Plex Plugin

[kpfriedberg]

I would imagine that many Indigo users are also Plex users, which I have been now using for a while and is amazing. Does anyone here know if someone has begun developing an Indigo plug-in for Plex...I can imagine sitting down for a movie, and from within Plex using Indigo (and my harmony remote therefore) to turn off the lights, etc etc...

here is a link to a post on the Plex forums...

http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php?/to ... n-plug-in/

Matt/Jay, not sure if you have heard of Plex, but they have a pretty big community, might be a good way to attract more users...

[jay (support)]

I would imagine that many Indigo users are also Plex users, which I have been now using for a while and is amazing. Does anyone here know if someone has begun developing an Indigo plug-in for Plex...I can imagine sitting down for a movie, and from within Plex using Indigo (and my harmony remote therefore) to turn off the lights, etc etc...

here is a link to a post on the Plex forums...

http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php?/to ... n-plug-in/

Matt/Jay, not sure if you have heard of Plex, but they have a pretty big community, might be a good way to attract more users...

Nope, first I've heard of it. I'm assuming that it can't play FairPlay DRM'd content, right? I use an AppleTV in my media room rather than a mini.

[kpfriedberg]

Correct on video but not music. But it plays just about every other vid format out there and most peoples video content at home isn't drm'd. Check it out. Blows ATV away.

[jay (support)]

Correct on video but not music. But it plays just about every other vid format out there and most peoples video content at home isn't drm'd. Check it out. Blows ATV away.

It seems to have some nice features, but, respectfully, my ATV never times out when trying to stream my content and the UI is always responsive. Plex, like all the other media server front-ends I've tried (Boxee comes to mind), feels fragile and unstable - it's gone out to lunch trying to find network content twice already.

However, that's just from my 30 minutes of playing and Plex is still prerelease - maybe it'll stabilize as it matures. And, since most of my video content (about 300GB worth) is DRM'd video content from iTunes, it's still gonna be a long while before my ATV gets replaced. It is nice that you can launch FrontRow from Plex - that's an easy way to get to the iTunes content with little fuss in terms of switching apps.

[kpfriedberg]

LOL, that's interesting, i've been using it for two months and haven't had a single hiccup yet. And respectively, i've had about the same number of issues with Indigo as I have with Plex. That's not a swipe against Indigo as you know I love it.

300gb of video content from iTunes...wow, that's a lot of money to spend on video content...

But i digress, the question on the table was a indigo plug in to plex, not whether you guys were going to leave your ATV or even use Plex...

[jay (support)]

And respectively, i've had about the same number of issues with Indigo as I have with Plex.

Indigo or INSTEON?

300gb of video content from iTunes...wow, that's a lot of money to spend on video content...

All Babylon 5 seasons, all Stargate SG1 seasons, some other random TV episodes and a bunch of movies. I suppose it does add up...

But i digress, the question on the table was a indigo plug in to plex, not whether you guys were going to leave your ATV or even use Plex...

We have no plans. However, since we have a nice RESTful API, anyone should be able to make one.

[kpfriedberg]

[

Indigo or INSTEON?

Is there a diff? Without Insteon products what is Indigo?

but seriously, there have been noted problems with Indigo, nothing big but still. But again, i wasn't making a post for a referendum on Plex or Indigo. I was merely pointing out there Plex is a damn good product, with well over 10,000 dedicated, technically sophisticated, Mac Only users and given its obvious link to Indigo/Insteon (wouldn't it be great to have a Plex plug in, or ATV plug in for that matter, that when a movie started up it automatically dimmed my lights) was just curious as to whether anyone had thought about a plugin (btw, if there was such a plug in, it would effectively enable Indigo control via Harmony remotes, which has been the subject of numerous threads here).

That's all. As I posted on Plex's forum, the more people use Plex and Indigo, to software products I love, the more money for both, the more money for both begets more resources for both, which begets better software for both - a win-win.

[oliverjhudson]

I am totally with you on this one. Would be great to have Indigo interact with Plex, and there isn't really a viable solution out there at the moment.

Big thumbs-up.

[Korey]

+1

[Korey]

I would love to be able to have Plex or XBMC push it's status to Indigo.

IE: when you play a movie, Plex would notify Indigo to dim the lights (or whatever action you would want executed), When plex is paused the lights would brighten up (or whatever action you would want), when movie is stopped, lights could return to normal... ect..

[kalisphoenix]

This might be a good project for me to work on, actually. I have a Mac Mini as a media center, and use both Plex and iTunes (Plex for Netflix/Hulu, etc, and iTunes for the stuff that I've converted to mp4).

I wasn't even aware there was a way of getting these two applications to work together short of GUI scripting. Wouldn't know a RESTful API if it bit me on the ass. It might be a week or so before I post any updates (this weekend is booked), and I have my first baby coming in the next two or three weeks, so, um, hell, you guys may never see me again.

But anyway, I'm interested and I'll see what I can do. No firm commitments, but this is something I want too, so, um, I'll be in touch or something.

[kalisphoenix]

This doesn't look like it's going to be too difficult (famous last words). I should be able to implement all the RESTful functionality without too much difficulty, have some minor preferences in there, maybe put some other toys in like being able to run AppleScripts from within Plex, and so on.

I have lights, so I can test them. I have a thermostat, so I can test that. I have motion sensors and TriggerLincs, so I can test those things. I have a sorta-X10-enabled security system so I could put some toys in for that. I have IRLinc transmitters and receivers, which I doubt will be useful but I'll keep them in mind.

I don't have a weather station, sprinklers, or any other gear like that... so my ability to test that equipment will be non-existent. But I don't expect that to be an issue as long as I follow the API.

I doubt I'll be able to dim the lights when Plex starts playing, etc (I really wish more developers would put user-accessible hooks into their applications... IMHO they should be a standard feature of almost any application).

The only difficulty I anticipate is that I'll have to learn Python along the way. That might cause some delays. And the aforementioned baby, and the fact I'm partially disabled and in college.

So, not that I want to start feature creep before I've even laid out a line of code, but what are you interested in seeing?

[Korey]

This doesn't look like it's going to be too difficult (famous last words). I should be able to implement all the RESTful functionality without too much difficulty, have some minor preferences in there, maybe put some other toys in like being able to run AppleScripts from within Plex, and so on.

I have lights, so I can test them. I have a thermostat, so I can test that. I have motion sensors and TriggerLincs, so I can test those things. I have a sorta-X10-enabled security system so I could put some toys in for that. I have IRLinc transmitters and receivers, which I doubt will be useful but I'll keep them in mind.

I don't have a weather station, sprinklers, or any other gear like that... so my ability to test that equipment will be non-existent. But I don't expect that to be an issue as long as I follow the API.

I doubt I'll be able to dim the lights when Plex starts playing, etc (I really wish more developers would put user-accessible hooks into their applications... IMHO they should be a standard feature of almost any application).

The only difficulty I anticipate is that I'll have to learn Python along the way. That might cause some delays. And the aforementioned baby, and the fact I'm partially disabled and in college.

So, not that I want to start feature creep before I've even laid out a line of code, but what are you interested in seeing?

Nice! sounds like you are a busy fella! Congrats on the upcoming little one!

I guess if you could run apple scripts from within Plex then you could tell Indigo to do what you want based on the command from Plex?

I wonder if the Plex developers might be interested in creating these hooks in the new version 0.9 that is supposed to coming out.

They (Elan) have been pretty open to ideas, perhaps you could make a suggestion post over at the forms there, you are oviously more of a programmer than I (I dabble with applescript) and I am sure you could more eloquently word it

Actions based on feedback from Plex would be the key, once we have the info from Plex you could do whatever you want in Indigo.

[kalisphoenix]

First off, whoever came up with this language was on crack.

Nice! sounds like you are a busy fella! Congrats on the upcoming little one!

Thanks The wife and I are very excited.

I guess if you could run apple scripts from within Plex then you could tell Indigo to do what you want based on the command from Plex?

It's easier than that. Check out this page. Basically, I set up preferences for the server, server port, username, and password, and then it's just a matter of sending URLs based on which device I want to control. Should also be quicker than AppleScript.

I wonder if the Plex developers might be interested in creating these hooks in the new version 0.9 that is supposed to coming out.

They (Elan) have been pretty open to ideas, perhaps you could make a suggestion post over at the forms there, you are oviously more of a programmer than I (I dabble with applescript) and I am sure you could more eloquently word it

Might be worth a try. I think as Plex matures it'll become the media center app of choice for the Mac, and being able to get even very basic status updates from Plex would make it quite pimp, even for people who don't have home automation stuff. I mean, set your iChat status to whatever you're watching, or update Facebook. Who knows?

Actions based on feedback from Plex would be the key, once we have the info from Plex you could do whatever you want in Indigo.

Yeah. I hope there's already something in the system (although I doubt it) or a way of adding it. It shouldn't be a major problem for them to add, although I'm not sure of the best way to do it... I guess I should consider that before I ask them to implement such a thing.

Well, so far I have the preferences (the four items listed above) and the basics of the URL request, and a little thing to make sure that the settings for the server are valid. I still have to do some things to actually get the plugin to show up in Plex... I also need to make or appropriate an icon and background, although that's not very difficult.

Then I need to set it up so that the plugin requests the device statuses from Indigo (with appropriate icons), and make a couple things so that you can change the statuses. I'm not sure if I'll be able to do a slider for dimmers... that might be a little more than I know how to do... but you'd certainly be able to set them numerically (ie, press "play" while "Overhead Light" is selected and a little window asks you what you want to set the brightness to).

It's going about as well as I expected it to, which is to say that my head hurts, my feet stink, and the plugin isn't even showing up in Plex yet

[Korey]

It's going about as well as I expected it to, which is to say that my head hurts, my feet stink, and the plugin isn't even showing up in Plex yet

LOL! Keep up the good stinky work!