Several questions regarding collections...

[andy_d]

I thought a plugin was needed for collections but seems like some stuff is being auto generated. I am new to Jellyfin so I could be wrong but I double checked that I don't have any plugins driving this besides the use of Plexyfin to sync movie / collections posters from Plex to Jellyfin

1. Is there a way to manage this or disable automatic creation? I have duplicate collections or ones I don't really care to have as collections that appear

2. Is there a way to remove the collections library from the homepage? I tried deleting it and it was added back automatically

3. I separate my media between 1080p and 4k -> as in, I'll have a Movies library and a Movies 4k library. Is there a way to make sure that the collections are to the specific library? If I check the collections tab for Movies 4k, I see collections from the Movies library

[TheDreadPirate]

1. Go to Dashboard > Libraries > Display. Is "group movies into collections" checked?

2. In Settings (not dashboard) > Home, there is a check box further down the list to show or not show collections on the home page. This is a per-user setting.

3. AFAIK, no. If a collection is auto generated for "Star Trek", for example, I'm not aware of a way to only pull from a specific library.

[andy_d]

Thanks!

2 - yep thanks!

3 - this seems weird. I'll check on github if I can file it as an issue

1 - I don't want to disable collections but the automatically generated ones. I'm not sure how well it works but I tried deleting a collection to see if I can delete ones I didn't create. Seems like it worked after a restart of the server but not sure if it'll come back during some sync process

[TheDreadPirate]

3. I don't think that is a bug. That is just something that isn't done. If you want to submit a FEATURE REQUEST, that you can definitely do.

1. Unchecking that box won't prevent collections from being created MANUALLY, but it will stop auto generated collections.

[andy_d]

Ok I'll play around with 1 - thanks!

[TIMFLIX1138]

Collections have a weird good thing-bad thing dynamic in Jellyfin. The good, they are cool! The bad, they can be a pain to manage, have some limitations with creating/viewing and lack some features that would make them even better.

I think the mighty Dread Pirate answered most of your questions but I will add:

1. Currently the only built-in method to create collections is to do it manually or let JF use metadata from scraped sources to tell JF which collections they think something should belong to. There are no built-in options to auto-create collections from any other parameters. There is a plgin called Auto Collections which allows you to set some parameters (like director, studio, resolution etc) and it works to a degree but doesn't fully encompass everything you may like.

2. Yup user-by-user option to enable/disable. Unfortunatethere isn't an "apply universal/set as default" option at this time (for many user settings).

3. JF currently doesn't see media added to collections as anything but what type of media that is. A movie is a movie no matter what movie library you list it in. Same goes for a TV Show, music/album, photos etc. This is likely due to the back-end way JF stores data to generate collections. As of now, JF creates a XML file in the Collections folder in the Jellyfin/server/data folder on your system (Windows, unsure of other way). This XML file is dumber than a sack of hammers. All it does is list the items that have been added to the collection, through any previous method, by their basic type and then their full direct file name and path. There is nothing within the XML to denote that this movie came from the HD Movie Library and that movie came from the 4K Movie Library and another one came from the Shhh Don't Look in There It's just Boring Home Videos library. To the collection, they are all just movies. Period.

I have delved a lot into collections in my time with JF as I love the concept and have it owrking for me, despite it's limitations and frustrations. My signature is a full wishlist of improvements I hope can one day be added. As of now I have built over 350 collections manually, plus an entire sub-set of movie awards which I was able to use the Auto Collections plugin to help generate at first. I do a lot of manual editing within the XML files but that was made more difficult after one version update so you can't just create and scan the collections library and see all the changes, you have to play some tricks on JF to get things to work. As of today there isn't any great easy simple nearly fully automated method to get collections to work super well, butthey are really cool none-the-less. Some of the issues noted make sharing collections with other JF servers near impossible (requires full manual replacement of filename/path in all XML files) so hoping there is work to make this a simpler method in the future that can make Collections even better.

This is an old screen shot of some of what I have built.




And for fun I just made this quick demo video.

[andy_d]

Thanks! I would say my collections setup is probably basic in terms of what people end up wanting. I only care about a small subset of movies and tv shows and their posters. Not directors, genres etc. For the most part I did this manually some time ago using Kometa that would add future movies to the collections that already existed. It seems like there is a Jellyfin port of that so I need to check.

I'm a little confused by this setting...

"group movies into collections"

because on plex, that means I only see the collection instead of the movies separated out. Is that the intended purpose or does it actually mean to auto generate collections. I do want movies to be grouped up by collection when browsing but I don't want collections to be auto generated.

And how does Jellyfin know it's a collection if I do it manually - seems like that's the case given it picked up how I set up the collection along with the auto generated one

[ArneR]

I use tmdb for my collections, I add movies to a collection based on the name used on tmdb, e.g. "From Dusk Till Dawn Collection"

Then it is just a matter of refreshing, and posters etc. are automatically filled. If it doesn't, add the tmdb plugin and restart jellyfin, and select it as a metadata provider under library settings.

I tried using the feature for automatically adding movies to a collection if there are at least two movies available, but I found it to be a little buggy so I just do it manually.

I have zero experience with Plex. But when movies are grouped into collections in Jellyfin, only the collection poster is shown in the list of movies, as long as it is enabled. When you click on the collection the movies contained are presented.

Jellyfin knows if you do it manually, because you select "add to collection". Or did I completely misunderstand your question?

[TIMFLIX1138]

If you manually create collections of use an automated Jellyfin process/plugin, and chose the "group movies into collections" setting then all will be grouped in to collections and not appear as just the movie in your library. I tried it. It works. I threw up a little in my mouth. I get why some people might like it for their set-up but it's not for me. I like to see the collections as collections and the library as everything contained within. But it's cool it's an available feature and gives hope some of my wish list can come true to!