I am 58, so, older than that of course. 
Old enough to remember Block Buster as an adult.
Hey, we had Blockbuster here in Australia when I was an adult too! 
Though the one that was our local is now a gym 
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I just dont understand who these users are that you guys are imagining, at the end of the day the average plex leecher is not going to go through all the trouble of setting up a server instance and managing it to only populate it with the content you want to provide for them.
Your traditional users are server owners who manage their own libraries, and judging by the replies youre getting here plenty are not not happy with this change, are you able to verbalize how this is supposed to help anyone? Im completely fine with progress, but to have progress at the expense of those who have supported you for 5-10 or more years it just doesnt make sense to me, especially when youre completely revamping navigation features like this.
If the system was designed with this implementation already and people arenāt complaining about it why completely remove the organizational system that works. As a long time user who recently made the plunge of buying a lifetime VIP, im honestly starting to feel like ive wasted my money since apparently im not the customer you want in the future despite me having spoken with my money for over 6 years supporting you guys.
I really dont understand why you care to dictate how people organize their libraries to this degree, top level changes i get, but continuing to say you want to āfixā the reason people have multiple libraries is ridiculous since thats not your place. If we as end users have found a system that works for us why mess it up? I have given you a very normal reason why someone would want multiple libraries of the same type, it has sound logic behind it, and nothing you do with collections would come close to the convenience of how it already works for me, though this is not a point you choose to address. If youre really ākeen to understand why people do thisā please reread my initial post it makes perfect sense and thats without getting into 4k vs 1080p libraries which also make sense when you dont want to keep two versions of everything.
These are the types of decisions that will push users to other platforms as small as it may seem to you, Plex has completely messed up all of my navigation, the constant repinning is getting old and the simplicity that made plex great is really starting to go away. Ive had users who thought my server was down for a week because of how pinned libraries are handled. But i guess none of it matters since you already have my money. At this point im starting to worry our managed libraries might just go the way of plugins one day for no good reason.
Im not even asking for you to not change just to have the option for this small navigational thing to be kept as it always was.
Just to reiterate some of my libraries for TV are regular shows, and then animations, and a third library for tv that isnt drama based that i call documentary tv. Those are 3 pretty normal categories to want to browse. Same for Movies, with the addition of a stand up comedy section and a concert section which i would hate to have taking up space with normal movies, but are also something i want to find easily when im in the mood for it.
Your recent āTis the seasonā category is actually a perfect example of why someone would want categories, i actually already had my own Christmas movie category. I dont want them taking up space with normal movies, but when im in the mood theyre extremely easy to browse as a single category, without other media cluttering it up, and i didnt have to waste a bunch of time making tag changes within plex that could be gone in the event of a server failure, or if you one day choose to change how tags work.
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The annoying part of this is that both Emby and Jellyfin already have a pretty good solution to this (I only have them set up as just in cases but Plex is my main use) that really shouldnāt be hard for Plex to implement. Also, the fact that the feature request for this, Multiple Cuts Of Movie, is 8 years old at this point.
Honestly, from some of the replies here, it does seem like Plex has this thought process of it has to be done this way and we canāt give any other options. Yes, it might be slightly more work on Plexās part to get it set up, but this is where granular customization becomes huge. Set it up so that there is the default that should please the majority of the users but give the power users the ability to customize the hell out if it to their liking. Obviously there is always the possibility of making something to complex, but finding a good balance for customizations would alleviate a lot of these complaint threads and help with the people that complain about Plex not listening to us. Especially when you have feature requests that are older than 8 years as mentioned earlier and your competition has that feature implemented (and probably for a while now).
Thatās just my $0.02, so take it as you will.
-Shark2k
PS: Case in point, the post above mine.
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This is a great and concise way to put it, i think my point comes off as frustrated mainly because of some of the points you bring up, they clearly are looking for a new customer, which i truly dont have an issue with but as you said, what they choose to ignore, and wanting to dictate how we run things just opens up the door for competitors. I havent taken the plunge of trying any but have been hearing enough about jellyfin at this point that if plex keeps making these types of changes it wont be long until im exploring those options. And overall its for such small things that they choose to want to control.
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So do I. I didnāt include that in my list above.
I also have a Star Wars / Star Trek movie library and a Documentaries movie library. Also a TV library just for AMA Racing.
I donāt know why this method seems odd to some. Even back in the days of having 100ās of albums and CDās I didnāt keep all genres of music in alphabetical order on one shelf.
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What I donāt quite understand is the reason for changing Recently Added, On Deck and Continue Watching functionality in the first place?
Itās been in itās current guise for quite sometime, with no regular user complaints about how it functions.
With RA, OD and CW being such key components of the Plex user experience, why change it if thereās no obvious reason to do so?
And if thereās some secret reason for the change - why not provide users with the option to toggle between old/new functionality? I understand providing options for every feature is a big development no-no - but RA/OD/CW is arguably how most users interact with the software - and Plex risks alienating a large percentage of their user base with a change as substantial as this.
These questions are already answered in my original post.
No mention of why Recently Added has been split - which seems to be the issue for most users in this thread.
In an effort to tidy up home screens, youāve merged libraries into a single OD and CW but have done the opposite with RA. A bit mind boggling to be honest.
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Seems to me that it should be a user setting. Put something as default, then let the user decide whether it should be merged or separated. That should solve it for most people, Iād think.
A bit off topic, but as the Multiple cuts of movies has been mentioned Iāll add that I also think Plex should put some effort into adding long requested features going forwards. Feels like the request forum is sort of a joke when popular requests are ignored anyway. I get that some requests are harder to fix than others, but the current status quo is not giving a good impression of Plex as a company. I still stick around with Plex because I think itās the overall best product for my needs, but the competition is closing in fastā¦ And I feel like Plex often has weird priorities, and the complete lack of transparency regarding development with the users is not helping.
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This was covered in the last paragraph of my original post
Without going into too much detail since it is in early development, we are also working on some cool features to give server owners more control of the home and recommended library content they see and their shared users see. Some of the small updates we are making, including the split of Recently Added by library (only for pinned sources on home) are to be able to support that type of future functionality. We are working hard to implement some creative solutions to empower server owners to truly curate for both themselves and the users they share with and we feel like this is something we have heard from the community for a long time. We will share more early in 2021 so please stay tuned. As always, thanks everyone for the feedback and we are sorry this slipped through in such an early experimental phase.
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Thanks - Iām excited to see what the additional server owner controls are. This can only be a good thing.
Apologies to nitpick, but why not implement the change to Recently Added when the additional controls for server owners are also made available? Might have avoided some of the drama in this thread.
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I think this explains it.
Iām looking forward to the completed product. I thinkā¦ 
Iām not much older than @DaveBinM & I have my stuff separated, though not as much as you. I have Toon TV & Toon Movies as well as Anime TV & Anime Movies & also TV Shows & Movies. I then have a Holiday library which has collections with everything hidden so I have the Holidays with the month for sort order so they display calendar-wise. I then also have a hidden Christmas Episodes Halloween Episodes 4th of July Episodes Valentine's Day Episodes Thanksgiving Episodes etc, etcā¦ With a single collection for the holiday in each so theyāll be included in the respective Holidayās collection in the Holiday library. Because I want my holiday special episodes in the collection but Plex only allows a whole season to be put in a collection. I then just use Hardlinks of each file so theyāll be in both libraries & play positions will carry over between the twoā¦ So I guess maybe not less complicated than yours at allā¦
Personally the reason is more because it makes sense. If I want to watch a movie or show I generally want to watch something Anime OR something Live Action so why browse through a bunch of stuff I have to just skip past either way? If I know what I want then I know which library itās going to be in. But the biggest thing is that the libraries look nicer that way. I mean I take the time to find or make holiday themed covers for the holiday episodes if I can since they have to sit in a sad folder with 1 or 2 episodes anyway, so the browsing experience never feels like a chore.
Talk about a 180
Personally I havenāt even seen this issue, maybe in part because I have often manually adjusted my Home Screen, but I can definitely see some benefits to having different Recent, On Deck, & Continue Watching. But only if I have the option of combining them or not. But I usually keep my library tabs set to Library, but have had occasions to switch to Recommended to get to those menus.
I think thereās more to it than just that. I know me personally Iād rather wait on a feature that Iām already waiting on than have a bad one implemented. Right now I donāt think the Multiple Cuts discussions has had any good suggestions on how itād be implemented until recently when weāve been brainstorming new suggestions. Because you could have a 12 year old suggestion to have Plex automatically bring you popcorn when your movie starts but if there isnāt a good way to make that happen why is that suggestion even there? I feel if a request has been around for a long time, especially with lots of votes, the reason it isnāt implemented has more to do with the how than the what.
I think part of that is because you need it to make the other work, so you have to test the pieces before they are put together. Itās like that dad who skips over steps when building something then gets mad when it doesnāt work. Some steps may seem silly, but they are there for a reason
For sure! But how many developers have responded in the thread saying something like āthis is a feature that we should focus on solving, since many users want itā? To what extent has Plex participated in the thread to solve it during those 8 years?
Im looking to see if Kodi capable of a continue watching/ on deck feature similar to what you see on Netflix. To be more clear, I would like to be able to open Kodi, go to TV Shows and immediately see my next unwatched episode from my most recently watched series. i want to be able to click on it directly and not have to go through the seasons page and then to the episode. mybkexperience mcdvoice
I havenāt used Pex for Kofi for a long time but On Deck / Continue Watching does what you want in any Plex client I use.
Also, depending on your remote, if you just go to the show and press the > Play button it will start the next episode. Play not Ok / Enter.
Itās not about them participating in the tread, if there is a suggestion they see as a good solution thatāll help, but them saying āwe canāt do it that wayā or āweāre trying to find a good solution not crap like thatā wouldnāt help the discussion, itāll only cause people to start focusing on telling the Plex person theyāre wrong, digging their feet in, or them seeing a Plex Employee & just screaming āwe want it, gimmie gimmeā
I have split libraries for the following reasons:
- DVR - I keep this library separate because the Plex DVRād Comskip files arenāt quite the end quality I want to keep in my long term library. There are things I simply donāt want to keep long term at all. I am also afraid to admit to my friends that I watch Judge Judy.
- 4k - I keep these in a separate library because I donāt want to be streaming out 4k risking transcodes that will bring my system to its knees. Also, when I want to watch 4k, I want to browse 4k only, and not have to remember which movies I have different versions for, nor do I want to go through the hassle of setting that version to play.
So, not nearly as expansive a list as othersā¦ but mostly I can see a use case when you only want to share certain things with others.
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Really it should not matter why or how many libraries a person has, plex has supported and even recommended multiple libraries (separate dvr library) for years.
I have 3 movie libraries (main, 4K, 3D), 2 tv libraries (main,dvr), and an other videos library, which I donāt want separate recently added for.
I will also always keep my Home Screen on manually managed, because I want it the way I want it, not the way plex wants it.
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