So, it obvious many users hate the new UI and Plex is not going back to the older UI. So, instead of whining (yes, it’s understandable but I think it’s been well covered by now) about the lost, are there constructive suggestions for making the new UI work better? I’m talking about improvements, not bugs or lost features (those are being addressed in many other posts).
However, I see a lot of users complaining about too many clicks or not being intuitive for seniors, etc. So, what constructive suggestions do people have to make things function better?
So, how is it better if they are on the left vs top? I guess I can understand if someone has a lot of libraries (it is easier to list them vertically than horizontally). Right now, I have 3 pinned libraries: 4K Movies, Movies, TV Shows. They list out fine.
I’m not disagreeing with you on the overall change (I was happy with the previous UI), but hoping people will stop flooding the forum is “feedback” when Plex is obviously not going back. So, how do we suggest they go forward?
I also do like the Recommended, Browse, Collections, etc. being on the left. I could never get any of my users to find them when they were on top.
I understand you do not like people flooding the forum with feedback.
But, you’d think if there was THIS MUCH FEEDBACK, plex would note this is not a few whiners and complainers, this is a large portion of users. And this is only the users that take time to seek out and find the forum to complain. There are many more users who are also disappointed with the UI but not taking the time and effort to post here.
I’m happy that that UI is working for you. For many it is not. And ideally, the customization would be best. You like this layout with the stuff at the top, ok, turn that option on. Me? I prefer the stuff on the left, would be awesome if I could that option on.
And then BOOM, we are both happy.
You can complain all you want about the forum flooding. Its going to continue until one of the following occurs:
Understand. Yep, an ON/OFF switch for choosing if the main menu is left or top would be a nice upgrade.
As for flooding, it obviously worked for getting Music and Photos back in, but users had a valid complaint that the Photos app wasn’t working and that many users use their TV for music, where there is no Plexamp.
What I don’t see in the flooding on the UI is anything concrete yet other than a preference. You ON/OFF switch would probably help, and I’m all for it.
Allowing customization of the view would be the perfect solution. And really, speaking as one who has developed software, allowing for basic view changes shouldn’t really be that difficult.
I would absolutely love the option to move the placement of the libraries and pinned items.
I’d also love the ability to bring back a grid view for TV episodes. Horizontal scrolling is such a monstrous waste of space and clicks.
Have an “advanced” view option that has fewer buttons hidden in nested menus.
Again, these aren’t difficult things to implement programmatically. Its just formatting, not altering core functions.
One of my suggestions, which I posted even for the old UI, was to allow us to place a hub/row on the Home screen of all our Collections (posters). This is different, and thus an addition to, how we can currently create a new hub/row using a specific collection. It would allow the option of bringing the Collections view upfront. It sounds like they are adding this with Playlists.
I love being able to customize the hubs (that was a breakthrough in UI customization for Plex at the time), but believe it was be a huge benefit to allow an entire Library Collection to become a hub.
Another thing would be having multiple Collection views: Award Winners, Genres, Studios, Franchises, Actors/Actresses. Right now I have over 300 collections just for movies; it’s a bit to scroll through and users have to know to keep scrolling to find the next category of collections.
Remove the Continue Watching for the Recommended views. It’s already right there on the Home Screen, which you just passed to get to the Recommended view.
Show the ratings of a title while browsing, not just on the Details screen. It’s really a pain of clicks to select each title to get to the Details screen, then back out, then over in the hub, then back in, etc. etc. Yes, Kometa can do this on the posters, but there is plenty of room on the new larger (not sure what Plex calls it…) area with the clear logo and background while browsing a hub/row now (before you click into the Details screen).
I understand why Plex moved the second row of posters completely off the screen, but I’m finding doing so doesn’t encourage people to scroll down. Yes, there is the hub title shown, but I find it doesn’t perk curiosity enough. It’s sort of assuming you already know you can scroll down.
Once thing I’m missing in the new UI is the “themed recommendations” from videos in my library. With Halloween, it’s nice that the old home screen showed Halloween movies from MY LIBRARY. There may be something similar… but it’s ONLY showing shows through PLEX or other streaming services. If I wanted to watch something on another service… why am I in the Plex app…
My kids have given up on Plex all together. They are now watching everything they want on the Roku channel and others.
They couldn’t find the Kids Shows library. Instead of trying to figure it out, they found content in another app. I’ll probably have to block the stupid Roku app to keep them from watching shows of guys playing video games…
Seriously though if rolling back is not on the cards for them then it’s time for me to migrate to other solutions. I won’t continue using and paying for a service that experiments with the user experience and doesn’t respect what people actually want.
It was fine, but they’ve ruined it without any way for the user to go back.
They could stop shoving their horseshit free offerings down new users throats and forcing customization to be done through the mobile app. I work in software development and I have never encountered a UI overhaul and change as objectively ■■■■ awful as this in my life.
Personally, I think it would be beneficial if Plex would provide some documentation to which we could refer folks when they’re having issues onboarding with the new experience. For example, the folks who complain of not seeing their content and only Plex’s. A document which explains the concept of showing all libraries and favoriting them would go a long way toward quelling some of the angst.
Or perhaps a reset defaults and first-run wizard (where you’re asked to pick your favorite libraries) would help some.
And then, a way to unfavorite Plex’s content without disabling it at the account level would be welcomed by some. I can see situations where one might not want Plex’s Movies & Shows on a mobile device but would welcome it on their big screen experience.
Personally, I like the new experience apps (I’m using it on Apple TV, Roku, Android mobile, and iPhone). I use the “Manage Recommendations” feature of the server settings to configure the hubs I’d like to be visible for each library. And then favorite my most-used libraries across my servers. Everything looks and functions as I expect.
That interesting, because I finding it ironic that Plex is mainly a video delivery tool, yet we don’t have ready-made tutorial videos to watch to help onboard users. I was thinking about creating some last year but then the new UI announcement came out, so I’ve been holding off, or might never get to it. The other problem is I didn’t want to take up the entire first row (under Continue Watching) to display these videos to my users. I will say, in the old UI I could just create a new “Plex Tutorial” library that would be more visible than in this new UI.
Thinking about other services and their UIs. Netflix, HBO, and the like. Do they, or any of the others have tutorial videos? I don’t think so? For the most part, I think their UIs are fairly self explanatory. If they aren’t, they should be…
So what makes Plex unique in this space? Why do we feel like we need tutorials and videos to use the interface to get around? I don’t disagree. It’s probably a good idea… but it’s interesting to think about. What is it about Plex that makes the need for tutorials and videos a thing?
In the perfect world, I would hope we wouldn’t need them. But it appears we do.
