Jump to content

[Request] Integration with Plex Media Server/Center


Recommended Posts

Plex is a wonderful tool for media viewing, categorizing, etc. and I think it would be great to join that with Alfred. I know Plex has an api though I don't know enough about it to get the job done myself. I was thinking at first it would be awesome to be able to just search through the media server from within Alfred (perhaps being able to hit enter on a title and it launch the web version of plex). Something that it could technically also due based on a glance at the API is actually controlling a remote plex media center, which would be awesome.

 

What do you guys think?

Link to comment

Plex is a wonderful tool for media viewing, categorizing, etc. and I think it would be great to join that with Alfred. I know Plex has an api though I don't know enough about it to get the job done myself. I was thinking at first it would be awesome to be able to just search through the media server from within Alfred (perhaps being able to hit enter on a title and it launch the web version of plex). Something that it could technically also due based on a glance at the API is actually controlling a remote plex media center, which would be awesome.

 

What do you guys think?

 

So.. I'm intrigued now. Looking into this. Looking through their api. 

Link to comment

HOLY COW! AWESOME!

 

Have it distinguishing between movies and tv shows now. They have individual icons (i'll work on getting album art). If it's a tv show, it was showing the title of the episode, now shows it as [show] - [Episode]. Also have it showing ratings for the shows and movies and the year they came out.

 

Totally doable to make it show recently added, and other categories like that. Will prob add separate keywords for those.

 

I'll keep working on it when i get time and keep you in the loop with what i get working

Link to comment

Have it distinguishing between movies and tv shows now. They have individual icons (i'll work on getting album art). If it's a tv show, it was showing the title of the episode, now shows it as [show] - [Episode]. Also have it showing ratings for the shows and movies and the year they came out.

 

Totally doable to make it show recently added, and other categories like that. Will prob add separate keywords for those.

 

I'll keep working on it when i get time and keep you in the loop with what i get working

That is incredible! You rock!!

Link to comment

That is incredible! You rock!!

 

Oh snap, so I have it working. I still have a lot of stuff that needs to be added to this to make it worth having but I can now search my plex library in Alfred, see results as feedback, select a file, and it plays. Right now it is only set to play on a remote player so.. in my setup, I have a computer hooked to the tv that is there solely for plex. The plex client is always running on it. I can control it and make it play/pause and all that remotely from Alfred now! Sweet!

Link to comment

That's excellent. I plan on finishing an htpc build in the next few weeks to do exactly that haha

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIaGdN-NUmg

 

A little preview of what I have so far (watch in HD if you can)

 

I had the artwork showing for the results but since Alfred can't use urls as icons for results yet, I would have to download the icon for all of them in order to show them. It can be done but slows things down a good bit (especially on a library the size of mine). One query downloaded over 10mb of artwork :)

Link to comment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIaGdN-NUmg

 

A little preview of what I have so far (watch in HD if you can)

 

I had the artwork showing for the results but since Alfred can't use urls as icons for results yet, I would have to download the icon for all of them in order to show them. It can be done but slows things down a good bit (especially on a library the size of mine). One query downloaded over 10mb of artwork :)

This is really amazing. Definitely one of the more advanced workflows I've ever seen, and you've only been working for 2 days!

Link to comment

this is totally awesome!

will it be possible to control a remote PMS? or only with local?

 

you should post this in the plex forum. i think many users will think about using alfred, just because of that :)

Edited by sks
Link to comment

this is totally awesome!

will it be possible to control a remote PMS? or only with local?

 

you should post this in the plex forum. i think many users will think about using alfred, just because of that :)

 

By remote are you meaning a machine on another network or a different machine on the same network? Different machine on another network.... I THINK should work but would obviously require certain configurations on your behalf (port forwarding on the router, etc). Controlling another machine on the same network definitely works. The video linked above, the server isn't running on the machine the video is being recorded on. The Plex client is running on my iMac, while the Plex server is running on my HTPC. When the client starts up, it connects to the server and announces that its available. From there, commands are sent to the server, and the server tells the client what to do. So, the workflow isn't telling the local player what to do. It sends the command to the server, and then it's coming back from the server.

 

I haven't posted it in the Plex forums yet but did mention it the the person running the @plexapp twitter account. We talked back and forth a bit the other night when I posted the video. He mentioned it to all his followers. They seemed very excited about it. I've just about got browsing the library working right. Just needs a few more little tweaks. I wish having to request and download all the artwork and such didn't affect performance so much. I'd love to include that as well. I may see if I can just limit search results to 10-ish and see if that helps performance. If so, I'll drop that back in.

Link to comment

yeah, the local remote of a PMS , was what i meant. usually, i only want to control PMCs i'm sitting next to ;D

this whole thing is pretty amazing. good job!

 

dont want to hit the line - and i don't know whether this is possible or not. but if its possible, maybe you could inculde a little info box for a movie/series/episode? like clicking on the right arrow and a info-popup shows up. or like the normal alfred integration, when searching something -> right arrow -> options page shows up. this could include a cover, the rating, and a little infotext.

Edited by sks
Link to comment

Sorry, don't have anything to add here, I just wanted to say:

 

THANK YOU DAVID! This is amazing!! Going to use the crap out of this everyday!

 

I need to get back to work on this. I haven't had time to touch it this week. I got a few people to test it the other day and things didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped. I need to trace down what the issue is. Don't know if it's differences in API (caused by differences in server version)? It works great with the versions I currently have installed.

Link to comment

I need to get back to work on this. I haven't had time to touch it this week. I got a few people to test it the other day and things didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped. I need to trace down what the issue is. Don't know if it's differences in API (caused by differences in server version)? It works great with the versions I currently have installed.

Let me know if you need another tester ;)

Link to comment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIaGdN-NUmg

 

A little preview of what I have so far (watch in HD if you can)

 

I had the artwork showing for the results but since Alfred can't use urls as icons for results yet, I would have to download the icon for all of them in order to show them. It can be done but slows things down a good bit (especially on a library the size of mine). One query downloaded over 10mb of artwork :)

Holy ****. When this feature/workflow is polished that'd be a key point for tons of potential new buyers i believe. Truly amazing.

Link to comment
  • 1 month later...

Any updates on this?

 

I need to go back and take a look at it again. Everything seemed to work perfectly on my machines at home (iMac and Macbook Air) but when I distributed to others, it broke. I'm not sure what the issue was unless it was a difference in Plex config somewhere (not sure what it would have been) or a difference in server version or what.

 

I may just put what I have up on Github and let others fork it and tinker with it as well and see what they can come up with.

Link to comment
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 5 weeks later...
  • 1 year later...
  • 5 months later...

Someone did a pretty major rewrite at one point see:

 

https://github.com/laazyj/Alfred.Plex

 

You should be able to download the Zip file from there, extract it, create a fake workflow in Alfred, right click -> Show in Finder, drag and drop extracted files there.  (I've tried renaming the zip to .alfredworkflow and that didn't work, this was the quickest way I could find.)

 

Doesn't seem to work if you have Users configured on plex, keeps saying it can't find the plex server :(

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...