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Let's go a little further into Rules with some simple examples to get you started.

In episode 1 we went over a super basic outline of rules and sections, operators, and general rule setup. In today's episode we will go over some simple rules examples. You could setup a few AND rules and roll with it, but then you wouldn't be using Maintainerr to its full potential. This episode should give you a good base of rule knowledge to build off of.

Let's bring back the Movie from episode 1, that we wanted to add into our new collection.

poster

This movie has the following attributes across Plex, OverSeerr, and Radar:

Plex -

Added Last Viewed Times Viewed Audience Rating
3Nov2023 10Jan2024 4 7.3

OverSeerr -

Requested by Requested Date Times Requested by Anyone
user_girl123 2Nov2023 4

Radarr -

Release Date Is Monitored Runtime
31Oct2023 True 114 minutes

With this information, we have quite a few options that we can use as rule parameters/filters.

Examples

Simple Rule

  • 1: We can use one rule that states Plex-Date Added before amount of days 60.
  • This will match in our special tutorial scenario because the day the Movie was added to Plex happened 60 days or more "before" today's date.
  • 2: We could use a rule that states Plex-Times Viewed bigger number 3.
  • This would get added because it has a Times Viewed value of 4, which is bigger than 3.
  • 3: We could also use a rule that states Plex-Audience Rating (scale 1-10) bigger number 5.
  • This rule would catch our movie because it's Audience Rating is 7.3. Which is bigger than 5.

Simple AND

  • 1: We could add Rule 1 that states Plex-Date Added before amount of days 60. Rule 2 that states AND Plex-Times Viewed bigger number 5.
  • This would not catch our movie because it has a Times Viewed value of 4 and we need it to match (rule 1 AND rule 2). It does match rule 1 but it does not match rule 2. If another movie in the library was added 60 days ago or more AND it had a view count of more than 5. It WOULD get added to this rule.

Let's try one more.

  • 2: Rule 1 states Plex-Times Viewed bigger number 3. Rule 2 states AND Overseerr-Amount of Requests equals Plex-Times Viewed.
  • This rule-set WOULD add our movie because it's Times Viewed amount is 4 (bigger than 3), AND the Amount of Requests(4) from Overseerr EQUALS the Times Viewed(4) amount from Plex. (Rule1 AND Rule2)

Those are some fairly simple AND examples, and hopefully it is starting to become obvious what is going on. Within a section, and only using AND operators, each item also needs to match the rule before it to be counted as a match and added to the collection.

Another way to look at these examples, is that within a section, each rule is making a list. The next rule is checking that list to see if anything ALSO has that value, plus the value of it's own rule.

Visual Example

graph LR
title:>Rule-set: Rule1 AND Rule2]
   A([Has it been viewed in Plex more than 3 times?]) -->|Yes|B([AND is it monitored in Radarr?])
   B -->|Yes| C([Add it to the collection])
   B -->|No| D([Don't add to the collection.])

Simple OR

We don't have to go too far in-depth with this because of what we have already learned. We will just give a quick example, then a visual.

  • 1: We can use one rule that states Plex-Date Added before amount of days 90.
  • This will not match in our special tutorial scenario because the day the Movie was added to Plex happened only 60 days BEFORE today's date. Not quite 90 days yet.
  • 2: Our next rule states OR Overseerr-Requested by user (Plex or local username) Contains (Partial list match) text user_girl123.
  • This would match because as we can see, that is who requested the movie.
  • 3: This rule-set WOULD add our movie because it meets one OR the other of our criteria. It was added 60 days ago so it does not meet our criteria of BEFORE 90 days, AKA the day it was added has not yet been 90 days BEFORE today's date. It did however match the Overseerr requested by user rule. It gets added because we said we wanted (Rule 1 OR Rule 2). Now let's get a visual.

Visual Example

graph LR
title:>Rule-set: Rule1 OR Rule2]
A([Was it added to Plex before 90 days?]) -->|No|B([Did it match one OR the other]);
 C([Was it requested by user_girl123]) -->|Yes|B;
 B -->|Yes|D([Add it to the collection]);

Again, I hope this is starting to come together. In our next episode we will be going over the use of sections and when they can be useful. Stay tuned.