Feel free to move on.
I am moving on, and moving forward with enjoying what Plex is doing with this new UI. Appears Plex has left you, so feel free to jump on Jellyfin or Emby.
Looks like you already are moving on.
Appreciate the comments from the peanut gallery.
SameâŠ
Itâs also not âlessâ intuitive either. Itâs just a different UI and different way to navigate. Itâs about the same amount of clicks as the old interface to do the same exact functions.
I also like it and a lot other users are now very happy with it after the navigation changes instead of the phone notch dropdown. They are going in the right direction IMO.
All of the frustrations are valid tho so not dismissing what youâre saying or the OP, just offering my perspective on it. MacOS, Windows, most software in general constantly change the UI around to stay modern. And Plex on devices like Apple TV needed this new experience very badly because the old app stuttered and overheated Apple TV boxes. So the UI is not the only thing that this new experience fixes for some users. The old app was way too bloated and buggy for some devices.
Ahh. This I can respect. We may not agree with some of the changes or direction Plex is heading. But the disagreement can be done with a measure of civility.
Now to the point of being more or less intuitive. You are correct in the amount of clicks. That was never my issue. Many, like myself, find the vertical home and library bar far more intuitive as a good part of your home screen navigation is left and right. Up and down to change media selection type. Moves to TV shows, etc.
Having the vertical navigation to the far left keeps that flow intact with the rest of the home screen. Having the home & library buttons at the top breaks that paradigm.
You did mention the phone top notch approach. I do not think or like that approach. I donât think they are going in the right direction there. Itâs like the TV UI was made for a mobile device. Heck, i even hate the mobile device UI as well. I rather the main menu be to the left like it used to be. Maintaining the same paradigm.
Glad you understand where I and others are coming from. Not at all opposed to refreshing software and modernizing them to be less full of bloat or more efficient. I can definitely agree you there. But UIs either are going to combine vertical and horizontal elements in the end. Regardless of how modern they are. The issue is the workflow of that UI.
Again, thanks for sharing your perspective. It is appreciated.
The current way of access libraries and home creates extra steps to access libraries and collections that most of us rather do without.
Again, Iâm confused by your posts. You say too many âsteps" and then you say âclicks" donât matter:
You are correct in the amount of clicks. That was never my issue.
Can you clarify the difference between steps and clicks?
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I have to agree with your post and will add why does Plex have different navigational methods for web browsers, phone and Roku apps. Obviously, the platform formats are different, but having similar navigational methods makes code more portable and modifications simpler.
Thatâs one of the major points of this whole new experience endeavor; to create a consistent user interface across all (or most) platforms. Itâs still in its earlyâish stages at this point. The new interface will eventually come to more platforms.
But that ignores that these devices are fundamentally different and how we interact with them is not the same. Trying to unify the interface of a desktop PC app and a touch-first mobile interface is literally the same thing Microsoft tried with Windows 8.
Thereâs no reason for Plex to continue down this road thinking âit will all work outâ. Someone with a lot more money (and developers) has already done this research for them and shown it doesnât work
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I wasnât suggesting that it was good or bad, or even successful to this point (or that it will ultimately prove successful). Merely pointing out that a primary goal was more uniformity of the interfaces across platforms.
Keep in mind that the user to whom I was replying was lamenting the fact that the interfaces are currently so dissimilar across the different platforms which Plex supports. It was in that context that my message was intended. Nothing more.
If the interfaces are different now itâs because some are in a different interface design than others. The New Experience isnât a case of âwe need to unify these interfaceâ, because thatâs what the last interface was for. Thatâs why it was called Uno.
The thing standing in the way of consistency at Plex is themselves. The Uno design was rolled out on some platforms quickly while others lagged behind for years before changing over. Feature Parity just didnât happen in many cases. Why this is is kinda a mystery given Plex is commercial software. Weâre talking about an interface that came out long before the FAST service thing, so prioritizing that isnât a scapegoat here.
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Yeah, Plex has brought on a lot of their issues themselves. I think trying to grow so quickly and then creating apps for a million different devices didnât necessarily do them any favors. Yeah, it got them wider adoption, but now theyâve got ancient apps out there that all need to brought to parity with the âNew Experienceâ. I donât see that happening for at least a few years (if it happens at all).
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It would be better to finish the original âgreat convergenceâ (Uno) before they think of starting a new one. I wonder why they couldnât have just remade Uno in the new app platform so they get their unified development environment and users can keep the interface they know while Plex works out the (many) functionality bugs of the new apps. Then once things are working under the hood on-par with the old app they can explore possible changes to the UI. Right now they have UI tweaking and basic playback both on their plates at the same time.
One annoying aspect of trying to make the interface uniform across devices is the new interface doesnât play to any strengths of the individual platforms (which in some cases is why people pick one device over another). At this point we have a small vocal group of Apple TV users upset Plex is not using the native Apple TV player UI. They appreciated that the player interface is consistent across their different streaming apps. As a Fire Stick/Android TV owner I remember that I used to be able to skip forward/backward by chapter markings with buttons on my remote. This feature was removed by Plex because some other platform didnât have as many buttons on their remote, so they needed to take the buttons on the Fire Stick remote and reassign them to match the ones the other device used so they were the same action on both. (note to anyone with an Android TV/FireOS device, the PM4K add-on for Kodi allows you to have this function back)
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All the common interface points made here are valid claims, which is why the leads at Plex should bring back the older app as Plex Classic.
Let the user base know that the Classic interface is deprecated, meaning it will be phased out in N months and there will be no support for issues with it while they work on the latest UI design.
The Plex leadership team should accept that they handled this rollout poorly and make changes to their processes so that it doesnât make the same decisions again in the future. It was poor planning and leadership that failed the company. .
If youâre a frequent follower of these forums, you knew this was coming several months in advance. If youâre vocal, you would have provided tons of feedback and it would have happened anyway.
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Donât blame the user base when surprise, Plex leadership rolled out and forced the change onto their user base with an update.
Itâs not the fault of their user base, itâs the fault of the Plex leadership team not clearly communicating the forthcoming change and in turn not understanding that their user base wasnât properly informed. Plex leadership should hold themselves accountable for their misstep.
I donât have time to follow every product line I consume.. That is the responsibility of the manufacturer to see that their user base is properly aware of up-coming changes that impact the consumers.
Take the latest change for example, the vertical selection box for TV shows appearing in the middle of the screen with selection options for Recommended, Library, Playlists, Category that appeared over the last few days. When did we receive notification that change was coming. It was forced on us without notifying the user base, because they control the app updates. Perhaps, we could have turned off the auto-update option but then we would have missed some other maintenance updates.
Feature updates require better notifications and realization that your user base may not know itâs coming.
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Iâm sure itâs one of those âlawsâ. There is always someone who insists they can fit the square peg in the round holeâŠâŠ
