Jellyfin Manager

A application to schedule your Jellyfin media server remotely with the goal of helping caregivers.

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Inspiration

Thinking about the troubles that elderly people, those with disabilities, and children can face when trying to operate modern technology. We thought of personal experiences or small challenges that could make people’s lives easier and more convenient.

What it does

This frontend and server is used to create a media schedule on a personally owned Jellyfin Media Server. This app is intended to allow parents and caregivers to automate media schedules for people who are not familiar with streaming services, the complexity of modern UIs, or people that struggle with understanding how to choose content to watch. This includes, but is not limited to, children, grandparents, parents, and disabled people. Our intention was to build a way for people to set up TV schedules quickly, easily, and simply with minimal involvement past making a list and hitting play. This is done through various Jellyfin API calls, a Node frontend, and usage of Spring to connect the front and backends.

How we built it

About two weeks before the hackathon, our team started brainstorming sessions. We had a bit of an idea for the frontend, but the backend planning was kind of still up in the air, making things a bit tricky when we started hacking on Friday night. When the hackathon clock started, we decided to go all-in on the backend during the first night. We were all on Intellij IDEA, sharing code and making up API calls. We built the necessary classes and methods to make sense of the data. However, we figured it might be smarter to let the frontend handle the sorting of our media types. So, the next day was all about creating and making our website/front end. We used VS Code to tag-team on the frontend using CSS and JavaScript to tie everything together. Our front end/website ended up with two pages – a library and a queue page. The backend and frontend joined forces, making our project click. Despite the bumpy start with the backend planning, our team's hard work paid off.

Challenges we ran into

We had difficulty organizing our information from the API calls in an advantageous way for when it was time to tie the front and backend together. Many of the members used languages and resources for the first time in this project, so it took time to learn. Connecting the frontend and backend was difficult, as well as working in a group setting for the first time.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of our ability to create a functional fullstack application as a team. There werea lot of set backs along the way, but we were able to get a lot done. Some of the members were excited to really get into frontend for the first time and also use new tools.

What we learned

From participating in the UGAHacks 9 hackathon, we gained valuable knowledge and skills. Emily learned how to work effectively in a group, use new languages and platforms like CSS and HTML, and enjoyed using VS Code's themes and the collaborative aspect of working in a team. Andrea, also, learned how to work with different people, learn from their coding approaches, and learn new coding languages like CSS and HTML. Konrad gained experience in working with APIs and discovered the unique approaches that different team members had towards solving problems. Dylan learned how to collaborate on complex projects, improve project organization, and connect different components to the front end. Overall, as a team, we gained valuable skills, knowledge, and experiences from participating in the UGAHacks 9 hackathon. We developed our abilities to work in a group, learned new programming languages and platforms, and improved our problem-solving and collaboration skills.

What's next for Jellyfin Manager

We hope to improve functionality and visuals. There were several features that we wanted to complete, but didn't have time in the hackathon. So hopefully with the coming weeks/monbths, we are able to circle back and add the things that we wanted. Our overarching goal is to have a fully functional application that can better the community and have something that our friends and family can use, or even just make a small part of someone's daily or weekly routine a little bit easier.

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