One thing I have been considering is the new Google Play Beta testers option which would eliminate the uninstall reinstall annoyance but you would need to be using Google plus and following the Serenity for Android page.
Sure, I can do that. I already had to get a Google+ account to follow an unrelated project.
----- snip ----- re: The motivation for split dev and play store releases
I have no problem with this, and fully agree with the idea of having a paid version on the Google Play store.
But for convenient beta testing the latest dev version should contain all released features too.
And that's also the traditional method of ensuring that untested code never reaches the paying customers.
With that said, I understand that uninstalling and re-installing can be a pain, and want to give people that have paid for the app or are willing to do testing on the app a way to test new versions with out needing to sideload a different signed version of the app. So this is where the Google Play Beta channel will come into play. If you are interested in participating, please comment on the Google plus post below.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/100427843958963974912/100427843958963974912/posts/TJezD2JbZYs
Done!
The free downloadable APKs that are signed with a development certificate that expires sooner than the Google play version (which expires in 30 years),
That's interesting. I never heard of an expiration date for either one before.
I can understand having it for the dev version, but not for the paid app.
Sure, in 30 years we surely won't be using a compatible Android system, but that's no excuse for a time bomb.
That has no proper reason to exist. (I'm not upset about it, but just confused as to why you'd want it.)
I'm also quite sure that many paying beta testers might go on using the dev version only to find it expiring unexpectedly when that shorter time runs out. (Though that obviously depends on how much shorter it is, which I still don't know.) So a better solution than the old one is definitely needed.
------ Feedback on tests with Serenity 1.4.5 -----
Most things seem to work fine, except that the partially watched status flagging still malfunctions.
At first I saw no trace of the expected main improvement, that being the new partial watch overlays for show episodes.
As it turns out those ONLY work with internal player, which is impossible to use on some units as Serenity doesn't correctly deduce the need for transcoding. So simple AVI files with standard XviD and MP3 content fail playback in native mode on my OUYA, forcing me to use the external player setting. And with that setting active any video that has been launched at all will be flagged as fully played, even if terminated at any point of playback (even a fraction of a second).
Also, even when the setting is active that should make Plex resumption point be used, ignoring MX Player's internal position memory, the resumption point for a video flagged as "fully played" is still always the point where play was previously terminated for that video, so this isn't working properly either. (If it was truly considered "fully played", new playback should restart it completely.)
Finally I think we need more toggle controls in the context menus.
In the main list of TV shows the context menu for a selected show is currently empty.
I think it should allow setting/clearing of watched status for entire shows, like in PHT.
Similar reasoning applies to the context menu for a selected season, which currently only has a Queue command.
So to change the status of an entire show or an entire season, we now have to go through every episode in it, toggling them one by one.
This really needs similar improvement as done in the official Plex clients (not so long ago).
Best regards: dlanor