Plex Client Roadmap?

[convertapple]

The addition of a Plex Client to MrMC, was (IMHO) revolutionary. Plex server is easy to setup, keep itself in sync (usually), allows multiple libraries for good separation and is easily shared among users/clients. The relentless unnecessary transcoding with Plex client, is a big fail for people who run low powered servers, so direct play via MrMC is awesome.

Is there a roadmap or priority list of features to be added? For me it would be the things that the Plex Client falls down on:-

Sync files or a playlist of files locally on the device (without transcoding). It could have an auto-show only local files on the device when no Plex on LAN. They could appear as a Local files library above the Plex ones, the same as an unscanned MrMC library, no need to add to db (for now). It could also always prioritise playing a local file if one is available. Plex often insists on transcoding synced files so you could wait hours to sync files which = unusable. Music would be the most useful one followed by the others.

Photos: (Not yet in MrMC) Plex works quite well in this regard, though is a bit buggy on ATV4. It shows/plays both photos + videos.

Plex Libraries appear in MrMC named with a long prefix "Plex(0) - TV Plex - film". I only have one Plex server, it would be handy if it just showed the Plex library name "film" not the rest of it, if there is a single server, or maybe an option to just show short-names. Then I could view them as a grid, currently the names are too long with the prefix to see what they are.

Plex Playlists, would be handy, though TBH MrMC playlists are far more advanced in their abilities, but can't be centralised for all users in the way Plex ones could.

Are there any skins for iPhone that display the home screen as a grid with TV/Movie etc. It's a lot easier for kids to navigate when it's grid to grid to grid. Maybe all the Plex libraries could be shown on the home screen in a grid making it easier still.

Not Plex related but an option to prevent exiting MrMC using the menu button would be handy as often you accidentally end up back on the ATV4 home screen. The home button or exit icon on the MrMC home screen to exit should suffice.

[davilla]

Not Plex related but an option to prevent exiting MrMC using the menu button would be handy as often you accidentally end up back on the ATV4 home screen. The home button or exit icon on the MrMC home screen to exit should suffice.

Forbidden per Apple review on iOS/tvOS. They test for it and it is an immediate fail if the app does not bounce out to the atv4 home when at top.

[amet]

plex photos and playlists are on our to-do, photos should be "simple" to add... Plex playlist is open for discussion and we need to find a best way to integrate it into MrMC so it flows nicely with our playlists

file storing on iOS is something that we did not look into, for various reasons we decided that this should be put on hold for now.

I will look into adding a "short name" setting for plex libraries, that should satisfy everyone

[convertapple]

re Plex playlists I assume they would have to be imported when other Plex stuff is and stored temporarily in MrMC as 'static' playlists (regardless of whether they are standard or smart in Plex) and maybe named prefixed with 'Plex.' e.g. Plex.Fav Music. Whenever a Plex import is re-done any prefixed with 'Plex.' or 'Plex:' could be wiped and reimported so nothing stale gets left hanging around. I can't see how trying to mimic any Plex smart playlist calculations is worth the hassle. That is assuming smart & standard are available from Plex as a simple filelist.

For Photos it's not too much hassle to just add the folder to MrMC anyway.

Re uploading/syncing files locally, even the most simple/basic implementation would go a long way to ridding us all of iTunes. I don't know if MrMC can have local media sources that point at the video/music files stored natively on an iDevice and so if syncing could just stash them in the same place and so rescanning the local sources would find them. I've done it on fire tablets+kodi using EZFile to upload to specific folders on sd card and used separate profiles home(smb sources) & away(local sources), kids use them on car journeys and it works OK.

Another O.T. thing I noticed, that the Amber skin has a transparent info overlay at bottom that is great. It has title/year/length/rating + HD/codec icons but doesn't have the the certificate (G/PG/13 etc). It can be handy when one child wants a 'G' as PG is too scary! I know there's other views, filters etc but... Posters view with all kids films is simpler.

[VoodooNet]

Seeing all Plex library directly on the home menu (instead of "movies" and "tv" categories) would be really great !

[sylar12]

I second that. This is the main feature I a missing so much from Kodi. I was using favorites to precisely customize my home menu (Amber skin) but as far as I know, this is not possible with MrMC. Having my kids cartoons messed up with movies is not so cool