I think if they add the indicator circles\rings to the defaulted menu items while on the Home screen like they do when you are in the menu while in the Library view (and did on v8) - that’d help with this exact situation.
No circles or anything except on your selection (not great example as I wanted to show sub-menu didn’t have circles but take my word for it - there are no highlight circles).
Circles highlighting things. Even if it might feel redundant to highlight defaults I think it’d help. So like in my second screenshot here you see the highlight circle is on Movies, I think it’d be useful if on the Home Screen my TV Shows library would have a similar highlight circle (vs filled selection circle) since it’d be the default.
I had this in my notes to mention at some point if I do a “my thoughts” topic but I’ll just tag in on yours here since you’ve got it started.
Has the back button behaviour been sorted out yet? Still waiting for the update on either of my Rokus. Hitting back to try to jump up a folder when browsing and being taken all the way back to the root menu is so frustrating.
Aside from it still taking longer to navigate to series overview once within a specific season?
I’m going to try to be fair and give it a few days of re‐relarning the UI, but the multiple nested options for libraries are pretty horrible. As i drop down to pick a library, then have to navigate back to the same menu to change view (recommended, browse, etc.) Just feels pretty poorly designed. Especially as we no longer have “remember tab” and now have to have all libraries showing recommended or browse or collections. Somwhow it now takes even longer to do anything.
Why isn’t everything rolled up under a “Home” menu. It is simplicity at the extreme if you take this new tree menu system to its end. Yes, yes, that would NOT be a good design but it does beg the question of how to decide what items should be at the Home menu level (Libraries, Live TV currently are)?
The reason this came up to me is wondering why is there a “Libraries” Menu item? You could just move them under “Home.” “Libraries” seems redundant.
It’s sort of the question about why are “Playlists” now under “Libraries” and “Settings” under “User?”
Sorry, I’m still not following. “Series” in terms of a TV series? Isn’t it just Libraries → TV Shows → Browse?
Personally, I find the new menus so much faster and much more intuitive than the old UI. I can get to Movie Collections (from Plex startup) in no more than 6 clicks (though depends on your Library ordering - my Movie library is first on list). In the non-preview new UI it is 7-8 clicks (depending on your default view setting). In the old UI, I believe, it was 7 clicks. And, both of those had you passing your cursor through your posters, which isn’t intuitive.
When browsing seasons of a TV series, when within a season and viewing the row of episodes, the back button used to take you up one level, back to the list of seasons. Now it drops you back in the TV series library.
So now, if wanting to view a different season, one has to navigate up, past the description, to the top of the screen, and across to the relevant season. It makes navigating seem far less streamlined and intuitive for such a small change.
Also, while it’s been that way for ages, and has been mentioned many times, a horizontal row of episodes is pretty awful. Some shows I have have over 100 episodes. That’s a lot of scrolling and wasted screen real estate that a grid layout, or option of, would fix.
Hopefully that’s somewhat coherent, it’s getting on for 4am here and I only got an hours sleep last night…
Got it, thanks! Hmm, never noticed that before, but yes, it does seem odd when compare to the main menu. However, if the Back goes to the Season menu bar, then you have to hit Back again to get out of the show (additional clicks). I’m not sure where the balance needs to be. I think the UP arrow should take you to the Season Menu directly, but I also get why it doesn’t. Dang, makes you appreciate the design decision Plex, Inc. has to make in all of this.
The line vs grid of episodes…
I see why they went with the line to bring the Cast into play and I really like having the Cast there. Most shows that I have are about 10-30 episodes and use the rewind and fast forward to get through them quickly without much issue, but I could see 100 being a lot.
I honestly don’t have answers for these since I see both sides of the problem.
How is the new pulldown menu different from the left-menu except it is located in a different part of the screen, tucked away and maybe two clicks away instead of one (but your submenu is right there too now)?
The order of the libraries?
Good point. You no longer seem to be able to “reorder” the Libraries. @Chattykinson might be able to chime in on this one.
Good point. You no longer seem to be able to “reorder” the Libraries
I’m not somewhere I can test this right now but in various versions of the Preview the way to control the order of the libraries was controllable by the order in which you favorited them. Is that no longer the case?
Oh this is a buggy mess! Yes, you are correct it appears: the order is based on the order you favorited the libraries. However, as of right now, I cannot for the life of me get my favorites to reset back to what they were initially. Plex unfavorites libraries, and placing them in wrong order. Something is really screwy with how the database records are being handled which tell Plex what is favorited and in what order they are.
Okay, I was able to recover, but that is some serious messed stuff. There is something about making your favorite edits and then exiting and then having to go back in and refavorite items. There also appears to be an issue if you are viewing a library currently while making changes to the favorites too.
I’m sure someone on the Plex staff could easily see this buggy mess by giving it a try.
You can reorder libraries, if that is what you mean. Highlight the library you want to reorder, then press “*” on your Roku remote, then click “reorder”.
We’re planning to improve library reordering, since the current method isn’t very discoverable. Currently, even when you find it, you can only move one library at a time.
When you’re focused on a library, press the * (Options) button. Select Reorder, and you’ll enter a mode that lets you move the selected library up or down. Press OK to confirm its position. Repeat for each library you’d like to reorder.
Some users noticed that if you go to “All Libraries” you can unfavorite and then favorite a library again, which moves it to the end. You can use this to reorder libraries by unfavoriting all of them and re-favoriting in the desired order, but that was not the intended or optimal way to organize them.
BTW, imo, the reordering should be on the “All Libraries” screen.
Also, when navigating (scrolling up or down) the favorites column, the cursor should stay in the right column (hearts) instead of jumping back over to the left column (library names).
Forgive the rude response, but remind me why any of this is considered an enhancement again? Because I’m really not convinced. You’ve (not you personally, of course - I’m referring to Plex as a whole here) taken a clear, concise, predictable, and visually informative direct navigation system and reinvented it into a convoluted mess.
The Android phone app store score has plummeted to 3.9 when it was ~4.6.
My Android tablet with an 8 core processor and 4 GB of RAM (admittedly low end) cannot navigate past the new experience welcome screen which just remains unresponsive.
Several of my users report that they cannot get Google Cast working.
Plex remained silent for 8 months and then followed up with a post that says, “Hey, we hear what you’re asking for and gave you something else entirely instead because **** what you want.”
), and it would be helpful, but it doesn’t fully address making it intuitive.