Let’s talk about metadata agents, audiobooks, and server in general! I have a feeling that this is going to be a popular post, so let’s dive in! First - we have already removed python on the Android-based Plex Media Server releases (yes, this means the shield), and thus, 3rd party agents on that platform. This same change will be occurring to all server builds but we are committed to making sure that solutions still exist for alternatives on all platforms in conjunction with the removal change.
Next - where does this leave everyone? We have put together a boarder plan that I am effectively introducing here. Now I know that this is coming at the end of the Fireside chat, but please know that we will be following up with a dedicated post to get feedback and comment within the next few weeks as we get closer to Pro Week. So what is this plan?!?
Effectively, we want to double down on Plex Media Server. We have always put effort in two places, server side and then on the client side to realize a full experience. The problem is that this is a slow process. To implement this we need many developers on multiple clients as well as our server gurus to all work together to crank out amazing features. This takes time. It is harder to be agile and react to things as they come up when we are working through these projects. Overall - we need a way to move a bit faster - and this is exactly what we have been brainstorming and working on.
There will be many pieces to this puzzle and it will take some time to get the full and clear picture out, but here are some of the pieces that we are excited to share with you today:
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A public PMS Open API spec: this has been a long time coming. In order to help people build amazing things they need to know what is possible and how to access it. This work has already started!
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NFO support: build out your own metadata! Having the ability to have local files with the specific metadata for titles that you want to see int he way you want to see it. This project is already kicked off with a target release next year.
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Custom Agents! Metadata is crucial to making the experience the best it can be and while we are removing python and the existing third party access that exists now, we have started the working on what comes next. In a nutshell, developers will be able to implement metadata agents following the same API spec that we do for our own infrastructure, meaning 3rd party agents will be first class citizens in PMS and server owners will have the ability to build custom agents that are fined tuned however they see fit. This opens the door for projects in many languages, not just python, going forward. You will truly have complete control over your metadata. This effort has also started with a target release alongside NFO support next year.
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Audiobooks? Ebooks? Other library types? This initiative will open the door to us adding support for these types of libraries and making sure that we have the appropriate metadata fields and library features that are needed for these entertainment types to be successful. This hasn’t started, but is part of this overall planning - but to be clear this would be server-side support and we may need community help to have amazing clients to be able to consume this media! We would much rather get to more things faster on the server side and work with all of the creative devs out there via a public PMS API to support creating their own dream experience for consuming this entertainment!
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Photos and Music: This initiative will have an impact on these library types, but we plan on continuing support for both of these through dedicated apps (yes, I said apps here) and we will be talking through these impacts in pro week which starts on September 16!
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Rebuilding the server management experience. This will be a major project that is firmly on the roadmap for next year (2025). This will replace the bundled web client, and provide a much more extensible platform for giving server owners a bespoke experience for managing, curating, and understanding their server that will not only be available through your browser, but also on your mobile devices. This work will be kicking off next year!
The fact is, we feel that we will be better off if we focus most of our efforts on the server side of things and also work to build out community support for anyone who wants to work on client or third party solutions against a PMS. Therefore there may be features that we work on that only appear on server and are just sitting there waiting for someone to come along and built out an amazing client experience. But instead of hobbling ourselves thinking that we must hold off on building this until the stars align and we can spin up a big project to handle both server work and client side work - we want to remove this boundary! Let the features flow!
As part of this initiative, we hope to find ways to build out, work with, and ultimately collaborate with you, the community on development initiatives. Having a thriving community of developers and users will only strengthen this amazing platform. While we don’t have details fully worked out, the goal would be to create dedicated communication channels for the dev community that allow Plex engineers and developers to work together for even better experiences. We would like to help create open source components that developers can use to quickly ramp up new projects for even faster bootstrapping of ideas into enjoyment.
our PM backlog has pretty much always been the biggest backlog that we have here at Plex. It is pretty long. We have some messaging that will be posted shortly around the API topic. We are also listening and want to make sure that we are doing a better job at engaging with you all on your suggestions and comments. We aren’t making changes right now, but we are discussing different ways we can make this process easier to understand. This includes topics like our feature request forum and bug trackers. Thank you for this post and interest here 