With the downfall of iTunes imminent, my “offline” music library might be a thing of the past.
I have a great vision for a Plex Media Server powered offline music library.
We all know how a proper Desktop Music player should look.
Playlists and Library options on the left sidebar.
Player controls along the top with a search option on the right.
Playlists and Smart Playlists should be manageable by the application.
I believe that the only thing this client should be able to edit is [playCount / skipCount / trackRating]. Album, Artist, Track information should all be handled by the WebUI.
OfflineSyncing should be able to be handled per Playlist, Artist and Album and on a per Track basis.
High Quality (non-transcoded) copies of the files stored on the server should be offlined to PlexTunes client.
The backend management and database is already inplace it’s just the WebUI is unusable for fast navigation of the library.
PlexTunes should treat the PlexMediaServer as the golden master for all Music Related.
PlexTunes should be unable to PlayBack nonPlex stored media files to prevent confusion. There are already plenty of very very good native local playback software in place.
Nowhere close, I have PlexAmp on my laptop and find it annoying.
PlexAmps interface is great when you’re online and don’t need to curate playlists and manage upcoming music.
It’s useless when you’re disconnected from the internet.
There is no Right Click, Queue next.
Theres no way to drag a song up and down the queue.
The interface requires far too many mouse clicks.
No useful keyboard shortcuts.
It is not anywhere close to the speed and usability of iTunes and/or the various other music apps around.
Just use something like MediaMonkey to organize your music and then you can use Plex web, Plexamp, etc all for playing remotely.
But really, to your point with the offline syncing, Plex really needs to fix that aspect of Plex Music. Every other modern music player has some ability to sync music easily. Plex options are centered in a video world and need to be updated accordingly.
Hey guys,
Soooo, Plex basically copped out of all the requirements bar the offline mode. Which is currently very broken and doesn’t keep things where they are like in the mobile versions.
They have hacked the WebApp into a nativeApp using something like ElectronJS
Which means they are still using HTML5’s native audio API and engine, which they are calling best in class. it’s not it has no ability to do gapless playback. Audio CDs sound terrible so does the War of the Worlds which doesn’t work with crossfades.
Smart Playlists are still uneditable so are useless for anything complex.
Playlists aren’t drag and drop.
Unable to make an item on a playlist unplayable without removing it from the playlist. i.e. Having a Playlist with a set of tracks i.e. called Christmas selecting them in January and disabling them from playing in the global shuffle, without deleting them from the Library.
Come on Plex you wanna be the centre of my consuming life you’re so close.
Podcasts, fantastic!
Films & TV Shows no issues except the odd mismatch, normally some weird metadata thing. Great
Music, requires more features. Currently it sucks, like unusable sucks.
and doesn’t keep things where they are like in the mobile versions.