Ever since Plex Web Version 3.29.4 was rolled out, my Photo playlist has disappeared. This has been part of my routine usage of Plex, to start a music playlist, then a photo playlist.
PMS Version 1.9.7.4460
EDIT:
Having learned that this was an intentional change, I am converting this to a feature request.
Please restore the appearance of Photo Playlists on the Playlists page.
Your photo playlist is now called a photo album.
I am not entirely sure if the change was intentional or not.
But your album is still available from within your photo library, when you switch it to Albums view.
I knew they had changed the name, and they can be found via the Album view, but the album/playlist still appeared on the Playlists page until this update.
Aww, crap, this was intentional.
Please put it back. This wasnât a problem.
I donât see the point of having my playlists scattered in two different places. This doesnât make sense.
I would really like to know the reasoning behind moving Photo playlists out of the Playlists page. It was far more convenient when all Playlist types were on one page. If there was a problem with having the types intermingled, why not just separate them within the same page, the way Discovery hubs are done? Hereâs a mock-up:
Can I get an answer, please?
@DomC @elan @kinoCharlino
I assume this was done to fall in line with other apps, given that we donât consider photo albums to be âplaylistsâ (even though under the hood they are). @ericmatthys might be able to comment further,
Thatâs correct. We do not refer to these as playlists anywhere in the app now. They are photo albums and they are given special treatment (different page with a photo-friendly layout). New users wouldnât expect to find them on a page with video and music playlists.
But now the term âalbumâ means something entirely different WRT music than it does WRT photos, and I, for one, not being a new user, find it inconsistent and less useful than having music and photo playlists on the same page. As I have said before, my typical usage is to start a music playlist, then a photo playlist, but now I have to remind myself that I have to jump through several more steps to do this than I did before, and, oh yeah, photo playlists arenât playlists.
As for the âdifferent page with a photo-friendly layout,â on the Roku apps (current stable release and the Beta), a photo âalbumâ page is identical to a music âplaylistâ page, with the same layout and controls. Thereâs nothing unique about the Photo âalbumâ page. So Iâm not buying that explanation.
If thereâs any reason (I canât think of one) to separate music, video, and photo playlists from one another, I provided a mock-up earlier in this thread showing a much simpler and more consistent way of doing so without making it harder to get to them.
I can see youâve put a lot of work into redesigning the product. Itâs a shame that your work has been wasted because youâve made the product less convenient to use.
I reiterate my request to restore photo playlists to the Playlist page, in the interest of better usability.
Please describe the user model that makes the new configuration (photo playlists separated from other playlists, and all playlists buried within libraries) more convenient than having all playlists on the Playlists page.
I canât find any advantage to this change. People make playlists in order to more conveniently access their favorites. You have eliminated a large part of that convenience.
As you can see from this post, Iâm not the only one who doesnât like what youâre doing with playlists.
Please explain the reason for separating playlists and burying them within libraries. Much of their usefulness came from the fact that they could be accessed quickly from their own page.
I see no advantage in usability by making this change. Though Iâm not a coder, I canât imagine this change is simpler or easier than having a Playlists page that lists all types of playlists.
So what purpose is served by calling them something different (using a term that has different meanings in different areas of Plex), and burying them where they are harder to get to? Please explain.
There are a few reasons we made the change:
I appreciate that itâs a little jarring right now, but it gives us a better place to improve the photo experience, since they are different enough from video/music.
So, âRelease ugly, release oftenâ has bitten me again. This is my eternal complaint about the Agile method. It may be convenient for developers to break things down into limited-scale stories to assemble a final product, but itâs damned annoying to the end-user when you push half-finished features on them, then make them get used to the half-finished UI until you get around to finishing it. Sacrificing your customersâ convenience for a time on your way to a new experience is frustrating and very user-UNfriendly.
Itâs also disheartening when I remember how glacially long it takes Plex to roll out the ânext phaseâ of a re-design. Everyone complained when you put the Manage link in the left sidebar. It was explained that it was part of a planned overhaul that would make more sense when it was complete. But the next phase didnât come for another 2 years. And it still doesnât make sense.
But they, like my Music playlists, were conveniently accessible from the same place. This point doesnât explain why that convenience has to be lost. Will they be as convenient in the future, or will I have to hunt them down every time?
They didnât used to. They were all listed in the same Playlists page, where it was very convenient. I donât understand this point at all.
Are Music playlists a thing outside of Plex? I donât understand what this means either.
This also doesnât explain anything. It was always true. Photo Playlists were the âcuratedâ form. ALL my curated playlists, music, movies, and photos, were accessible from one place. Will they be so in the future?
Will they be as convenient in the future, or will I have to hunt them down every time?
Weâre looking at other ways of exposing this content further up - such as hubs on the discovery pages.
They were all listed in the same Playlists page,
Yup, but they were most often only photos from one library.
Are Music playlists a thing outside of Plex?
Yes, I think they are. Spotify/iTunes etc all use music playlists. Photo âplaylistsâ seems less of a common term.
It was always true. Photo Playlists were the âcuratedâ form
Photo libraries have got bigger over recent years with more photos taken per day. Previously many people could just look at âphotos taken on holidayâ and it be a manageable set of photos. The concept of âfolder on filesystemâ as âphoto albumâ seems less true than previously, and a curated set as an album fits more with the general understanding of a user selected set of images.
Will they be so in the future?
We donât intend to move the photos back to playlists. I think I understand your frustration though and will look into what we can do to surface the photo albums more in the UI.
Thanks!
Dom
I, and many others, made it abundantly clear that hubs and discovery pages are disliked as well when they first appeared. For one thing, if I have more than 4 or 5 playlists, Iâll be subject to that damned horizontal scrolling BS. I disable hubs and discovery pages as much as I can in my Plex apps.
I added a mock-up earlier in this thread (and I just modified it to address some of your points) that would have achieved your goal without degrading usability, and even incorporating the unnecessary name change, with much less work.
I think you put a lot of work into changing something that wasnât a problem, and degraded usability, while more pressing issues seem to have languished. Now thatâs frustrating!
Iâll leave it there, but my feature request stands until ALL playlists, including Photo playlists, are as easily accessed as they were before.
Early 2021 clean-up: implemented
