I saw where Plex has announced a new, updated Plex Roku Preview featuring new and improved navigation. It is dated November 5.
I tried it and can say it is NOT an improvement.
Hey! I saw that you had also posted something similar in another thread before making this one, so I wanted to try and help understand your comments. You say that the updates made to the nav experience is not an improvement, is there any context you can add to that statement or specifics on why this isn’t an improvement in your opinion?
There’s not too much to understand. Plex has totally ruined the Roku application with their new user interface. It is harder to use, takes more clicks to navigate and is just plain awful! That’s why I have migrated my media server to Emby.
Bye Felisha!
You could change to anything and people will â– â– â– â– â– .
I wish people would actually explain why “it sucks” and isn’t an improvement. It would be nice to see screenshots, since the only Roku device I have is 200 miles away.
I mean, you actually have a Plex employee engaging you, which is rare enough. Why not at least attempt at providing feedback beyond “New bad! Me not happy! Me go home!”
I can say it’s left navigation or I’m leaving the platform. I don’t know why Plex is being so resistant here.
I agree. It’s not an improvement or what we’re asking for.
Why don’t you give an example of what requires more clicks by actually counting the clicks in old and new UIs.
It could be said that you are being equally resistant.
I’m looking forward to trying the preview. The new menus look helpful.
What I am finding annoying is how it is possible to dig many layers down into actor → movie → actor → movie → etc. etc. Then to get back out can require several Back button clicks because there is no “Home” option. I just ran into this problem again this evening. I must have been 5 or 6 levels deep and it took about 10+ Back button clicks to get out of the hole and back Home. Almost easier to click the Roku Home button and reenter Plex again.
I was so happy to see the left navigation go bye bye. What other current streaming ui uses this. Do you want the same look for years and years and never evolve. Why should Plex ever want to implement feature requests when all people will do is complain, complain, complain.
The difference is, I’m the customer, and they’ve tried this before to mass protest.
Ah - trying to help others navigate around when you don’t have one yourself can be super annoying for sure. Here’s an example of the new navigation (was working on a different topic about it and had it handy):
It allows having more than 3 libraries listed now (I just don’t have more than 3 favorited in this screenshot) and direct access to library sub-pages; both were a common complaint with the v8 top horizontal menu and then left side sub-page navigation. On the Roku client settings you still set your default library landing page (Browse or Recommend) so clicking OK on the library name will automatically dump you to your default without having to use the submenu. Clicking OK on the main Libraries UI element will take you to the first listed Library directly.
Edit: No judging my watch list! 
Edit2:
Yeah it’d be nice to have a “return” option in some of these cases where you can breadcrumb way down and just wanna jump back to Home or where you started from. Not sure how to get that … maybe the “jump back” button on the remote (the little rounded arrow back)? They don’t use the * button much either. Actually I dunno if I’ve ever just tried the jump back button in the GUI… maybe it does that! Will have to check. 
Thank you for this and others who also chimed in about getting into a rabbit hole and not able to get Home easily! I’m flagging it for the right people to take a look at. While I can’t guarantee what the outcome will be, it’s going into investigation.
Looks like to me that Plex has given you a left menu but it is located now in the preview app right along with the top menu as pulldowns. I haven’t yet tried it but believe this is actually a better solution than the old left main menu and top sub menus; your “cursor" is right there now. You don’t have to move the cursor through your posters to get to the sub menu any longer (old UI).
Awesome! Excited by that prospect.
Another small peeve I currently have is how dark the background image becomes on the Details screen. I believe they darken it for readability however it really takes away from the “splash" I think Plex is trying to go for with the larger background images.
Hopefully I can get the preview run today and perhaps provide more feedback back.
Exactly the advantage this change brings. I think it can be refined (I’ll maybe post something another day after playing more) but it is easier to get to those screens, particularly if you like to have more than 3 favorited libraries.
Hope you have fun and something good queued up to enjoy. 
Regarding the dark background, there’s been some chatter about this, so stay tuned on that front.
Music to my ears!
Okay, so I have the preview version running now and gave it a quick run through.
I LOVE the new menus!! They make so much more sense than any prior Plex UI (though I’m sure others will find fault and perhaps even ways to improve them too). No more jumping back and forth between left-menu and top-menu! Bye bye that painful navigation!
My hopefully constructive feedback:
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I miss the “Spring Loading.” I get how it might not feel/work right with the new menus, but it made the UI feel more lively/responsive to my actions. Plus, it reduced clicking. However, I can see how the new drop down menus would make it difficult to “drop out” of them and down to the posters without clicking.
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Not sure how to suggest a change to help this, but it isn’t clear that if you click on a library from the first drop down, it takes you to your default view (Recommend or Browse). Not a big deal because of how the second drop down appears automatically (this is going to help my elderly parents tons!) It’s probably just something to get used to.
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Settings Icon - Not sure how I feel about the change in placement of the Settings (gear) to be under the User icon. It does makes sense in its new location, but feels off, perhaps because I’m so used to it being on the main main in the old and new UIs. Otherwise, I like the new pulldown menu for the User icon.
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Something to consider: When on a Movies’ Details screen, use the rewind and fast forward buttons to scroll to the next Movie Details screen based on the view or hub/row you selected the initial Movie Details from. However, I think that might screwup TV Shows, which uses those buttons to quick scroll through the episodes.
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On the TV Details, in a Season screen, it still isn’t intuitive what the first poster is for. It is labelled with the Season XX but I honestly didn’t realize it was a “Continue Watching” sort of thing for that season; or, at least I think that is what it is. Is it??? It’s really confusing. I am glad it is no longer labelled “Show” and that a “Show” menu option is now up with the Season Menu.
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I feel like the “Home” menu needs a pulldown menu. Something like user’s three favorite screens (i.e.: Movie Collections, TV Shows Recommended, a specific Music Playlist; or Walt Disney Collection, Anime, TV Mysteries). Yes, I know, a bit difficult to do at the moment without some serious changes, but something to consider for the future?
All-in-all I’m warming up quickly to the new UI and am very happy to see the Plex Team is listening and making changes.
