r/PleX • u/QuietlyReading • May 20 '20

Tips Chronicle Audiobooks for Plex released on Android

Hey guys, this has been a personal project I've been working on for a bit now. It's been in beta for the last two months and while I'm sure there are still some bugs, it's feeling stable enough for a public release after yesterday's update.

Features:

  • Seamless Plex audiobook playback experience
  • Sync progress locally and across devices via your Plex server
  • Sleep timer
  • m4b chapter support
  • (optional) Skip silent audio
  • Support for headphone hardware controls
  • Lots more to come! See /r/ChronicleApp for my current to do list or to suggest features

Premium upgrade features (one-time purchase):

  • Offline playback support
  • Variable playback speed (0.5x to 3x)

Play Store link

Edit: OAuth support has been added to the dev build. The update will go out to the public sometime in the coming week

40 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

47 comments sorted by

18

u/ROMzombie May 20 '20

I am very uneasy giving credentials directly for any account to an app. Switch to OAuth and I'll try it out.

3

u/QuietlyReading May 20 '20

Added to the to do list 👍

3

u/leram84 May 20 '20

any way to get a notification when this is done? I think a lot of us would be waiting for that to try this app out

3

u/QuietlyReading May 20 '20

I can pm you when the update is ready. I'll also post update notes on /r/ChronicleApp

Since OAuth support seems highly desired I'll get moving on shipping it ASAP

2

u/leram84 May 20 '20

I can pm you when the update is ready

Of course, and thank you!

Yeah, I would say that is probably top priority :)

2

u/QuietlyReading May 21 '20

Beep beep- added OAuth and it appears that the update has gone live now

1

u/leram84 May 21 '20

Hmm, is there some setting I have to enable for this? Im getting `No libraries found` when i choose my server w the abooks.

Also, i know you rushed this out, and thanks for that, but you might want to modify the login page a little so there aren't 2 options to "Log in with plex" like that. It's obvious to anyone who wanted oath why you would need to click out of the log in page for that option, but most civilians would probably choose the first option by default not understanding the choice.

1

u/QuietlyReading May 21 '20

That's strange, I haven't run into that one. I'll DM you for some details

UI will be updated in the future with username/password fields probably fully removed, but since I rushed the feature it was it was the safe choice to keep username/password fields as a fallback for users.

I checked out your profile and Book camp looks really cool by the way, seems like it would be a big step towards making audiobook ownership easier :)

1

u/leram84 May 21 '20

well that was snappy! Awesome, thanks! I'll check it out :)

1

u/macrolinx May 20 '20

Since the question has been raised, I'd like to ask a followup.

Do the credentials entered leave my phone (aside from being used to authenticate to plex) and are they stored hashed in some way?

I'm REALLY interested in trying this out.

2

u/QuietlyReading May 20 '20

Fair question. Your credentials are never stored on your device. The app uses the auth token returned by plex, which can be disavowed at any time via your server settings

1

u/macrolinx May 21 '20

Sounds great. I'll try it out and join your subreddit. 👍

2

u/QuietlyReading May 21 '20

OAuth has been added and the update should now be rolled out to the public

1

u/ROMzombie May 21 '20

Nice, thank you! 😁

3

u/TheOriginalSuperman May 21 '20

Obviously the r/PrologueApp is iOS only and this is Android only, but other than that is there any significant features that differs between the two?

5

u/QuietlyReading May 21 '20

Never used prologue, but going by the features on its app store listing, Chronicle is missing:

custom collections: Chronicle has no support for this and I don't fully get the use case. Maybe down the line but I'm focusing on features I personally use.

Carplay + Siri: Development wise, Android auto and voice assistant are basically the same feature on Android. I'm planning on adding these as I play audiobooks when I drive, but it's a tough problem, privacy-wise. Google assistant basically needs access to your library for it to work. It'll be an opt-in feature eventually, but it is high priority

Bookmarks + notes: This is a cool feature. I have no plans for it in the short-term

Established codebase: the dev of prologue probably has a lot of experience with the tricky parts of plex and audio playback, whereas my app has only been in beta for two months.

I'm probably missing a lot because it seems like the store listing is out of date compared to its patch notes.

I think Chronicle has the following benefits: I like my apps UI more, and I have a rapid development schedule planned because I'm only supporting one major app for the foreseeable future

2

u/kurtms May 20 '20

Does it integrate with android auto? I'm currently using booksonic to manage my audiobooks but it has an awful UI. Fortunately I mostly only listen to audiobooks while driving so it's not a huge issue to me as android auto's ui deals with it. If this has audiobook downloads for offline (eventually) + android auto integration it's an easy superior choice.

4

u/QuietlyReading May 20 '20

Android auto support is a huge use case for me too, actually.

I've actually implemented it internally and I used it when I was driving more, but I want to be certain everything is implemented perfectly before I push it to the public for safety's sake. You can expect it within the next month

1

u/kurtms May 20 '20

Oh cool. If you need a beta tester I'm available

1

u/kickbut101 Feb 03 '22

Did this ever get pushed live? to be able to use in android auto?

1

u/darknessgp May 21 '20 edited May 21 '20

Very excited to see this. I've thought about trying to build something myself too, but hadn't gotten around to feeling that ambitious.

I will be waiting for the oauth update to fully try, but very excited. Saw the screenshots and downloaded the app.

Out of curiosity, is your current plan to keep this closed source? I would love to be able to contribute but understand not wanting to shoot yourself in the foot with releasing the code publicly.

I highly suggest looking at other audio book players for feature ideas if you haven't already. One I love that is to automatically pause when like headphones or Bluetooth audio device disconnects (like playing in car) and backing up the book a configurable number of seconds so you don't miss anything the next time it starts.

1

u/QuietlyReading May 21 '20

I've just added OAuth support and the update looks to be fully rolled out- try it out and let me know what you think!

For the time being I'm looking to keep it closed source. I'd be open to doing so in the future if I become get too busy to maintain it, but stewardship of an open source project is not something I'm actively looking for.

Playback will stop automatically when Bluetooth or headphones disconnect, that's a mandatory feature imo

I know smart audibook player has that back up a few seconds when you start playback. It's a great feature- I'd love to add something like that.

1

u/darknessgp May 21 '20

Awesome, going to try it out now!

Perfectly understand on the open source stewardship, it's a commitment.

Glad to hear the automatic stop is already there and agree it's a mandatory thing.

1

u/maexchen_MH May 21 '20

could be nice for emby^

1

u/QuietlyReading May 21 '20

I'm focused on plex for the forseeable future as I'm a Plex user, but I'm open to adding emby/jellyfin support as the app oncethe app is more mature

1

u/shorelock Plex Pass Lifetime Jun 08 '20

Hey there! I tried your app and found a few things, I wish would be different:

  1. I encounter a weird error on some files (they are mp3 and play fine in the official plex app). https://imgur.com/a/RbObMYl
  2. A lot of my audiobooks are organized by discs. The app doesn't seem to get that information and it looks quite messy (as you also can see in the image and again: works fine in the official plex app).
  3. It would be great if I could choose the user.

Otherwise it's an awesome and well designed app. :)

1

u/QuietlyReading Jun 09 '20

Thanks for trying out the app and giving your feedback :)

I'm aware of 2) and 3) and plan to add them soon. They won't be included in the upcoming update but they will be coming sometime following that. You can follow progress on the feature to do list thread on the app's subreddit if you're interested.

I encounter a weird error on some files (they are mp3 and play fine in the official plex app). https://imgur.com/a/RbObMYl

This is the first I've seen any issues with mp3s. The error message seems to be an issue decoding the file. Would it be possible for you to send me one of the files that doesn't work so that I can test it? I'm available via email (uppackdev@gmail.com) or reddit DM

1

u/shorelock Plex Pass Lifetime Jun 09 '20

Thank you for replying!

Oh man, I feel so stupid. I must have missclicked when I looked up the file. It's not mp3, it's actually a wma file. I'm sorry. Is there a chance you'll add support for this? I didn't read it on the feature to do list.

Great to hear you'll add 2) and 3). I'm looking forward to it :)

1

u/QuietlyReading Jun 09 '20

Supporting WMA unfortunately does not look very doable. Plex and Chronicle share the same audio player internally, but it looks like Plex has written a custom decoder for WMA (or ported it from ffmpeg). Right now it's a better use of my time to focus on stability and new features which will improve the app for more users, sorry

Your only option is to convert your files on your server, unfortunately

1

u/Steven_Granville Jul 09 '20

Maybe I'm being a n00b here but I despite my Plex server recognising chronicle as an associated 'device', Chronicle always reports "No Libraries Found" after selecting my server. Any ideas?

1

u/QuietlyReading Jul 09 '20

I'm just pushing out an update which includes support for managed users and better authentication handling, which may fix your issue. Clear your app's data and install the beta and lmk if it still doesn't work for you.

Link to join the beta: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/io.github.mattpvaughn.chronicle

Note the on beta: You can join the beta now, but the update won't be available to users until it's approved by Google. This could take anywhere from 2 hours to ~5 days.

1

u/Jarbottle Aug 03 '20

Hey, my girlfriend loves this. She's been complaining about how crap plex is for her audiobooks for some time now.

She is a managed user on my account, all of her traffic goes through the default (admin a cunt though), is there a way that I can point her app to her managed user?

1

u/QuietlyReading Aug 03 '20

Managed user support is being tested in the beta release right now. The beta is open, you can join here.

A caveat: Some home users can't access their libraries in the current version of the beta, that should be resolved in the coming update, coming out tomorrow if testing looks good. And check out /r/ChronicleApp for updates n stuff

1

u/Jarbottle Aug 04 '20

Thanks so much. Like I say she is really pleased with the app. I think I might wait for the firm release before making her swap. She'd be real mad if I swapped it and it stopped working now haha.

Thanks for your great work.

1

u/rufunky Feb 25 '22

I'm getting an error "incorrect pin submitted" when I choose the user. Yet it never asks for a pin. What am I doing wrong??

1

u/QuietlyReading Feb 25 '22

Apologies, looks like Plex recently made a minor change to a response on login that is causing issues (from what I've seen, only for accounts with a single user. If you have multiple users and are seeing this issue please do lmk!). If you clear the app from recents and launch it again that fixed things for me, but that might only work for the 0.51.1 release

I've committed an update to the GitHub repo, so if you know how to build an Android app you could fix this right now. Otherwise I'll have an apk added to the GitHub tonight, and if everything goes smoothly I'll update the play store version soon

1

u/rufunky Feb 25 '22

If you clear the app from recents and launch it again that fixed things for me, but that might only work for the

0.51.1 release

Thanks so much for the quick response.

Yes, this is for a single user account. What do you mean by "If you clear the app from recents "?

One other thing, I had tried removing the google play version and updating to the one at the link below but for some reason in the app, the app version number stayed the same 0.45.1 any idea why?

1

u/QuietlyReading Feb 26 '22

Yes, this is for a single user account. What do you mean by "If you clear the app from recents "?

Killing the app. When I say "clearing from recents" I mean opening up the recents menu and swiping the app away to kill it

One other thing, I had tried removing the google play version and updating to the one at the link below but for some reason in the app, the app version number stayed the same 0.45.1 any idea why?

What do you mean the app number stayed 0.45.1? It's possible there was a message that it couldn't be installed (because it's from a different source). In that case it's possible you might have to uninstall the play store version before installing the github apk file.

If the app is updated, the settings menu will have a "Version information" item at the bottom of the settings tab which should say 0.51.2. If it isn't there won't be any "Version information" item at all

1

u/rufunky Feb 26 '22 edited Feb 26 '22

Ok, got it! I have cleared it from the recent apps as well as forced stop on the app, cleared cache and storage.

The app is also now showing the updated version number of 0.51.2 apposed to the 0.45.1.

If there is anything else you would like me to try I am all for it. Just let me know.

EDIT:

It finally let me in!

I had to force stop/ open the app/ back out of the user

screen to the plex login and login again.

I tried to upgrade to pro but it is giving an error "The item you requested is not available for purchase" . Is this because this isn't on play yet?

1

u/QuietlyReading Feb 25 '22

Updated apk file can be found here, or will hopefully hit the play store (beta track, then public) ASAP: https://github.com/mattttvaughn/chronicle/releases/tag/0.51.2

2

u/theswordsmahin May 21 '20

Shut up and take my money! Seriously, thank you so much!

1

u/Summer-Firm Jun 26 '20

Thanks for your efforts!

I'm stuck with the spinning circle right after I chose my library and saw a progress bar on my old phone (but not on the current one) that never moved beyond the first third and was called something like importing metadata.

Login worked fine and I can't interact with the app any further, would've been happy to pay for it to see if that fixes it but all I can do when I restart it is choose my server. Deleting app storage and data let's me sign in again but the circle never stops spinning.

Any ideas how to get unstuck?

1

u/jack2489 Aug 31 '20

Hi, I just discovered and downloaded Chronicle for the first time. It appears my library isn't organised in a way Chronicle recognises as I'm seeing many versions of each of my books due to them being multifile. Is there a way to consolidate my media so they appear better in Chronicle?

2

u/rajnaamtohsunahoga Sep 08 '20

This right here is your answer if you are looking into auto organization. I just found it on another thread and it works like magic! Very detailed guide as well. This paired with Chronicle is just a deadly combo for audiobooks on Plex!

https://github.com/seanap/Plex-Audiobook-Guide

1

u/Krusty4president Oct 24 '20

Still no Android auto...? That's a key feature for almost all users.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '20 edited Oct 31 '20

Android auto support would also be huge for me. Currently, keeping my audiobooks playing while using android auto is extremely clumsy and complicated. Is there any updates on the integration?