The reason makes sense - season metadata and controls to try and match the web - even if it’s not a function I personally want or need but that’s because I don’t think of Seasons as objects of their own, just containers for the episodes. But the explanation is better than the original one given months ago. And not to be too petulant but it woulda been nice if this was said in that topic on this weeks ago… particularly if it was noticed that it didn’t “land super clear”.
But I still think putting the season stuff in with the episode stuff makes it awkward. It’s mixing the levels together. At the very least something much more distinctive needs to be done with it but it would probably be kinda ugly (season poster art or portrait layout would just not work really). Personally I’d look at doing something with the overflow menu since in Preview that’s pretty blank right now and in Public that’s where a bunch of the controls actually sit even beyond episode level. When hitting the overflow for any episode, the pop-out menu could include the season poster and summary below it as well as controls for making a season watched\unwatched or review maybe. Or add GUI buttons\controls below the season posters for watched\unwatched and “more” to get a bump out of details and controls for the season like ratings and review. How often do people check season data, it’s gotta be the lowest priority of Show\Season\Episode. I dunno how necessary rating\reviewing season level stuff really is - most season level functions in Plex have been null - but if you want that much detail and work and involvement at a season level you’ll probably have to setup the clients to act more like the web. I don’t have a better idea because any real solution would involve more rework of the hierarchy itself and honestly I’m fine with not having season level stuff so I’m not invested beyond making it less awkward for me.
Speaking of rating and reviews … really don’t like how prominent that button is in Preview; it really stands out oddly, particularly since I have ratings\reviews turned off.
The logic implemented here is that for a server that your account owns it only shows the name of the library and the icon. If you were to favorite a library from another user/account it will show with that user’s avatar and their name along with the library name. I don’t know if a single user with multiple servers was considered here but I will pass along this feedback.
Are you seeing the “Rate and Review” button or the 5 stars to rate? If you have the correct source disabled then “Ratings and Reviews” should be off and it should only show the star rating. That star rating is stored only on the PMS (unless you have Sync Watch State enabled) and I don’t think we provided a way to disable that. That has been there for a long time now.
I’m used to seeing the stars but not that button. The stars were fine but this button draws a lot of focus with how large it is compared to everything else around it. It’s more prominent than everything else on that screen except for the show title.
I have all discovery features turned off, no online sources enabled, the sync watch state disabled, and reviews turned off as well. So if it’s unexpected it’s likely a bug. I haven’t been using Preview as much lately so I don’t know which version it started to show up.
Thanks for the report. We will look into it. I saw this demo’d earlier this week and saw that button replaced by the stars, but now that I think about it, that might have been for a managed user in the demo. Either way - a bug report has been filed here.
One way to do this is display the “season-level” synopsis and rating when you are viewing a season’s episodes, and only showing the episode synopsis and rating when the cursor is actively highlighting an episode thumbnail. The problem with this is you have to move the cursor off the thumbnail currently if you want to expand the episode synopsis and read the full text (assuming it’s longer than the normal display space). Also rating one episode currently means taking the cursor off the thumbnail, too.
Btw, kinda related but I notice on the old app you only get season-level background artwork if you choose the season from the Show’s landing screen. If you’re in a season and switch to another season (from the top bar), the background doesn’t change. Could that be fixed so it gets refreshed when all the episodes get loaded from the season we’re navigating to (assuming it doesn’t now)?
On the original Roku app, I can mix my Live TV favorites from my attached Hauppauge tuner with my Plex Channels favorites and see them as one listing. Now the favorites for my tuner and favorites for Plex Channels are listed separately. Is there a way to have all favorites for Live TV listed together?
Currently, no. This was a pretty contentious topic. While it won’t exist in the initial release, it is also my hope that it gets brought back as I use this one a lot myself.
Edit: I will add a tiny bit of context here. The original work to mix these together was pretty tough to do since it needed to stitch together the EPGs (programming guides) from multiple sources. Since we have already done it once we know it isn’t impossible to do, but the new nav presented challenges on how to access a shared favorites list for LiveTV. I am hoping that we can figure out a way to bring this back and there are many people internally that want to find a solution here as well.
Plex hasn’t even gotten around to the easy fix of the missing season number n the Plex Live Channels, so while I hope that Tuner and Favorites for Plex Channels will eventually be listed together, as it’s “pretty tough to do”, I really don’t see it happening.
I routinely roll back and forth between the old app, and the preview.
I can say without a doubt, I still prefer the old app for layout, navigation, and functionality. They can fix functionality, but it’s still not nearly as form fitting as it used to be to get around in.
Just a heads up - as we are getting decently close to getting this experience released on Roku I have started a new thread requesting specific feedback on versions 8.5.9+ here: Request for Roku Feedback ver 8.5.9+
The main reason is that while this thread has been fantastic, it spans both a lot of time and versions and we would like to focus feedback in that new thread on the latest versions as we work towards release. Therefore, we will be stepping back from most active participation in this thread while we put our focus there.
I would also like to take the time to thank everyone for all of the feedback and discussion in this thread as it has really helped get the Roku client improved throughout this process. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
The new topic makes a lot of sense and I’m glad users had a chance to have opinions voiced and some concerns addressed by this process. I do appreciate it and I think overall @McWanke has done a good job being measured and responsive here.
This overhaul didn’t go nearly as bad as I initially feared, even if I’m not excited about the New Experience, it’s a balanced release of improvements and detractions for me so at worst it’s “fine”… which is way better than I expected so hopefully it’ll continue to move towards better user experience and not enshittification. Time will tell.
Just two quick questions…
Are you able to provide a bit more specifics on “close to getting this experience released on Roku”? Nothing specific I’m sure, but maybe an expectation of “few days” vs “few months” can be provided. Edit: Sorry - just saw you said “a few weeks” in the new post.
As a kinda side question is there any information that can be shared about the upcoming improved server admin release to go along with the new client experience?
Lastly, is there even a remote possibility of having the “old” version setup in Roku Store as a legacy version? Maybe New Experience takes over the official public channel but a Legacy version can get its own “locked, no more updates” option even if temporarily as an additional transition period? I realize that’s very unlikely but thought I’d ask.
yeah - I’ve seen that too but was hoping since Roku is way easier to have multiple channels (and they don’t have to be public channels - Roku Preview channel can’t be added without a direct link) that maybe we could catch a break even if just transitionally.
