Awesome work on everything you have been doing. I have been playing with Plexamp since it’s grand re-release a few weeks back and have had a pretty positive experience so far. It’s shaping up to be my player of choice very soon, however there are a few features that I think Plexamp could use that can push me to forgo using the standard Plex app for music and audio needs. There are plenty of “would love to have” features, but in this thread I’d really just like to focus on the fundamental issues that I think Plexamp needs to address as these are, in my opinion, fairly important usability functions that the current version of Plexamp is missing, as of this post at least. These are simply suggestions that I think will greatly improve the experience for all users. Some of them are certainly already on the roadmap or are in progress toward being added, so forgive me if some or all of these are upcoming features, but these are just things I feel should be coming sooner rather than later.
PC Specific Version:
Add volume control - this is critical in my eyes. I’m fully aware that I can control the volume on the app specifically through Windows volume mixer, but if the full Plex app supports volume within the app, surely Plexamp should have one as well
Toolbar Support - The compact and minimalist design is awesome. That being said, it would be nice to at least be able to enable a toolbar so that I can close or minimize the app easier. I know that you can right click up top (after experimentation) but for ease of use this would be a good feature.
Android Specific App:
Casting Ability - Roughly 70% of what I consume through Plex is through casting; be it to Chromcast, Sonos, or even just the Plex app on my PC (this is extremely handy when I am feeding my baby son across the room and want to change the album to something more calming to help him sleep or help me pass the time). I love that I can cast to my PC if the Plex app is open on the desktop and I think Plexamp should be able to do the same.
Android Auto support - I realize this may involve a lot of work to do (I don’t pretend to be an expert in that area) and I know others have requested this plenty. It’s still important though, as I like to use my Plex audio library in the car and as of now, I’m still forced to use the primary Plex app because Android Auto support doesn’t exist and Plexamp doesn’t have to ability to keep my display on, which means that my screen shuts off while I’m driving and…well that’s no fun.
General Plexamp Functionality:
Ability to select multiple sources - It took some time to figure out that I need to specify the source I want to use. Now that’s fine, but I have to admit I was a little dumbfounded to find out that you can only select one source at a time. So if I have Music, Kids Music, Audiobooks, Comedy Albums, etc, it would be nice if I could look through and search multiple sources if I have them checked. It’s nice to have the ability to add and remove sources and all, but why just one? What baffles me a bit is that if I create a radio station based off of an album, not only does the station in Plex curate a playlist from multiple sources on MY server, but it sources from friend’s servers as well. So…Plexamp\Plex already has the ability to pull from multiple sources? So why impose an arbitrary limit to one source at a time then? It seems like Plex is already capable, so I feel you can simply just unlock the ability to use multiple sources and call it a day.
Visual update to “All Music” category - This is the area that I use the most, as I like to browse my library to decide on things very often. Its a minor issue, but the section is so small, unassuming and tucked away up top that its easy to miss it and its dwarfed by the thumbnails under the “Recent” categories which all draw your attention away. Some sort of visual update to make the “All Music” section more visible and obvious would help quite a bit with the overall accessibility.
Hopefully some of these features will start to find their way into the mix soon. I think Plexamp is an awesome new addition to Plex and it has massive potential. Think these additions can push it into being a truly dominant option when it comes to audio based media.
[Mod-Edit: slightly fixed your formatting to make the TL;DR part easier to read]
I would also like to request better smart playlist implementation. I tried to use the today to choose multiple criteria for my playlists and it bombed. I paid for plex pass but for music I use a free app called Rocket Player that can whip up a complex playlist without an effort. Most folks listen to curated playlists and as such, It would be great if you could make this feature more (a)user friendly and (b) flexible. But good first start!
Wait, what… Android Auto support is a “maybe”? Shouldn’t that be one of the primary features you are working on, especially when you already got CarPlay going (and AA in the main app)? I feel that is pretty much the most consistently requested feature right now.
Also, as someone that divides my music up into a few libraries, I agree on the multiple source selection request.
Chiming in a bit here and to keep the new post numbers down, after using the PLEX Amp app, which lets face it, is awesome, my requests are a bit more “to make things a bit easier” in the way of feature requests.
We all listen to music differently, and PLEX Amp has solved a lot of that to give us an awesome experience. That being all said:
1. Ability to add a bunch of albums to the cue, and hit shuffle.
Its an alternative to the add to cue currently available. Im not sure why this isn’t possible, as most of the heavy lifting is done client side, but its a request. When listening to an album, and adding additional music to the cue I don’t always want the new selections to be placed after the current section. I might want it mixed in with what’s currently playing.
2. Build a custom mix based on albums
Similar to number 1, but as the custom list works now, adding an artist brings up related artists. Perhaps building a custom mix based on albums could bring up related albums much like the related artists appear in the current state of custom mix.
3. Ability to cue several created playlists and hit shuffle
Beyond the awesome playlists that PLEX Amp comes up with, we all have those “go to” playlist or smart playlists we make ourselves. I’d like to see the ability to add a already made playlist to cue and hit shuffle. EX; I have a Beatles playlist I made and a Paul McCartney playlist I made. I would like to have the ability to add both of them to the cue and hit shuffle.
Im sure there are more somewhere in my brain, but that’s it for now LOL
Thanks for the reply. My concern about these responses are that, while shortcuts are great and useful, they are neither obvious nor intuitive to the average person. I didn’t know that shortcut existed until you told me (thank you for that, btw). But still its not a replacement overall for a visual volume slider that anyone can pick up on. I’ve also already run into the issue where I was holding my newborn son and wanted to adjust the volume and couldn’t because you for sure need two hands to accomplish that key combination, whereas a slider that I could just click my mouse to use could have solved the issue.
Awesome! I know how development cycles go for feature implementation and you guys already have a backlog to work on, but just knowing things are on the list and are coming eventually is great to hear. Keep up the hard work.
When downloading a playlist (or Artist radio, have not tried that yet), it seems like a full download of all its tracks always happen regardless whether some of the tracks have already been downloaded as part of other already downloaded albums or not. I say “seems” because the download took the time it would to download all 12 tracks instead of just 1 supposedly outstanding track in my case, and the playlist’s size also represents all 12 tracks.
I’m not sure if my observation is describing what’s happening correctly, if it does, I would suggest any batch (album, playlist, audio) download to be aware of which tracks within it have already been downloaded and avoid appearing to/ actually downloading duplicates.
This might lead to tricky scenarios since users might download an album first, then download a playlist that contains tracks from said album, then delete the album locally—what happens to the playlist with its tracks? Do users get to know and make a decision to remove tracks with multiple appearances (similar to “This file is being used by another program, are you sure to shut it down”)? Throwing this out here…
Piggybacking on this thread of suggestions, I have perhaps the most basic of requests: the ability to sort all Tracks alphabetically by Title.
(On iOS)
All Music -> Tracks -> can only sort by Date Played and Plays.
I guess it’s good to have the ability to sort by Plays and Date, but it’s definitely not a feature anyone uses every day (and I can’t see myself ever needing to use it).
I’d much rather like to be able to see all of my songs in my entire library at once!
Nitpicking, but some folks I know would not be as charitable:
Control-Alt-Plus and Control-Alt-Minus are “move to next/previous workspace” in many (most?) linux distros.
Very disconcerting to see a desktop app usurp these common shortcuts. Wonder if there is a way to turn them off!? Next thing you’ll be stealing my emacs bindings.
For iOS it would be GREAT to add an alphabet column on the right hand side so you can jump to artists under ‘G’ for example quickly instead of having to scroll through an entire library. I use this all the time with movies in the AppleTV app already and it’d be great to get the same functionality for PlexAmp on iOS.
Edit: Nevermind. I see this feature was added in the newest version released today. Should probably update before posting!
