plex-control

Node module used to control Plex clients. Utilises the Plex Media Server HTTP API/Control.

Usage

PlexControl(serverIp, clientNameOrIp[, options])

var PlexControl = require("plex-control").PlexControl;
 
// having Plex Media Server on 192.168.0.1
// and client wanting to control with hostname "mac-mini"
var control = new PlexControl("192.168.0.1", "mac-mini");
 
// ..or assigning client by IP address
control = new PlexControl("192.168.0.1", "192.168.0.2");

If options are provided they are given to the underlying plex-api upon instantiation.

Commands

Promise based

Each command returns a promise which gets resolved when command was delivered successfully by the Plex API or rejected when any error occured.

control.navigation.moveUp().then(function(){
    // moveUp was successfully communicated to Plex
}, function(err){
    console.err('Error while communicating with HTTP API', err);
});

The commands are pretty much self describing and identical to what the HTTP API offers.

Navigation

control.navigation.moveUp();
control.navigation.moveDown();
control.navigation.moveLeft();
control.navigation.moveRight();
control.navigation.pageUp();
control.navigation.pageDown();
control.navigation.nextLetter();
control.navigation.previousLetter();
control.navigation.select();
control.navigation.back();
control.navigation.contextMenu();
control.navigation.toggleOSD();

Playback

control.playback.play();
control.playback.pause();
control.playback.stop();
control.playback.rewind();
control.playback.fastForward();
control.playback.stepForward();
control.playback.bigStepForward();
control.playback.stepBack();
control.playback.bigStepBack();
control.playback.skipNext();
control.playback.skipPrevious();

Currently

What's currently happing on the client?

control.currently.playing();
control.currently.paused();

It resolves to an object representing what's currently playing/paused. The object has lots of details about the given media. Hints of what's available in these gigantic detailed media representations can be found on the XML example on the StatusSessions page in the unofficial Plex API documentation.

control.currently.playing().then(function(result){
    if (!result) {
        console.log("Nothing is currently playing");
    } else {
        console.log("Currently playing a %s titled: %s",
            result.attributes.type,
            result.attributes.title);
    }
});
 

getClientInfo(name | IP)

Returns a promise containing the info about the client matched by either the name or IP-address provided. Rejects with a NotFoundError if client was not found.

Changelog

v3.0.1

• Upgraded the validator dependency from v5.x -> v10.x by @phillipj

v3.0.0

• Upgraded the plex-api dependency from v3.x -> v5.2.2 by @phillipj

BREAKING CHANGES FROM v2.x

control.api which holds a reference to the underlying plex-api instance, has gotten a major upgrade.

v2.0.0

• Upgraded the plex-api dependency from v0.x -> v3.0.0 by @phillipj
• getClientInfo() might reject with NotFoundError by @phillipj

BREAKING CHANGES FROM v1.x

control.api which holds a reference to the underlying plex-api instance, has gotten a major upgrade. Read more especially about the XML -> JSON changes done in plex-api between v1.0 and v2.0.

getClientInfo() rejects with a NotFoundError instead of resolving to an undefined value. To check whether or not the error is a NotFoundError you could check err.name === 'NotFound' or compare the error instance against the exposed NotFoundError constructor from this module (require('plex-control').NotFoundError).

v1.0.0

• Added the .currently commands
• Major bumped when.js from v2 to v3
• Changed control.on("resolved") to provide the whole plex client object found by hostname or IP, rather than just the IP-address

v0.2.0

• Converted all methods to be promise based, rather than callbacks

License

(The MIT License)

Copyright (c) 2013-2014 Phillip Johnsen <phillip@lightweight.no>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.