Basic idea is to create playlists within the plug-in, and populate them with tracks by browsing the music sections on your server.
Maintenance of the playlists is a bit cumbersome but that is mainly due to the GUI input limitations in channels (or ther are other opttions available that i am not aware of)
There is no release avaialble yet, but the current version is already capable of creating playlists and playing them.
There are currently two modes available when opening a playlist for playback: Normal and Shuffled
Notes:
= This is still under development so there are no guarantees that files created with this version will be compatible with future versions
= The IP address and Port for PMS serer must be set in the Prefences
Basic idea is to create playlists within the plug-in, and populate them with tracks by browsing the music sections on your server.
Maintenance of the playlists is a bit cumbersome but that is mainly due to the GUI input limitations in channels (or ther are other opttions available that i am not aware of)
There is no release avaialble yet, but the current version is already capable of creating playlists and playing them.
There are currently two modes available when opening a playlist for playback: Normal and Shuffled
Notes:
= This is still under development so there are no guarantees that files created with this version will be compatible with future versions
= The IP address and Port for PMS serer must be set in the Prefences
Chrisjan
Thanks for doing this tactical solution. Would it be possible to extend this beyond music? so could be list of home video folders and / or files?
Also photo folders ?
And could we have more complex playlists combining music and photo slideshows ?
Can you manage shuffle of thousands of items? My library has 50,000+ photos and 10,000+ music tracks and i like to have slideshows and music combined and shuffled sometimes and ability to pause and restart later. At the moment I can only achieve this bit through use of roku because on plex for samsung, the minute you switch away from plex to tv you lose the app and have to start again. OK with shuffle you would restart with different order but still would be nice to be able to pause/continue
Also if playing a playlist of just music, would a channel be able to add visualisation or screen saver to kick in to avoid screen burn
Just did a performance test.Created a playlist containing 2500 tracks.
The playlist loads in approx. 5 seconds (Windows 8 mobile and Windows client). I noticed almost no difference when loading shuffled.
Performance obviously depends on the system running PMS. I am running PMS in a virtual machine on an Intel Xeon 1230V2 with 2 cores assigned to the VM.
Just did a performance test.Created a playlist containing 2500 tracks.
The playlist loads in approx. 5 seconds (Windows 8 mobile and Windows client). I noticed almost no difference when loading shuffled.
Performance obviously depends on the system running PMS. I am running PMS in a virtual machine on an Intel Xeon 1230V2 with 2 cores assigned to the VM.
That is good. I will have a go
Is what I was talking about above viable - reference to groupings of audio, visual combinations utilising the playlist functionality or does it have to be just audio?
I have been thinking about some sort of pause / resume functionality (kind of 'On deck') for playlists.
It is possible to keep record of the songs that are started in the channel plugin.
Problem as I see it right now is that I think it is not possible to generate a tracklist and tell PMS to auto select a specific entry in the list (e.g. the one started last before pause) in stead of the first one.
Maybe there is some way of doing so that I am not aware off (which is fairly possible since I am completely new to Plex Plugin development). If any of the more experienced Plex plugin developers does know how to do that, I would very much like to hear about it .
As an alternative I think it is possible to load only the songs not played yet upon resuming a previous paused list (e.g. the playlist gets shorter upon every resume).
Just did a quick test and need to report a problem - the current version of your plugin breaks "channels" in the Windows PMS version 0.9.728.33.
Once installed and PMS is restarted, all installed channels are missing, and just the option to add new channels is present - however, when you click the option to add channels, the add channels page shows an error saying "The channel directory is currently unavailable.".
An update to latest the Windows PMS version 0.9.806.175 has fixed the problem.
First of all, thank you so much for taking this on. Music playlists imo have been sorely missing from Plex for way too long.
I'm having just one issue. When I click on Append to playlist in the Music playlist configurator nothing happens. I assume its supposed to add the track to the playlist I created. Not seeing that happen. Any idea?
Figured out what that issue was... I wasn't using the external IP and port.
Once I entered that then the playlist creation works if I'm running the music playlist configurator from a computer other than the one hosting my PMS. I assume there is some networking reason to this I'm missing. What happens when I run the music playlist configurator from my PMS box is I can't browse into my music folder. Seems to go off into la la land. Timing out perhaps? Doesn't make sense that it works from different pc on my network though. Anyway, minor inconvenience for now but at least I successfully created a playlist and played it from my Nokia 928 (Windows 8) phone. One issue I'm seeing so far with that... if I hit next track on the phone it does not play the next track. Is that not supposed to work yet or does this have something to do with that on deck setting? I could use some more info on what On deck means. Thanks again for all your help. I'm a software developer so feel free to get techy. I'm soooo pumped to be able to stream playlists now!!!
Clarification... next track buttons within the channel screen on my phone do not work. However, if I turn off my phone screen, then turn back on, the next track buttons that drop down from the top over my lock screen DO work.
I played around a little with creating a playlist from my phone. Didn't have any luck adding songs. Seems no matter which approach I use, By artist, album, folder, etc.. times out or something. Get a not found error or something. I'll try and narrow that down a bit more for ya.
Another question... Does it matter what I enter for the user under settings? Is that supposed to be my My Plex User or something? Mine just has the default, "me", right now. Not sure if that is messing anything up.
Figured out what that issue was... I wasn't using the external IP and port.
Once I entered that then the playlist creation works if I'm running the music playlist configurator from a computer other than the one hosting my PMS. I assume there is some networking reason to this I'm missing. What happens when I run the music playlist configurator from my PMS box is I can't browse into my music folder. Seems to go off into la la land. Timing out perhaps? Doesn't make sense that it works from different pc on my network though. Anyway, minor inconvenience for now but at least I successfully created a playlist and played it from my Nokia 928 (Windows 8) phone. One issue I'm seeing so far with that... if I hit next track on the phone it does not play the next track. Is that not supposed to work yet or does this have something to do with that on deck setting? I could use some more info on what On deck means. Thanks again for all your help. I'm a software developer so feel free to get techy. I'm soooo pumped to be able to stream playlists now!!!
I cannot reproduce the IP issue. I am using two Plex servers (one running on Windows for development, which is the same box I am using for developping the playlist configurator) and my normal Plex server (running on an Ubuntu server).
I can connect two both Plex servers with the playlist configurator without any problems. Connection to the local server is possible with both the 127.0.0.1 IP and also with the real IP.
It is important to set the correct IP address within the channel preferences (cannot be done with the configurator).
About the playback:
I am using a Nokia 920 with Win8 myself. I experienced the same problem with music not playing the next track. I found out that this is a general problem with music playback in the Plex app on my phone (e.g. I get exactly the same behavior when i start playback of any music album using the normal music library), so I did not investigate any further. I am using "plex for windows phone 1.4" but I have not bought the app so I just thought that this might be due to limited functionality.
Clarification... next track buttons within the channel screen on my phone do not work. However, if I turn off my phone screen, then turn back on, the next track buttons that drop down from the top over my lock screen DO work.
I played around a little with creating a playlist from my phone. Didn't have any luck adding songs. Seems no matter which approach I use, By artist, album, folder, etc.. times out or something. Get a not found error or something. I'll try and narrow that down a bit more for ya.
Another question... Does it matter what I enter for the user under settings? Is that supposed to be my My Plex User or something? Mine just has the default, "me", right now. Not sure if that is messing anything up.
About the user setting:
This is not related to My Plex. I was just thinking about adding some sort of multi user support. It was actually not implemented (only put it in the preferences already).
I have added it now. It is now possible to create a set of playlists per user. A default user can be set per client device (through the playlist maintenance menu). If no default user is set for a client device, then the default user from the general preferences is used for that client device.
New users can only be created on clients that support the Input dialog (e.g. the InputDirectoryObject().
Figured out what that issue was... I wasn't using the external IP and port.
Once I entered that then the playlist creation works if I'm running the music playlist configurator from a computer other than the one hosting my PMS. I assume there is some networking reason to this I'm missing. What happens when I run the music playlist configurator from my PMS box is I can't browse into my music folder. Seems to go off into la la land. Timing out perhaps? Doesn't make sense that it works from different pc on my network though. Anyway, minor inconvenience for now but at least I successfully created a playlist and played it from my Nokia 928 (Windows 8) phone. One issue I'm seeing so far with that... if I hit next track on the phone it does not play the next track. Is that not supposed to work yet or does this have something to do with that on deck setting? I could use some more info on what On deck means. Thanks again for all your help. I'm a software developer so feel free to get techy. I'm soooo pumped to be able to stream playlists now!!!
On deck functionality :
Whenever a playlist is loaded (either normal or shuffled), a copy of the playlist is saved with extension [Started] added to the file name (e.g. [Started].xml).
When playback of a track is started, the track is added to an internal 'now playing' list, together with the calculated 'expire time' for the track (e.g. Datetime.now() + * track-duration)
A separate thread is running that periodically checks the internal 'now playing' list. When a track is detected that is expired (e.g. playing long enough to have it removed from the 'on deck' playlist ), the thread will remove that track from the 'on deck' playlist.
The first expired track in a newly started playlist (ad 1.) will cause the [Started].xml file to be renamed into [On deck].xml
If an [On deck].xml file exists, a third menu option called "Resume On deck" is automatically added to the "Play mode" menu when a playlist is selected
Notes/limitations:
The channel does NOT get any notification of tracks started on the Plex Windows Client. This means that On deck does not work in combination with this client (Playlists that have an 'On deck' file can be selected for playback on the Plex Meia Client for windows but they will not be updated while being played on this client)
The channel does NOT get any player information from the clients (except for a callback when the track starts playing). This means that the channel will not know if playback of a track is stopped and will therefore still remove the track from the On Deck
OK, as far as using the standalone app for creating playlists, I think I have that figured out. For whatever reason, if I'm running it from my PMS machine I need to connect to 127.0.0.1, port 32400. If I run it from a machine other than my PMS box, I need to use my external IP and port... 32976.
My biggest dilemma now is that playlists are only playing on my phone when I am on my wifi. If I turn wifi on my phone off the track length shows 0:00 and does not play the song. The playlist is there and so is the album art. Playing music the traditional way with Plex works fine in that case too so I'm assuming I have something not configured right for your plugin. I have in the plugin settings my external IP and port... 32976. Does that sound correct? Also, attempting to play the playlist from PMS is not working either. Seems to go off into la la land when I try and start playing first track. (Essentially same behavior as on the phone... track length is 0:00 but track names are all there).
Any chance you'd be willing to remote in to my pc sometime and help me get this working? Just name the time and I'll let ya on.
OK, as far as using the standalone app for creating playlists, I think I have that figured out. For whatever reason, if I'm running it from my PMS machine I need to connect to 127.0.0.1, port 32400. If I run it from a machine other than my PMS box, I need to use my external IP and port... 32976.
My biggest dilemma now is that playlists are only playing on my phone when I am on my wifi. If I turn wifi on my phone off the track length shows 0:00 and does not play the song. The playlist is there and so is the album art. Playing music the traditional way with Plex works fine in that case too so I'm assuming I have something not configured right for your plugin. I have in the plugin settings my external IP and port... 32976. Does that sound correct? Also, attempting to play the playlist from PMS is not working either. Seems to go off into la la land when I try and start playing first track. (Essentially same behavior as on the phone... track length is 0:00 but track names are all there).
Any chance you'd be willing to remote in to my pc sometime and help me get this working? Just name the time and I'll let ya on.
I have found the problem.
When opening the playlist, the channel constructs an ObjectContainer with a list of TrackObjects. The MediaObjects of those track objects (actually the PartObject within the MediaObject) was constructed to do a Callback when started and the callback function simply executed a Redirect (after updating the 'On deck' list). This works fine when used on the local network (except for the Plex Windows desktop client), but apparantly it doesn't work when used through the external Ip/port.
I have only been using Plex on my local network until now (and testing the channel) so I haven't noticed that before.
I made a fix for this. As a result, the 'On deck' functionality does not work when doing play back through external IP.
Note:
It is best to set the IP address and Port in the channel preferences to the server IP address on your local network.
Thanks, that solved it alright! Also, I see what you mean about the Next Track buttons not working within standard plex music playback on the phone. I somehow have never noticed that. I must always use the skip track on the lock screen. OK, excuse me while I go make a zillion playlists now! I'll keep ya posted on any other bugs I notice but for the time being I'm SUPER EXCITED about this new functionality!
The obvious next thing development-wise to think about would be is there a way your standalone app can just import an m3u or some other common (non-itunes) format playlist and create your channel playlist off of that seeing as how people probably already may have a large number of playlists in other formats they aren't super excited about replicating track by track for Plex. That and an easier way to make a playlist from the phone client would be top of my wishlist although I realize the latter is a bit difficult.
