Let me go out on a limb, but if you want a SDK at the same time as the release of 0.9.0 I think the release would have to be postponed a couple of weeks/months more. However at the time of release the discussions will be more open and the devs can help you guys get started in the developer forum.
I’m switching to Boxee!!!
You guys just can’t keep your promises. First it was stated that it wouldn’t take months to complete the alpha and now 2-3 months later you guys don’t even have the courtesy to release some general information about Plex. I’m almost lead to believe that you don’t care about your big Plex fan base. It is just an Alpha that you have to release. How hard can it be to release a buggy version of Plex 0.9. (read Alpha version) just to shut everybody up (myself included).
You just can’t say that the next release of Plex is going to be great and release a minimal amount of information to your fan base. The excuses of coding for Plex as a part time job is in the current timeframe just very lame. Even the big blogs are ignoring you guys. Engadget and Gizmodo now only talk about Boxee and XBMC and don’t even recommend installing Plex.
Thanks for the great Plex 0.8.5 release but it is getting very dated. So bye bye…!!
You will be missed. Bye bye.
For the people staying, look forward to some really nice enhancements to Plex.
He’ll be back folks… he’ll be back.
I’d imagine Engadget and/or Gizmodo will leap to cover Plex 9 when it’s released.
Keep the faith dude. I get the feeling it’s really close now. Those guys are working flat out.
M.
Have fun with a media player that can't even scrape local content correctly.
Now that's just not civilised....
Uncivilsed, maybe. Understandable, certainly.
This much talked about (by the community anyway) release has been close to a beta release for months if not a year almost.
All we get is a small video showing the media manager, as good as that looks hopefully there is more.
Surely a good move (for the your loyal users anyway) would be to issue a release date for the beta software, we are not expecting a solid release.
Thanks in advance.
Dont get me wrong, I understand that people are impatient. But flat out rude and “threatening” to download another media center which is worse than the stable 0.8.5 we have today… well that doesn’t really bite.
Mwillis: It has been debated for months, and there are several threads which contain the reason why no date is given. You have been here for quite awhile, you must have read the reasons. Why in gods name should the developers commit to a date which they know they cant keep? Why? There is no reason. Plex/Nine is very close in the amount of hours left to develop. But the fact is that the developers don’t know from day to day how many hours per day they can develop because this is a hobby. Compare that to developers working 8 hours per day, not even them can be done in time in many projects. Surely you guys must have some understanding for that. But still I see the same bickering and bitc**ng even though they know that this is the case. That, for me, is completely amazing.
Sure, they can make a guess on how many hours there are left to develop, but what good would that make you guys? If its 40 hours left to develop, but they cant do it for another 3 weeks, those 40 hours wouldn’t say anything.
So please, lets keep the chin up and await the goodies.
I think I’m probably the only person that thinks this way but I’m kind of glad Plex 9 is taking a while to deliver. I spend way too much of my time using Plex as it is and I imagine that’s only going to get worse when the new version is released. Guys, it’s summer time and the sun is out. Get outside and make the most of it. What good is waiting for something when you don’t even know when it’ll arrive? I really don’t understand the attitude of some of the people here.
Will the “remaining dev time” include a few extra man-days to cover the time to respond to “when is it out?” questions? 
Also:
- they can’t release an Alpha, because people will complain it does not work and/or crashes all the time. You know it to be true. I’m even sure that the first alpha will generate 100+ threads “it does not work after all this time?! Boooo”.
- they can’t give a date (or even dev hours) because they must 1) find the time to do those hours 2) last-minute bugs can delay them even more. Quantifying dev time is the hardest of the job.
Don’t worry, after 6+ months of “I’M FED UP WITH THIS WAIT”, I’m pretty sure every developer on this project knows that the release should have been a while back, but they want to give something that will not crash at start-up.
PS: “threatening” to leave (or withholding donations) because the FREE software developed on spare time is not on time? That’s low.
In fact, I think that’s the main reason behind so many open-source projects’ stop: why should someone care and develop thing if the people using it are just gonna complain?
Previously, we have reached the agreement (in this thread) that most users would be OK with not knowing when to expect .9, if (and almost ONLY if) communicative efforts were prioritizedhigher . We have not seen increased communication - in fact new information about Plex 9 has been very sparse (where is the 2nd part of "The Road to Alexandria for example). And I have to agree with the previous poster: the screen cast is nice and fine but not that informative and detailed.
And why do we have to read in the chat that only 5 major bugs remain - why is that (and other) info not released in a blog or forum post?
Also, the first .9 release is characterized as an alpha - it is therefore supposed to contain bugs, even serious ones...
Atrus, please link to a post that states the reason why no date can be given (other than "we can't because that is the reality of software development").
While I agree that we cannot "expect" anything from a hobby development project in terms of release dates (or anything else for that matter) you seem to forget (or deliberately ignore) that a date (or in fact more dates) have been mentioned during the past several months. So people's expectations have been that a release has been imminent for months now. Thats why some posters are complaining (it is not fair to use the b-words, IMO). If you want to maintain a civilized community (I understand that is a sacred and much advertized advantage of Plex), please take preemptive measures to counter these complaints...
BTW, I really don’t understand why many members use the voting (+/-) buttons without elaborating. If you don’t agree with a post, please have enough style and class to post WHY you don’t agree.
Just being negative towards others well-meant comments (also those comments that don’t follow the common servile trend) without making any arguments is IMO very uncivlized…
I can’t beleive people have the gumption to complain about software that is free. It’s a sign of the times I guess.
I would like to take a moment to thank the devs for everything thing they are doing. You guys have enriched my theater experience and never once asked for anything in return. They should be the one complaining about the lack of respect some members in this community have shown them.
Sorry for the rant but I was getting fed up with all the complaining, it’s unbelievable.
I give a negative to anyone who keeps complaining about the release date of Plex .9. It’s getting old, and we all know that it’s going to be out sooner than later. Go dl some other piece of software to take up your time and come back in a bit. It’ll be done soon.
i can understand people’s frustration with the wait for /9, but I can’t understand taking that and publicizing it. Plex is a fantastic app with clearly commercial features and build quality…but free. Props to this great group of devs for chipping in on this for so long, giving their spare time to provide a useful and enriching piece of software for the rest of us without the wherewithal (at least in my case) to code it themselves. As a tech-interested (read: n00b) poli sci/history student scrounging for cash/jobs I really appreciate Plex being free and yet functional in the way it is. With that said, once I get paid, I will be happy to offer a donation to these guys. Plex /9 or no.
Now back on topic, if the new db supports folders/grouping organization (ie War Series --> The Pacific --> Individual Episodes), i’d be that much happier.
So, there were some guys that decided to be ok with it (no date I mean) as long as better communication was published? So these guys, are they the ones that codes, tests or in any way are part of the team that tries to get this out the door, or are these guys that decided that they have the rights to make these demands because.... what?
Dont get me wrong, many things could be improved with better communication. But at the same time these guys want certain things to be unexpected. They love their surprise moments, not all that unlike mr Jobs :)
I knew I should have kept my mouth shut in that chat. I thought people where gonna be happy about the fact that the serious bugs are not in their hundreds. They are way less. Instead of writing 'way less' I used hands as likeness (the number 5 is in no way an official number of how many serious bugs there are left to fix). I will in the future keep my mouth shut as information apparently should be all or nothing.
Fair enough. And what would you do with an alpha which doesn't start? Or doesnt play your movies? Or your subtitles (if you dont speak english)? What kind of pleasure would you have out of that?
That is actually it. The reason is "that is the reality of hobby software development". Period.
Which dates are you talking about? Noone has communicated a date, ever. Jam once said that it look very likely to be out before new year. Very likely (I think the word was) is not a promise, and "before new year" is not a date per se. So Jam did a guess based on where they were at, at that moment. So why did he do that? Well most likely because he wanted people like yourself to be happy for awhile (or quite ;) ). The development took a new direction, and now we are in June.
So, the loudest users today are either
1, DEMANDING a release date. Or,
2, Bickering about something that looked like date-ish back in 2009 that didn't hold up.
So do you guys think Jam will make that same mistake again? Trying to guess, and then a while later getting all kind of demanding bull**** from people because he wasn't right on this project that they do on their spare-time?
Fair enough. I like surprises too - the "one more thing" moments are classic :)
None. But elan has stated many times that the stability has been quite good and that he has been running it as his main Plex build watching Lost and what not (and that was several months back)...
OK, that is (or has become) fine by me...
That is simply not true or at least inaccurate. Several time frames (OK, not actual dates but that is semantics) have been put forward. Months ago we heard: "In a matter of weeks, not monts".
I for one have stated several times that all my comments (the negative AND the positive ones) all have to be read in the light that I fully understand that this a spare time, hobby project. But I also maintain that the importance or relevance of Plex is inversely proportional to the number of people indifferent towards it. To me that implies that you have to accept negative critisism, especially when it can be argued that "promises" (in quotation because I realize that these are not promises per se) have been broken and communication lacking...
But hey, I don't really want to argue about the release date. I'll just say that it is the lack of communication that is causing all this "anger" and negativity...
I have decided to leave these boards. Not because I don't like Plex or because I want to switch to Boxee or any other media center software. The main reason is that I don't feel that constructive critisism is welcome (eg. negative ratings of well-meant, elaborate and constructive posts and more). I'll still use Plex and continue to look forward to .9, which I hope and suspect will be great. I would have loved to contribute to the development (eg. scanners/agents for nfo-files and more) but things are way too slow moving. I asked for the admins to delete my profile. Best of luck to you all, take care.
Is it possible this thread can be closed? I honestly mean no disrespect here but it’s no longer serving it’s purpose. I’m sure I’m not alone in that I check the forum at least once every few days without fail, if not more and am genuinely excited when it comes to any news about the new release of Plex. I always check this thread to see if any other information has been released and am always heavily disappointed when it turns out that it’s page after page of complaints due to no release date. It guess it kind of goes against the friendly atmosphere I’ve come to know and respect here on the Plex forums. (something that’s rare in a forum) While I’m totally fine with not knowing when it’ll be released, I do like to read the developers answers to the users questions as they often relate to questions I have myself. It’s quite clear that isn’t happening anymore. I just find it a shame that we’re seeing no more genuinely interesting questions here.
Here’s a real question: Are you aiming for a unified library, or do you want separate sections on the home screen? In the video you demonstrated that you could have “mom’s movies” as a section and “grown up movies” (or something similar). What I’d like more is fpr the library to work more like in Boxee. I want Headweb, Netflix and local movies to show up in the same section so it’s not so fragmented. The same goes for TV Shows and music. Please tell me you’ll make it happen 
