new tabs: home, artist, albums. fixed all music playlist to sort by letter.

[hamoudydev]

-added home tab with recently played and recently added.
-added tab for artists.
-added tab for albums.
-fixed "all music" in playlist to group by letter. no more searching for songs by groups of 100 (1-100, 101-200, etc.)
-added 4 new screenshots to folder

Edit: the artist/album art work, I just screenshotted before it fully loaded.

[dslugPX]

@joeyberkovitz this would be an AMAZING addition to your already awesome project.

Really hope you will merge this!

Thanks for the efforts @hamoudydev!

[joeyberkovitz]

I'll take a look over the weekend. just at first glance, the corresponding API PR looked like it had some odd behavior due that will likely need correction

[hamoudydev]

I'll take a look over the weekend. just at first glance, the corresponding API PR looked like it had some odd behavior due that will likely need correction

I played around with it for a few hours in the emulator and had no issues, but if it does let me know and I'll correct it. Also noticed in one of the issue threads you said you no longer had an AAOS car and I just got mine and plan on keeping it for at least the next 5 years, would you be willing to transfer ownership of the repo/app so that someone like me can continue to maintain it?

[joeyberkovitz]

I'm happy to review PRs but even transferring the repo doesn't get you anywhere as it's all down to the play store listing

Anyway, I left outstanding comments on the API PR as there are still large issues

[topclaudy]

Any update on this? Thanks for the work @hamoudydev !

[wmmunn]

I have some valuable tips and hints for the network stack if you are interested. I built my own plex streaming AAOS app on my own, and found quite a lot of interesting quirks when working on the communications side of plex streaming. everything is not as it seems.

[joeyberkovitz]

sure, IDK what that has to do with this PR, but feel free to share

the server selection logic is pretty simple: https://github.com/joeyberkovitz/plex-aaos/blob/master/automotive/src/main/java/us/berkovitz/plexaaos/library/PlexSource.kt

it just selects the non-local address - AKA either a public IP if port-forwarding is enabled or the proxied address. If a user doesn't have plex-pass, the proxy refuses to send through larger files, or files without transcoding enabled, depending on how restrictive plex is feeling at the moment.

[wmmunn]

sure, IDK what that has to do with this PR, but feel free to share

the server selection logic is pretty simple: https://github.com/joeyberkovitz/plex-aaos/blob/master/automotive/src/main/java/us/berkovitz/plexaaos/library/PlexSource.kt

it just selects the non-local address - AKA either a public IP if port-forwarding is enabled or the proxied address. If a user doesn't have plex-pass, the proxy refuses to send through larger files, or files without transcoding enabled, depending on how restrictive plex is feeling at the moment.

Thanks for sharing that. Your server selection approach makes sense — simple and readable. One thing I noticed is that you're probing connections sequentially; I found that parallel probing with cancellation on first success made a significant difference on cold start time, getting it from around 9-10 seconds down to about 2.5 seconds. Worth considering if startup latency is something your users have raised.
I'm also curious how you're constructing your stream URLs — that's where I ran into the most interesting behavior. I initially went through the transcode endpoint and hit some surprising quirks around FLAC handling that weren't immediately obvious. Happy to share what I found if it's relevant to your implementation.
Worth noting I have a lifetime Plex Pass, so some of what I experienced may not generalize — which is actually why I'm curious how your users without it fare on FLAC libraries.

[joeyberkovitz]

the settings menu allows for manual server selection if start time is a concern and there are multiple options available for some reason, though there are no issues relating to startup time here

this app doesn't currently do transcoding, though the plex API is officially somewhat documented now (https://developer.plex.tv/pms/) along with the various unofficial reverse engineering that had been done for years.

[wmmunn]

the settings menu allows for manual server selection if start time is a concern and there are multiple options available for some reason, though there are no issues relating to startup time here

this app doesn't currently do transcoding, though the plex API is officially somewhat documented now (https://developer.plex.tv/pms/) along with the various unofficial reverse engineering that had been done for years.

That makes sense — the question I was getting at isn't whether the app requests transcoding, but what endpoint the stream URL itself is built on, and whether you've verified at the server log level that FLAC files actually arrive as FLAC on the client. The reason I ask is that I found the two things can come apart in non-obvious ways depending on how Plex interprets the request path and client profile, even when directPlay is requested. Curious whether that's something your users with FLAC libraries have run into.

[joeyberkovitz]

It shouldn't really be a mystery because it's all open source :)

But to answer your question, the "stream" URI is just the first media entry on the track https://github.com/joeyberkovitz/kotlin-plexapi/blob/master/src/jvmMain/kotlin/us/berkovitz/plexapi/media/MediaItem.kt

I know there's a feature to have the Plex server preconvert media (mainly video) from a higher quality file to a more mobile friendly one. I haven't looked into if that would lead to multiple media entries being present on the track

[wmmunn]

It shouldn't really be a mystery because it's all open source :)

But to answer your question, the "stream" URI is just the first media entry on the track https://github.com/joeyberkovitz/kotlin-plexapi/blob/master/src/jvmMain/kotlin/us/berkovitz/plexapi/media/MediaItem.kt

I know there's a feature to have the Plex server preconvert media (mainly video) from a higher quality file to a more mobile friendly one. I haven't looked into if that would lead to multiple media entries being present on the track

Tested your app against my server with the car on LTE. Plex server logs confirm decision=direct play on every track, FLAC files served directly throughout. Good result. Have you done the same verification on your end?
Separately — have you thought about voice control integration? I've been using Gemini's onPlayFromSearch to navigate playlists and jump to tracks by title hands-free, which feels a lot safer for in-car use.

[joeyberkovitz]

Aside from burning tokens on your end, what's the intent here? If you have various improvements working, you're welcome to PR them here, open source your own, sell it, or just keep it to yourself.

Yes, improvements can be made here. IDK when I'll get to it though without an actual AAOS car, so if anything, I'm usually on standard plexamp via AA

[wmmunn]

significantly improved performance can be had by a more strategic application of caching to local storage, and doing so before the user ever clicks into the categories. the cache stays persistent through cold boot, and then only fetches what is actually new on the server, or missing from the prefetch. That single improvement completely resolves the complaints you have been getting regarding sluggish access to the playlists, and would easily give you the overhead needed to add artists, albums and genres, all sorted by letter as a previous pull request noted. I have written a plexamp player myself, from the ground up, completely separate from what you have done here. That being said, the lessons I learned could easily be applied to your project.