device purposes (due to the server part you mentioned) and only when you know what movie you want to watch in the first place.
My Nephew came over one night and had to pick a movie from my XBMC box first so he knew what to search for on the Plex App to watch in his room.
Plex is virtually unusable for anyone with a very large media library.
I understand the difficulties and because I have the HTPC I can be patient and wait.
But I fear as more people grow their libraries they will be forced to dump using Plex in favor of some other media system that does support a decent hunt and pick method.
@charlesholmes - Though I agree Collections are needed, what would placing it in the top 5 do?
Since 2 posts of 3 weren’t deleted as duplicate as the sticky topics indicate, the count is now off with some voting more than once, and some only voting in one.
MovieFan.Plex specifically stated in the popular requests first post
“It is NOT an indication of what features might or might not be in progress, nor should it be taken as indicative of any specific priority for Plex.”
Bold my emphasis.
It could be on the bottom 5 for popularity and might get implemented soon.
Just saying - I’ve had a long enough love/hate relationship with Plex to know that portion in bold is true.
Lots of good discussion on this. I would like to see something similar to the “Seasons” level that’s in TV shows.
I’d also like to see grouping of multiple TV shows WITHOUT having to define a Season.
Guess what I’m really wanting is an OPTIONAL ability to group Movies and TV shows under whatever title you wish.
Example - you could group all James Bond movies, All Die-Hard movies, etc. You could group several TV shows WITHOUT defining them as belonging to a Season.
Discussion can take place all day on this subject because the way it’s implemented is a personal preference… BUT - Fact is, there’s no functionality within Plex to allow for overriding database organization with personally defined Hierarchal content grouping. I’ve got a collection of over 1000 movies and close to 1200 TV shows. This becomes a real issue for large collections.
