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## Promotion
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- 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
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- can use A-Z to additionally organize collections via levels
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- 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.
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Prefix suggestions:
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```
# Prefixes for (Movie) Collections:
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# 010_+ = Charts
# 020_+ = Holidays
# 030_+ = Studios or Network
# 040_+ = Genres
# 050_+ = Countries
# 060_+ = Awards
# 070_+ = Collections
# 080_+ = Decades
# 090_+ = People
# 100_+ = General
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```
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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.
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## Visibility
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- `visible_library` , `visible_home` and `visible_shared`
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- `true` , `false` or [schedule ](https://github.com/meisnate12/Plex-Meta-Manager/wiki/Schedule-Detail ) available for
all options
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- `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.
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- 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.
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## Scheduling
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- Save time by updating lesser-important collections and playlists less frequently:
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- ex. `schedule: weekly(wednesday), weekly(sunday)`
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- Don't need to schedule a `smart_filter` because Plex auto-updates the list itself
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- 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
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- No need to schedule everything on the same day:
- Schedules for collection templates:
- New: daily
- Chart: daily
- General: daily (overridden by other schedules)
- Holiday: no default, per-holiday
- Award: weekly(sunday)
- ActorAward: weekly(sunday)
- Genres: weekly(monday), weekly(thursday)
- Decade: weekly(monday), weekly(thursday) (overridden by other schedules)
- Collection: weekly(tuesday), weekly(friday) (overridden by other schedules)
- Franchise: weekly(wednesday), weekly(saturday)
- Countries: weekly(saturday)
- Networks: weekly(wednesday)
- Studios: weekly(wednesday)
- People: weekly(sunday)
- Also goes for monthly schedules, no need to always make it the first of the month: monthly(1), monthly(15)
- Past Award Winners collections run once-a-month, staggered throughout the month
- Per-Decade collections run once-a-month
- Per-Genre collections run weekly(monday), weekly(thursday)
- Per-Country collections run weekly(saturday)
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## Sorting
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- https://github.com/meisnate12/Plex-Meta-Manager/wiki/Plex-Builders#sort-options
- If a collection is made of multiple lists, can't use `custom`
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- Recommend sorting instead by `popularity.desc`
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- Can't use `collection_order` for Plex `smart_filter` rules. Replacements:
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- `collection_order: release` -> `sort_by: release.desc`
- `collection_order: alpha` -> `sort_by: title.desc`
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- `collection_order: random` -> `sort_by: random`
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- `collection_order: custom` -> `sort_by: ??`
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- Needs to be one level above `all` /`any` criteria list. Ex.:
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```yaml
smart_filter:
sort_by: release.desc
any:
- criteria1
- criteria2
```
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- Collections display on home screen in order of creation
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- Recommend having library-specific collections loaded first in config before general collections
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## Filters
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- Type restrictions
- Plex `smart_filter` /`plex_search`: Use, i.e. `type: episodes` , to limit collection
to [specific type ](https://github.com/meisnate12/Plex-Meta-Manager/wiki/Plex-Builders#special-attributes )
- Needs to be one level above `all` /`any` criteria list. Ex.:
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```yaml
smart_filter:
type: episodes
any:
- criteria1
- criteria2
```
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- 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
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- Need to use `builder_level` if using `smart_filter` for anything other than show/movies (i.e. seasons,
episodes, etc.)
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- `smart_filter` ONLY works for collections, not playlists (despite there being a Smart Playlist concept in Plex)
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- All other rules: Use, i.e., `collection_level: episodes` , to limit collection
to [specific type ](https://github.com/meisnate12/Plex-Meta-Manager/wiki/Metadata-Details#metadata-details )
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- `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
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## Templates
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- 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
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- Unfortunately, you cannot have a template refer to another template; you need to re-implement every setting
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## Collection vs Playlist
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- A collection is an unordered group of content from the same Library (Movies, TV Shows, 4K Movies, etc.)
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- 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)
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- A playlist is an ordered list of content of the same type (all movies, all shows, all music, etc.)
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- Import a list of "playlist" config files. A "show" playlist file will execute on all shows (and only on shows)
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## Overlays
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- 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
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## Collections Import Flow
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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)
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2. In the "Movies" section, we define:
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- 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.
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3. Each metadata config file is parsed and executed
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- 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.
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## Collections vs Dynamic Collections
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- Let's say I wanted to make a collection of each actor's movies.
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- 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.
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- 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)
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- 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.
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- Schedule a dynamic collection (visibility, update frequency, etc.) via the template
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- Unfortunately, you cannot use a template in a dynamic collection, so make sure elements are the same (e.g. the sort_title syntax)
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- < < key_name > > used in title, < < key > > used in all other places
- For number-based DCs, these are the same.
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## Posters
- Posters available here: https://github.com/meisnate12/Plex-Meta-Manager-Images/tree/master/award
- Multi-word genres or countries won't URL-encode properly, so you may need to manually import posters for those collections
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- Placeholder posters generated using [this utility ](https://github.com/bullmoose20/Plex-Stuff#create_poster ) and [this font ](https://github.com/meisnate12/Plex-Meta-Manager-Images/blob/master/Comfortaa-Bold.ttf )
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- Example: `./create_poster.ps1 -clean 1 -base_color "#5B5B5B" -gradient "1" -font "Comfortaa-Bold" -font_size "200" -text "NETWORKS"`