Plex-Meta-Manager-Configs/nwithan8/tips_and_tricks.md

Promotion

• Use sort_title to promote and demote certain collections
  • start with + to promote to top of library
  • start with ~ to demote to bottom of a library
  • can use A-Z to additionally organize collections via levels
• Recommended to start with a number corresponding to a category
  • 1 above 2 above 3 etc.
• Use + and ~ to promote and demote secondarily
  • 1_++_ above 1_+_ above 1__ above 1_~_ above 1_~~_
  • 1_+_ above 1_~_ above 2_+_ above 3__, etc.

Prefix suggestions:

# Prefixes for (Movie) Collections:
#   010_+ = Charts
#   020_+ = Holidays
#   030_+ = Studios or Network
#   040_+ = Genres
#   050_+ = Countries
#   060_+ = Awards
#   070_+ = Collections
#   080_+ = Decades
#   090_+ = People
#   100_+ = General

This collection uses a combination of all these prefixes, and are always sorted in this order:

• CATEGORY:
  • Ex. "New" collections (010) will always be above "Award" collections (060)
• LEVEL:
  • Ex. "+++" will always be above "+", "~~~" will always be below "~", "A" will always be above "B"
• ALPHABETICAL:
  • After CATEGORY and LEVEL, collections are sorted alphabetically. If this is undesirable, use CATEGORY and LEVEL to override this default action.

Visibility

• visible_library, visible_home and visible_shared
  • true, false or schedule available for all options
  • visible_library: Will be visible in the Recommended tab for a specific library (and in the Library tab if you have chose to intermix collections in with library items)
  • visible_home: Will be visible on your Home page (what appears on your Home page is determined by what libraries you have pinned)
  • visible_shared: Will be visible in the Home page for other users (what appears on their Home page is determined by what libraries they have pinned)
  • Collections are ALWAYS visible in the Collections tab for a specific library (not controlled by the visible_library option)
  • Advice: Treat visible_library the same as visible_home/visible_shared. If you want something to appear as a recommendation on the Home page, you probably want it to appear in the specific library's Recommendations tab as well.
• Visibility does not dictate when a playlist/collection is updated:
  • When setting visibility to a certain time-frame, make sure the playlist/collection itself is scheduled to update at least one day longer than the visibility time-frame. Otherwise, the playlist/collection will not update again and the visibility will not change.
    • Example: Halloween collection, visible_shared: (10/01-10/31), schedule: (10/01-11/01)
  • You also need to schedule the playlist to update on the first day of visibility. Otherwise, the playlist will not update and the visibility will not change.
  • If you can spare the processing, the best thing to do would be to have the playlist/collection update every day, so you don't have to worry about specifically updating it to trigger visibility changes.

Scheduling

• Save time by updating lesser-important collections and playlists less frequently:
  • ex. schedule: weekly(wednesday), weekly(sunday)
• Don't need to schedule a smart_filter because Plex auto-updates the list itself
• Scheduling can take multiple criteria
  • Ex. yearly(02/21), all[weekly(friday),range(02/21-03/31)], yearly(04/01)
    • Run on Feb. 21 every year (regardless of day of week), then run every Friday between Feb. 21 and Mar. 31, then run Apr. 1 (regardless of day of week)
    • Useful for awards or things that need to appear and be updated only for a certain time frame of the year

Sorting

• https://github.com/meisnate12/Plex-Meta-Manager/wiki/Plex-Builders#sort-options
• If a collection is made of multiple lists, can't use custom
  • Recommend sorting instead by popularity.desc
• Can't use collection_order for Plex smart_filter rules. Replacements:
  • collection_order: release -> sort_by: release.desc
  • collection_order: alpha -> sort_by: title.desc
  • collection_order: random -> sort_by: random
  • collection_order: custom -> sort_by: ??
• Needs to be one level above all/any criteria list. Ex.:
  • smart_filter:
    • sort_by: release.desc
    • any:
      • criteria1
      • criteria2
• Collections display on home screen in order of creation
  • Recommend having library-specific collections loaded first in config before general collections

Filters

• Type restrictions
  • Plex smart_filter/plex_search: Use, i.e. type: episodes, to limit collection to specific type
    • Needs to be one level above all/any criteria list. Ex.:
    • smart_filter:
      • type: episodes
      • any:
        • criteria1
        • criteria2
    • Recommended to use smart_filter over plex_search when possible, as smart_filter means Plex will keep the list updated based on the criteria, rather than Plex Meta Manager having to re-run the builder every time
      • Need to use builder_level if using smart_filter for anything other than show/movies (i.e. seasons, episodes, etc.)
      • smart_filter ONLY works for collections, not playlists (despite there being a Smart Playlist concept in Plex)
  • All other rules: Use, i.e., collection_level: episodes, to limit collection to specific type
  • episode_added only works on Shows, because it accounts for when Show had an episode added, not when episode was added to library
    • Use episode_release, which works for individual episodes, as well as Seasons and Shows

Templates

• As of v1.16.4, you can define templates in an external file. This allows you to define your templates in one central place, rather than having to copy-paste them into each file.
  • Import your templates with the external_templates key

Collection vs Playlist

• A collection is an unordered group of content from the same Library (Movies, TV Shows, 4K Movies, etc.)
  • Collection configs exist inside metadata configs
  • For each Plex library, define a list of "metadata_path" config files
  • You can technically group multiple Plex libraries into one "metadata" section, but it's not recommended (too confusing)
• A playlist is an ordered list of content of the same type (all movies, all shows, all music, etc.)
  • Import a list of "playlist" config files. A "show" playlist file will execute on all shows (and only on shows)

Overlays

• You can add custom overlay configurations for specific Plex libraries
  • Similar to collection/metadata, define a list of "overlay_path" config files for each Plex library

Collections Import Flow

1. We define a "Movies" section under "libraries" in the config.yml file. (The name "Movies" is purely descriptive and doesn't have to match the name of the Plex library)
2. In the "Movies" section, we define:
   • the "library_name" as "Movies" (this is the name of the Plex library, this does matter)
   • the "metadata_path" list of metadata config files. These can come from local files/folders, the Configs repo, or a custom repo.
     • In our case, all our config files come from a custom repo.
3. Each metadata config file is parsed and executed
   • Each config file imports templates from another file (from the custom repo) via the external_templates key
   • The main template file imports templates from the Configs repo via the external_templates key
     • This means that every metadata config file has access to all templates (user-defined and Configs repo-defined)
   • Each config entry is parsed and executed (if needed), using items from the "Movies" library.

Collections vs Dynamic Collections

• Let's say I wanted to make a collection of each actor's movies.
• Thankfully, with templates, we don't have to manually define every single setting/parameter for each actor's collection.
• I can make an "actor" template, and then define an "Adam Sandler", "Mike Myers" or "Justin Timberlake" collection and have it reuse the settings from the "actor" template.
• The problem is, I still need to manually define a collection for each actor. That's where dynamic collections come in.
• A dynamic collection is useful when you don't know the input data (when we don't know what actors to define)
• A dynamic collection will execute a query (say, grab a list of the top 10 actors right now), and then for each result, make a collection using the "actor" template.
• Schedule a dynamic collection (visibility, update frequency, etc.) via the template

Custom Posters

• Placeholder posters generated using this utility and this font
  • Example: ./create_poster.ps1 -clean 1 -base_color "#5B5B5B" -gradient "1" -font "Comfortaa-Bold" -font_size "200" -text "NETWORKS"