Clear Logos. There was actually a feature request for those. Plex has (predictably) not done the needed refactoring properly for them to look their best on the pre-play screen, though. Part of what makes adding that artwork challenging is the layout needs to be able to adapt for the logo. Consider when a logo is highly horizontal (long and low, like the Spider-man films), or more vertically oriented like It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. This would mean needing different layouts and some logic on the client as to which to use based on the aspect ratio of the logo image. One layout with the logo on top, and other info below (like now), and another with the logo aligned on the left and synopsis and other info to the right of it (for vertical logos), and maybe a third for the most-wide logos that might need to allow more intrusion into the backdrop image space (because scaling for a maximum horizontal length is making the text too small on those logos).
That’s essentially it, though. Moving the Recommended/Browse/Collections buttons to the left is awkward. I think the terminology change from “pinned libraries” to “favorites” is easier for new users to get, but that’s not an interface change.
I’m not trying to “minimize complaints”, just analyze the real situation. Let me tell you what is probably happening with these people losing their sh** because they think Plex is trying to trick them (?) into using the ad-supported services:
- When the FAST service came out years ago, they didn’t like it got auto-pinned on the home screen (none of us did). They unpinned the sources to get them off the home screen – but they never actually disabled the services on their Plex account, so the FAST was still enabled even though they had no interest in using it.
- When the New Experience Roku app came out, their personal libraries they had pinned before did not get transitioned over as favorites on the new interface. This is a bug – nothing more. It is not planned and did not effect everyone as they are assuming.
- Because there is no longer an “unpinned” state for the Plex FAST services, the hubs they originally unpinned, but did not disable, are now added back on the home screen. This is not a bug. There is no place for those hubs to appear but on Home now.
- Since none of the personal media server libraries are currently “favorited” the only libraries appearing on the Home screen are the Plex FAST services (cue conspiracy-chat that Plex is trying to make everyone use their FAST service – when this isn’t effecting people who disabled it years ago). Same with the Discover feature.
- Because the user did not use the Plex FAST service there is no partially-watched content or next-episodes queued up in those libraries. The Continue Watching hub only shows content from (pinned/favorited) libraries on the Home screen. So since there are currently no libraries on the home screen with partially-watched content, what do you think happens? The Continue Watching hub does not appear at all, the top hub on Home is now the first library (cue users falsely claiming that the Continue Watching has been removed from the New Experience app).
All of this is easily rectified with some calm troubleshooting and an understanding that a brand-new software may have some bugs to work out. But instead you have people piling on their personal subjective opinions about the new interface, objective observations about the new navigation layout, and experiences with bugs effecting specific people, and out comes “this new app is a disaster and barely works!” blanket statements. “Look at all the threads on these forums!” – where many people are cross-posting their same complaints. I saw one post the other night where they said simply “Plex, listen to your customers” and linked to another thread of the same discussion: the definition of an echo chamber.
