Would you guys be open to putting the classic interface back on Plex preview since the new update has gone to public release? Cool design with many glitches, missing recent channels on homepage, and did I mention many glitches. I just want to watch my TV shows and not fiddle around with the interface for 5 minutes to get to my show. I’m not a beta tester and this shouldn’t have been released yet 
. So in the meantime is there any way you can do Plex preview as the classic for Roku users?
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Stop the UI insanity!!!, been a Plex user for over 15 years and I remember the early days of frustration with this app I am moving to jellyfin and am happy to support independent open source that doesn’t bow to the Almighty greenback gods.
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Serious question for a Plex employee or one of the mods. Is there a way to get the classic Roku Plex file( most current before the new interface)? I want to try to figure out if I can side load it onto Roku in developer mode.
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The new interface is absolutely terrible. Thought I would check and see if there was any chance of this new abomination going away before I do.
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I have worked in IT Engineering for nearly 30 years. To say I have worked with a lot of UIs is a crazy understatement. I have used computers since before graphical UIs were a thing.
I’ve also seen a lot of mystifying UI design choices. And I can safely say, the new Roku UI is one of the more baffling decisions I have experienced yet. So, I guess thanks for that experience.
That said, I can only imagine that some team of executives that don’t actually use the product had the ultimate say on this.
I can’t even figure out what the benefit of the decisions were. It has objectively made every activity in the Roku UI worse. The worst impact being that literally everything requires more clicks to get to than it used to. This seems to be a common theme in Roku Plex UI but this instance is the worst yet, as it doesn’t impact just one menu item.
The only apparent reason I can figure is one that seems common in awful UI design, creating more empty screen real estate for movie/show backgrounds. Ironically, due to some weird caching issue, the background of the previous show you were on tends to display for a few moments after loading a new show. So you get a nice beautiful view of the wrong background. And this is consistent. But also, why would I want an overall less efficient UI in exchange for more of a background?
I have some TV libraries with special seasons that have up to 100 episodes. And it sorts those libraries oldest to newest on a single line, rather than the older paged grid. The net effect is that, to watch new episodes in those libraries, I have to hold down the right arrow button for up to a minute while it scrolls all the way to the end. There’s not even an increase in speed for extended button hold duration to speed up the scrolling.
Also, I have a 65” TV and I can only see 3-5 libraries at a time, depending on the name length in this new horizontal library view.
I can crash to app at will just by navigating between libraries too fast and it requires going to the Roku home screen and restarting the app. The screen just locks up with the slide-out effect stuck mid-slide. Why do I need this? I don’t.
I like to organized my libraries alphabetically. With the new library menu, re-ordering libraries becomes very unpleasant, since there’s so much scrolling required to see where anything is going.
The list goes on and I am sure I am preaching to the choir.
But the biggest regret I have is that I only recently bought a lifetime Plex pass, which I now regret. I can only hope that this UI causes Plex pass purchases to drop and they somehow magically tie the drop to this UI.
I like a lot about Plex and I am now considering building a media PC to replace the Roku UI altogether because Roku is obnoxious on it’s own with all the ads and additions of marketing and subscription products they are constantly adding that I have to hide.
But I am now concerned that they will expand this terrible UI to the rest of the Plex clients. If that happens, I may just have to ditch Plex.
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Bring the old look back
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Have you guys tried out the new Plex preview on roku? Everyone’s feedback has helped make this possible. It’s not a rollback, it’s still an update but one that actually I believe works. Thank you Plex for taking the time to listen to your customers. They’re looking for feedback so my only feedback would be maybe to have more of a customizable home screen and maybe the white text with black background can look a little more refined in the navigation area. Other than that, I’m happy with this update in Plex preview and believe this is a great compromise!
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Wife hates the new design and wants to change to a different media server all together, so now I have no choice but to switch to a different service. You could avoid all this UI bellyaching if you would bring back skins and let people install the “look and feel” that they are comfortable with (even the previous UI).
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