plex integration

[batfasturd]

I also have fixed resume support for movies and need to add support for TV shows as well as fixed the ability to play the next episode of a TV show. For now the TV show is limited to playing the first unwatched episode, if you are all caught up this isn't an issue but if you have any unwatched episodes it will play them. Hopefully I can get that fixed as I would expect it to play the most recent unwatched episode or what Plex considers on deck.

I may tackle music here soon as I am getting back into the swing of home automation with voxcommando.
Along with Plex I want to write a script to better interface with Openhab easily.

[IKROWNI]

I really wish this would just be baked right into vox commando like xbmc is. Plex is pretty much everywhere and on every device now. Can't see why it wouldn't be packaged in. I use vox for all of my home automation stuff now but I still resort to other apps for Plex control. I'm glad someone is at least working to get this going well for those out there needing it.

[jitterjames]

I'm just wondering...

How many people are still interested in having a VoxCommando plugin for controlling Plex?

If I did make one it would be primarily tested against Plex Media Player for Windows since there is not much else I can use as a player. Would that still be of interest or does everyone use things like Chromecast etc.?

[vulcanjedi]

TLDR; Yes?

I think most people in the living room likely use FireTV, Chromecast, xbox1/ps4.  I think Plex Media Player for windows would be very low utilization.  There is also the 'web client' that is bundled with every instance of the PMS install as its also the admin GUI.


Long response;

Personally I still am very hardcore a kodi fan for the living room experience.  That being said, it is far easier, cheaper and simpler to spin up plex for those that want it to proliferate throughout their whole house...etc.

I think it would be great but I'm not a dev.  I also think its going to be not fun as while markedly improved I think the documentation is still severely lacking and between the secure the connections I know other apps have issues connecting sometimes like the homeassistant plugin doesn't work. But again many other apps do support some integration with Plex.
I'm sure there are a lot of Chromecast and FireTV users. The great part about plex is the ubiquity of the client, chromecast and any of the other clients (or the plex app) that aren't on all the time would be a little more annoying as you'd need VC to engage those clients first if they aren't always on like a kodi instance is likely to be.  And not thinking you could remotely cast something that I've been aware of. But users could simply instantiate plex client first before expecting to use VC.
Also not sure how supportable it is for those users that have shared libraries, and if you could access any of those at all via their account...like you may have suggested only for those hosting their own PMS.

Also not sure how many people use the Home feature but that would add more complexity if supported.
I think none of the clients really support the extensibility of kodi clients. so making specials views wouldn't be possible....possibly unneeded as many clients do have the 'recently added' queues...etc.  Also Plex does do a superior job of monitoring the library than kodi so those functions too are kinda unnecessary.

Plex lacks the channels and youtube and the addons that some people really take to on kodi.

However Plex is faster to spin up, and configure and maintain for novices. So I think this want will only grow over time.
All that being said I still think the the pure function of being able to play whatever media would be nice and likely the #1 people do w/ Kodi&VC.  Play 'big buck bunny', play the next ep of blah blah or Symphony #9...etc would be nice but aside from that I'm not sure what other actions I can envision for Plex via VC.  Plex released a skill on Alexa but its not private as it must proxy thru amazon servers so this would be far more reliable, better performing and private.

[jitterjames]

Thanks for your feedback.

I don't know what TLDR means in this context.  What was too long, and who didn't read it?  Yes I had to google "TLDR" because I had no idea what that meant to begin with.

I was hoping that people would let me know how and if they personally would be interested in a Plex plugin and so far what I'm sensing is that almost nobody is interested.  Certainly not enough to make it worth sinking another 80 hours or more of my time into hacking an undocumented API.

Maybe it's just that anyone who has decided to stick with VoxCommando has already given up on Plex, and anyone who stuck with Plex gave up on VC?

Too bad because I was actually starting to make some progress with Plex (already spent about 20 hours on it) but it seems like a wasted effort.  The API certainly seems to be very "flooby".  Even using only official clients they seem to randomly disappear from the list of players and different things seem to work on different clients.  Even PMP reacts differently to API control depending on whether it is in TV or Desktop modes.  Whacky.

My question of what type of media players people are using, assumes of course that people are already using or expecting to use VoxCommando.  So we already know this person has a Windows PC running so I figured there would be a relatively high number of people using PlexMediaPlayer as a client on the same HTPC they are running VC on.

I don't know what you mean by "engage those clients first".  Do you mean there is no way to launch those apps on external devices using a voice command?

"And not thinking you could remotely cast something that I've been aware of."

  - I'm not sure what this means.

I would not expect to be able to control content that does not exist on the local server.

If I made a plugin it would hopefully be able to control playback, and volume, launch and or search/navigate content for clients on the local area network accessing content from a local server.  Even if we could do more I don't really see what the point would be in terms of voice control.

"I think none of the clients really support the extensibility of kodi clients. so making specials views wouldn't be possible...."

- I'm not sure what this has to do with VC.  I certainly was not trying to start a conversation about whether Plex is better than Kodi. I also prefer Kodi (and MediaMonkey for music) and this is what I continue to use personally.  But that is not really important in this context.  If people want to use Plex that's fine.  I was just hoping to see if there was any demand for a plugin.

Yeah, we tried to test the Plex skill for Alexa.  After a few laughs we uninstalled it because we could not get anything to remotely work as expected.  For example asking for a movie to play resulted in music playing instead and the audio came out of the little tinny echo dot speaker instead of playing on our PMP client etc.

[vulcanjedi]

I don't know what TLDR means in this context.  What was too long, and who didn't read it?  Yes I had to google "TLDR" because I had no idea what that meant to begin with.

TLDR; I was concerned maybe my response was too verbose.

I don't know what you mean by "engage those clients first".  Do you mean there is no way to launch those apps on external devices using a voice command?
  - I'm not sure what this means.

What I mean by this is when people use Kodi, typically its always on, always ready to listen.  This is not always the case with every Plex client. Those clients have other apps like Netflix and stuff so if the Plex app is not up, nothing would work.  Chromecast as well.

What I was saying is I've never seen anything that showed custom views in Plex. Maybe using the SEARCH function.  But VC could make those special views via the plugin like Unwatched eps of Show ABC.   

Thanks for your feedback.

I don't know what TLDR means in this context.  What was too long, and who didn't read it?  Yes I had to google "TLDR" because I had no idea what that meant to begin with.

I was hoping that people would let me know how and if they personally would be interested in a Plex plugin and so far what I'm sensing is that almost nobody is interested.  Certainly not enough to make it worth sinking another 80 hours or more of my time into hacking an undocumented API.

Maybe it's just that anyone who has decided to stick with VoxCommando has already given up on Plex, and anyone who stuck with Plex gave up on VC?

Too bad because I was actually starting to make some progress with Plex (already spent about 20 hours on it) but it seems like a wasted effort.  The API certainly seems to be very "flooby".  Even using only official clients they seem to randomly disappear from the list of players and different things seem to work on different clients.  Even PMP reacts differently to API control depending on whether it is in TV or Desktop modes.  Whacky.

My question of what type of media players people are using, assumes of course that people are already using or expecting to use VoxCommando.  So we already know this person has a Windows PC running so I figured there would be a relatively high number of people using PlexMediaPlayer as a client on the same HTPC they are running VC on.

I don't know what you mean by "engage those clients first".  Do you mean there is no way to launch those apps on external devices using a voice command?
  - I'm not sure what this means.

I would not expect to be able to control content that does not exist on the local server.

If I made a plugin it would hopefully be able to control playback, and volume, launch and or search/navigate content for clients on the local area network accessing content from a local server.  Even if we could do more I don't really see what the point would be in terms of voice control.

 - I'm not sure what this has to do with VC.  I certainly was not trying to start a conversation about whether Plex is better than Kodi. I also prefer Kodi (and MediaMonkey for music) and this is what I continue to use personally.  But that is not really important in this context.  If people want to use Plex that's fine.  I was just hoping to see if there was any demand for a plugin.

Yeah, we tried to test the Plex skill for Alexa.  After a few laughs we uninstalled it because we could not get anything to remotely work as expected.  For example asking for a movie to play resulted in music playing instead and the audio came out of the little tinny echo dot speaker instead of playing on our PMP client etc.

[vulcanjedi]

I do think the Plex momentum is here to stay for a while. So it could help bring more (registered) user$