You don’t know me very well, do you?
Look up my posts about Discover.
Isn’t that what all companies do (“CHOSE”)? I don’t recall Plex being a democracy.
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Funny that you post a link to that blog…that version was royally hated by most Plex users and they ended up acknowledging their mistake and eventually released UNO (with the left navigation). Many almost identical comments/posts here: [Implemented] Please bring back old roku interface! - #68 by Harkaway
It’s almost like Plex doesn’t bother to read or understand their own history.
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Hulu’s LEFT MENU that was very similar to Plex Home Theater UI back in the day.
If you watch the vid clip I posted, you can see how SUPERIOR the left menu was in Plex Home Theater. The left menu was DYNAMIC and it’s submenu would transition IN when clicking on its parent. I understand that’s not possible on many clients but it’s soooo useful in that way.
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“Before the dark times… before the Empire…”
They released Plex Classic, which was just the old app as an appeasement while they worked hard in the background on Uno… It was really the version they should have rolled to begin with. Far superior. Fingers crossed history repeats itself.
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I still don’t understand why they’re so adamant about pushing the top menu. They could certainly promote their streaming content, make it “prettier”, etc. but still use the existing navigation. It just makes zero sense to me and Plex has never said why. The only thing I have heard is others says - “well, that’s what everyone else is doing” (still doesn’t make it any better!)
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I dont think Kilgry is defending the devs, they are making valid points, and I dont think they are even disagreeing with my original post. My purpose is to continue to make my voice heard. As plex does not have a direct contact or suggestion box, this is where they have suggested we continue to speak. I love plex. As I said up top. I dont want to use anything else, and so until I feel like the UI on my Roku’s are at a minimum as functional and frictionless as it was four months ago, I will continue to speak about it. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, as is often stated, and so as they continue to “update”, I will continue to say my piece. Not to debate, because Kilgry is right, they shouldnt sit still, I wouldnt want that. Sitting still becomes abandonware and nobody wants that. What I would like is to feel like our voices are being heard. I would like libraries going back to directly on a bar, instead of a sub menu. I’d prefer that to be the side bar, but even a bar across the middle of the screen would be better than these submenus. I’d prefer to be able to mark shows as watched or unwatched without needing to wait five seconds for it to respond. Those are not luxuries I have today, so I will continue to let them know how I feel, every few weeks, for years if I must.
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It makes a lot more sense when you sign out and try to use the app. Looks like every other free streamer that way. Only oddity is a Library button that doesn’t do anything, that I’m not sure would be there if I’d never signed in to begin with.
Even signed in… their stuff is closer to center if enabled than it may have been before.
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In Japan the similar phrase is “the nail that sticks up gets hammered down”. 
I just like that contrast in expectations. 
I definitely agree the watch\unwatched lag on episodes is annoying and worse than it was in v7 of Roku app so pointing out those specific issues are good to bring up and try to get attention. I dunno if I’ve seen a specific topic on that particular bug so might be worth putting one out there.
One thing to keep an eye on is when New Experience comes to AndroidTV and AppleTV as the public release as that will be a new host of folks that will jump on some of these same topics and can help with some of that “squeakiness”. If a specific issue didn’t get notice during Roku release, the new attention from that can sometimes help. I’ve mostly given up on that show\season card but will watch to see what happens at the AppleTV\AndroidTV release (particularly if it doesn’t have that card).
They definitely are focusing on their new business model more - that’s been clear for quite some time and I think your observation fits that as well. There’s a reason local media server has been mentioned last on their marketing materials (home page) for years now. I would not be surprised if that’s a better consistent revenue stream than PlexPass. I mean, I paid for my lifetime years and years ago so they aren’t getting any more money from me as a local admin unless I use those new services and “local media” is even more niche now than it used to be. So I kinda get it from a business perspective but I’m not happy about it from a company history and consumer “equitable trade” perspective.
There’s a few UI\UX aspects that indicate “top” items are priority items and human nature is such that it works better having top level selections at the top. It’s more of an app\web thing - I mean most apps and websites have their menus and navigation at the top rather than the side. I don’t remember the exact aspect of it anymore (I worked in design areas but didn’t do a lot of design myself so best I can do is play one on TV) but it is a “thing” that top navigation can feel very natural when what happens at the top impacts how everything below is displayed and it can feel more natural - particularly for international considerations where not everyone has learned visual “Left” side prominence - that side navigation. People are used to looking at the top to start.
There’s also an aspect of jumping to a navigation feels more natural if it “jump to the top” rather than “jumps to the side” when thinking about returning to the start. In a way.
Personally I think that doesn’t always work because TV screens (and monitors) are wide but most sites\apps don’t actually display wide really - they still hold to a center column (look at these forums for example).
Anyways… dunno if they’ve actually dug into all that but the Top or Side navigation stuff is a common design conversation and Top usually wins for the last several years. Largely because everyone is used to it now because “that’s what everyone does”.
Windows and MacOS have been using top menus for the window controls forever, or the horizontal menus (taskbar). Even though in Windows you can make the taskbar a vertical menu, I think I’ve only seen one person ever use it.
Yes, but these are interfaces you navigate with a keyboard and mouse, and sometimes touch. Day and night difference from using a d-pad remote on a tv.
In addition those menus do expands to vertical lists when clicked. You get your information much more accessible and readable that way. You don’t click Start/Windows then click Apps and get a horizontal listing to side scroll through. People would riot 
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So, the same as what Plex on Roku does now.
I haven’t seen it in a while. Are the Libraries still being presented horizontally or are they vertical again like the Uno interface? Because on iOS they’re still horizontal and I want to pull my fingernails off every time I have to swipe left/right through them 
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I think Vista biggest issues was not really the wonky UI like this new version of Plex or Windows 8 had, really what hurt it the most was way too low minimum spec’s and bad driver support, I see this as more a compare to MS and Windows 8 we have this fresh modern interface and you’re going to like it even if you don’t, 8-8.1 and then finally 10 came and they gave a bit back till 11’s new menu came out, (MS hmm how can we cram more ad’s into the start menu) I see it a companies just being a bit stubborn on a bad idea (an in the recent updates Win 11 giving a choice for the 10ish menu back again *MS really having to give a lot back that took, right click task bar and a few others options ) maybe the current plex menu is not bad if you have one or two lib’s but I have several and it just seems like a major chore to do anything in it now, just seems like the UI was made for a very narrow audience.
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Oh that is a significant improvement. Still not the uniform layout it once was but that looks much less rage inducing
It gives us back the Left-menu and combines it with the top-submenu from the Old UI. No more going through the posters to get between the menus or having to even fully select a library (view library page) to see the submenu.
I think it is the best of both worlds.
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I really thought that flyout menu would help a lot. The more I used it, the more I got tired of having to use the Konami Code while I was trying to move around. Add significant amounts of Stag Beer to the equation and you’ve entered remote throwing territory. It also feels like a half admission that vertical menus are better.
There was an older version of Uno that simplified the biggest two things you could do with a library. You could highlight a library. If you wanted Recommended, you simply click to the right. If you wanted to browse, you clicked the library name itself. This feature was only baked into some of the apps, wasn’t widely used, and they wanted parity… so they elected to remove it.
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This screenshot is from Cascading menus on Roku!
This is exactly what I’ve always imagined - and feared - Hell would look like.
Cascading menus work fine when you’re using a mouse. You can do some cool tricks with hover effects, and moving the mouse is much easier. You have more control, and you can navigate the screen without actually touching it. This is much more convenient than using your fingers on a mobile device, tablet, or a remote control on a TV.
I definitely wouldn’t recommend this layout for people who suffer from epilepsy.
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