Starting to understand the Team's priorities

General Discussions
141

@elan said:
@beckfield said:

Okay, but it sounds like you’re saying that this advanced filter construction will only be available in the Playlist builder, which I presume is only accessible via the web app. But @Elijah_Baley specifically said “…in the clients…”. If the filtering options in the clients don’t improve, there’s no “win” there that I can see

Correct, we’re not looking to make the client filtering interface more complex than it already is (across N platforms). I can’t imagine how you’d have a user-friendly interface for a general expression builder, not least on a TV.

I don’t think anything as complex as a general expression builder is necessary in the clients. Just let me select multiple filters, and choose whether they behave in AND or OR fashion, would be a huge improvement.

Using the playlist builder is something which I used for many years in iTunes, where you can build a complex filter like “Albums I’ve added in the last six months which I’ve listened to less than 10 times”, e.g. and it allows you quickly access (in all clients) that view into your library. Since you can’t build a complex filter right now at all, or view it “by type” in the client, it’s a win :slight_smile:
I think a more complex filter constructor at the server will be welcomed. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise, if I did. I just think that, even at the server level, the simple choice of AND/OR and NOT would be as much as most people would need.

I’m not as upset as some of the people in this thread are. But I do feel the frustration (and I’ve mentioned this before) of half-finished features being rolled out, and a LOOOOONG time waiting for the completion, if ever, while additional features that never occurred to anyone outside Plex are added, perhaps also in half-finished form. “Release early, release often” sucks from an end-user’s point of view. I have dubbed it “Release ugly, release often.”

142

@Elijah_Baley said:
I think that, as with many other things, Plex will use any means necessary to justify decisions already made. Once Plex decides something should work one way that is the way it will work and those of us that try to explain a better way are effectively banging our heads against a wall.

And this, in a nutshell, is the issue we have been fighting, I think. The Team has a method in their mind, and that’s what we get with so many of the semi-functional features. Trying to get to a fully functional feature means changing the mind set the Team has, and this just ain’t going to happen.

Call it burn out, call it disenchanting, call it what you will. The fight just ain’t worth it, when the lead programmer/co-founder can consistently spout closed loop metrics as justification, without exposing those metrics to those in disagreement. These metrics provide the Team with what they want to see… And they get their attaboys from the single interpretations applied as they want them applied.

In other words, guys… We ain’t never going to change it here. We can’t affect change when the ones that could make those changes aren’t interested in making things better. And I do mean better. If Plex Media Server were open source, so much would be so different, it’s not even funny. The features the community has said they want would be there. Sadly, such is not the case.

So yeah, I guess I’ve given up. Until something drastic changes, our input is going to continue to be ignored. I have better things to spend my time on then listening to more justifications (un)supported by metrics no one else has access to.

Time to look seriously at Emby.

143

@“MikeG6.5” said:
…
Time to look seriously at Emby.

Mike far-be-it for me to discourage anyone from exploring options but I believe that if you do not like Plex you will detest Emby. As I have said before Emby makes a good product that mostly works OK BUT it does not offer any improvements over Plex is the majority of areas.

I may actually take another look at it as well as I tend to revisit alternatives every six to eight months and the time allotted is just about up.

I do not expect any major improvements but I am also up for surprises.

BTW: If you do look a Emby be sure to change the way they store things like images etc. The default has been to store those things in the same directory as the videos and that will clutter thing up a LOT.

144

@elan said:
Using the playlist builder is something which I used for many years in iTunes, where you can build a complex filter like “Albums I’ve added in the last six months which I’ve listened to less than 10 times”, e.g. and it allows you quickly access (in all clients) that view into your library. Since you can’t build a complex filter right now at all, or view it “by type” in the client, it’s a win :slight_smile:
I did the same with iTunes, but music works different than movies/tv shows. Playlists make a lot of sense for music but not for this kind of video content.

Let’s say i’m in the mood for movie with the following filters: Action/ from the 80s/ but without Arnold Schwarzenegger. I can do the first two filters in Plex Web, but not on iOS or tvOS, the negative filter sadly isn’t possible at all. Maybe it would be achievable with this playlist system. BUT i wouldn’t want to have this selection of movies as a permanent playlist, just because i’m in the mood for specific movies/genres/etc. at the moment. So i would’ve to create this playlist, select a movie and after watching it delete the playlist again? That sounds way more complicated than it would have to be and i’m pretty sure i wouldn’t use that.

Edit: Also about using statistics to figure out what people use and don’t use. Of course it makes sense to use such numbers if you have them, but the more important thing is how you use them and which questions you want to be answered. Maybe, if we look at filters or collections, the reason why people don’t use these features that much isn’t because they don’t have a general interest in such a functionality but the way they are executed.

145

@elan said:
Correct, we’re not looking to make the client filtering interface more complex than it already is (across N platforms). I can’t imagine how you’d have a user-friendly interface for a general expression builder, not least on a TV.

I took a screenshot from PMP and modified it to show how it might look. The menu doesn’t close as soon as you click on something. You make your selections (potentially from all submenus), select the behavior (default should be ‘AND,’ in my opinion) then click ‘Apply.’

Here’s one for movies, where you can include or exclude a particular actor:

146

@elan said:
Correct, we’re not looking to make the client filtering interface more complex than it already is (across N platforms). I can’t imagine how you’d have a user-friendly interface for a general expression builder, not least on a TV.

I thought the whole point of this simplied and unified UI across all platforms was to make this sort of change easy?

147

@reddwarfcrew said:

@elan said:
Correct, we’re not looking to make the client filtering interface more complex than it already is (across N platforms). I can’t imagine how you’d have a user-friendly interface for a general expression builder, not least on a TV.

I thought the whole point of this simplied and unified UI across all platforms was to make this sort of change easy?

It is easy as long as you conform to the way Plex dictates that you view your media. After all Plex knows better than you what you should watch and how you should watch it. :wink:

Good filtering is only hard because Plex says it is hard. While nested filters might be a bit complex simply having the ability to have genre included or excluded is not. As @beckfield shows the screen is only a little different and could even be expanded to where each genre can be and, or or not.

That is it could easily be set up so that in beckfield’s example you could say Country and Folk but not Irish Folk. (OK so I offended the Irish but you get the idea) That is each genera could have two check boxes (include/exclude) and the selection remain at the bottom for and or or.

That would not give every possibility but it would be flexible enough to cover any simple filtering that might be needed.

148

@Elijah_Baley said:
(OK so I offended the Irish but you get the idea)
The cheek of ya, ya bogtrotter!

149

Such is the tyranny of universal design: you succumb to the lowest common denominator, which by definition means you have to adhere to the worst of every device you support. This is why PC games ported from consoles suck. This is why “mobile first” website design makes the baby Jesus weep when he is at home on a 24" monitor. Universal design LANGUAGE is good (every new Ford looks similar enough you recognize the design as “Ford”, but that’s not to say they put 15" wheels on an F150 or running boards on a Mustang). Universal design is…please no.

Perhaps weirdest to me are the exceptions made: some devices get special things, like a built in PMS, while other’s cant have an extra set off filters because we might offend the fat-fingered people on the device with their fancy built-in server?

150

@jkalland said:
Such is the tyranny of universal design: you succumb to the lowest common denominator, which by definition means you have to adhere to the worst of every device you support. This is why PC games ported from consoles suck. This is why “mobile first” website design makes the baby Jesus weep when he is at home on a 24" monitor. Universal design LANGUAGE is good (every new Ford looks similar enough you recognize the design as “Ford”, but that’s not to say they put 15" wheels on an F150 or running boards on a Mustang). Universal design is…please no.

Perhaps weirdest to me are the exceptions made: some devices get special things, like a built in PMS, while other’s cant have an extra set off filters because we might offend the fat-fingered people on the device with their fancy built-in server?

LOL Really? Mixing a PMS platform in a discussion about universal design language? Couldn’t you find a more far fetched comparison?

151

@elan said:
@beckfield said:

Okay, but it sounds like you’re saying that this advanced filter construction will only be available in the Playlist builder, which I presume is only accessible via the web app. But @Elijah_Baley specifically said “…in the clients…”. If the filtering options in the clients don’t improve, there’s no “win” there that I can see

Correct, we’re not looking to make the client filtering interface more complex than it already is (across N platforms). I can’t imagine how you’d have a user-friendly interface for a general expression builder, not least on a TV.

Using the playlist builder is something which I used for many years in iTunes, where you can build a complex filter like “Albums I’ve added in the last six months which I’ve listened to less than 10 times”, e.g. and it allows you quickly access (in all clients) that view into your library. Since you can’t build a complex filter right now at all, or view it “by type” in the client, it’s a win :slight_smile:

This is a short sighted approach that won’t get used. Your stats will continue to show no one using filtering because this isn’t what people want or how they would use the product. People want a solution they can use from their everyday Roku or ShieldTV (interface). If it’s not there or they can’t easily use it then it simply won’t get used by the masses. What your proposing (if I understand correctly) is really a power user functionality that might get some use by the admins since they need to use the web admin often where it will be available. Even then it’s not really what we want.

We want filtering in the libraries that are dynamically built on the fly based on what we are looking for.

@reddwarfcrew said:

@elan said:
Correct, we’re not looking to make the client filtering interface more complex than it already is (across N platforms). I can’t imagine how you’d have a user-friendly interface for a general expression builder, not least on a TV.

I thought the whole point of this simplied and unified UI across all platforms was to make this sort of change easy?

ya think? :slight_smile:

@beckfield BINGO on your filtering.
I’m not really sure where the problem is for Plex to do this. Seems like basic stuff. Anyone who has ever written the most basic of SQL queries will get this. Just top it off with a basic interface and call it a day.

@Elijah_Baley said:
It is easy as long as you conform to the way Plex dictates that you view your media. After all Plex knows better than you what you should watch and how you should watch it. :wink:

Good filtering is only hard because Plex says it is hard. While nested filters might be a bit complex simply having the ability to have genre included or excluded is not. As @beckfield shows the screen is only a little different and could even be expanded to where each genre can be and, or or not.

And that’s the frustration we have had for years. Plex will take the most basic of requests and instead of spending the proper time (usually not harder) to add it properly will band-aid the feature or give us something that doesn’t do what we actually need. To them they got the “job done” in a very narrow definition. Sometimes accompanied with “it’s the first pass” but we usually never get the “2nd pass” or what was asked for. Then we get fix after fix of the new feature that doesn’t work correct (wonder why) and sometimes a band-aid of that to try and give us something closer to what was asked for in the first place. It is frustrating as usual.

In this case why couldn’t Plex try and add it to the web interface first to get the kinks worked out on the logic (although should be trivial) directly in the libraries as requested. Then once this is working add it to the clients where they need to develop the interfaces (logic already done on web side).

152

@Elijah_Baley said:

But do you “hate” to “love” it or do you “love” to “hate” it?

In my case it is more the former.

Indeed - more the former, hate loving it.

@elan said:
I ran a few numbers, and looked at forum analytics. The number of active users on this forum is about 5% of the active users of Plex. Of those active forum users, about 16% are actually writing/commenting vs just reading (thanks, Vanilla!). If I’m doing my math correctly, that means that about 1% of Plex users are engaging in conversation here and voicing their opinions. Honest question: Do you think that 1% represents an accurate sample across all our different types of users and that we’d be well served to base our priorities solely upon their input?

First - thanks for your time in this thread. I hope you’re still here during your busy day to know we still appreciate Plex, we’re just frustrated with it’s direction lately that we feel we have no input whatsoever on.

Second, answer to your question:
As someone else said - Maybe. Depends on the 1%.
Here’s my issue with analytics in respects to your statistics paragraph.
I know several other Plex accounts I helped non-technical friends/family create.
They don’t post here, let alone read here. They simply connect to my server and enjoy what I offer.
My non-technical Plex users often ask me for features that I come here and vote on.

How many of those plex accounts that you count as not coming to the forums, or Facebook, or wherever you’re getting your counter-forum statistics from are going to the people/Plex hosts like myself that do come here?
My guess - many.
That 1% mentioned may be 20-30% of the server hosts, of the 60% of Plex users asking for stuff.
The other 40% of users may just not care to ask either host nor come here and look.

I know my circle of users is small potatoes compared to co-ops/server farm shares/data center hosts etc that I’ve seen out here, but not a single one of my users has ever asked me if they can install Plex server on their router, console, phone, or tag photos, or other interesting expansions that Plex has added lately.

Again, thanks for your hard work. I and many others here just seem to feel it’s somewhat misguided. I feel the product has tried to become too much to too many. I think I saw previously quoted by you, you can’t please everyone all the time, but yet, looking at Plex, it seems as though your trying to anyway.

153

@Elijah_Baley said:

@“MikeG6.5” said:
…
Time to look seriously at Emby.

Mike far-be-it for me to discourage anyone from exploring options but I believe that if you do not like Plex you will detest Emby. As I have said before Emby makes a good product that mostly works OK BUT it does not offer any improvements over Plex is the majority of areas.

I may actually take another look at it as well as I tend to revisit alternatives every six to eight months and the time allotted is just about up.

I do not expect any major improvements but I am also up for surprises.

BTW: If you do look a Emby be sure to change the way they store things like images etc. The default has been to store those things in the same directory as the videos and that will clutter thing up a LOT.

Emby has come a long way over the past year or so.

I have only just come back to Plex after using Emby for the past number of years so have limited exposure to Plex at this point. But, as far as I can tell , Emby does a number of things better than plex, imo - at least on the management side of things - it is just geared more towards an advanced user (which may be a turn-off for some).

So far the one glaring difference is Emby has a ‘proper’ implementation of collections - will automatically put movies into their appropriate collection based on movie db collection id. It also has a far more robust metadata editor. Their ‘cinema experience’ (playing trailers before movies) seems to be a little more robust as well.

As far as playback, they both seem to be pretty comparable as far as I can tell. The one place Plex has Emby beat at this point is HD Audio pass-through in the Shield app (which, incidentally is why I am giving plex another go) - the native Emby app does not support this yet.

I actually prefer the metadata and images being stored with the movie itself. But to each their own.

154

@elan said:
I ran a few numbers, and looked at forum analytics. The number of active users on this forum is about 5% of the active users of Plex. Of those active forum users, about 16% are actually writing/commenting vs just reading (thanks, Vanilla!). If I’m doing my math correctly, that means that about 1% of Plex users are engaging in conversation here and voicing their opinions. Honest question: Do you think that 1% represents an accurate sample across all our different types of users and that we’d be well served to base our priorities solely upon their input?

Not sure how the numbers you’re throwing out were put together. Big game changer questions about them like is it a)5% of Paying Plex Pass Lifetime Members? b) 5% of Paying Subscribers? c) 5% of Plex Server instances (not just clients). All that makes a big difference in terms of considering requests. Perhaps not as shareware, but there just can’t be an all or nothing approach to a product that is marketed and sold.

155

@KarlDag said:

@jkalland said:
Such is the tyranny of universal design: you succumb to the lowest common denominator, which by definition means you have to adhere to the worst of every device you support. This is why PC games ported from consoles suck. This is why “mobile first” website design makes the baby Jesus weep when he is at home on a 24" monitor. Universal design LANGUAGE is good (every new Ford looks similar enough you recognize the design as “Ford”, but that’s not to say they put 15" wheels on an F150 or running boards on a Mustang). Universal design is…please no.

Perhaps weirdest to me are the exceptions made: some devices get special things, like a built in PMS, while other’s cant have an extra set off filters because we might offend the fat-fingered people on the device with their fancy built-in server?

LOL Really? Mixing a PMS platform in a discussion about universal design language? Couldn’t you find a more far fetched comparison?

If you say so. Mostly I’m just sharing the frustration (and I seem to not be alone) that it feels like things that ought to be equal are not, and some rules/limitations seem to only apply some of the time.

To be clear, I love Plex, and the reason I’m here saying ti all is I have a passion for it and I like to think said passion is appreciated and somewhat reciprocated. I am not here to make ultimatums, or pick up my ball & go home, or prod people by threatening to use …I’m merely saying that feeling like there’s a viable and properly supported community is the difference between my feelings about Plex and my feelings about my Blu-Ray player. Both technically “work”, I paid money for both, and both have things about them I wish weren’t there…the difference is I have always felt that Plex wants to hear that and learn from it and include us in plans to address it, whereas as Insignia does not. Seemingly weird decisions (maybe they’re not weird if you know where they are leading, but to many of us who only seem them as they are publicized, they are often weird at best) that alienate that feeling with no explanation or road-map to show for it do nothing to foster those feelings.

156

So Plex for Kodi arrives… partially finished.

157

@reddwarfcrew said:
So Plex for Kodi arrives… partially finished.

LOL. I know what you’re saying, but to be fair, it’s in beta…

158

Interesting, that the Collections we’re asking for in the Feature Requests forum has a much older request in the General Free forum as well: https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/24290/group-movies-like-indiana-jones-saw-etc/p1

I wonder if @elan’s comments made here were released on the free side what the responses from the free users would be? Or posted on the Facebook page? Would more people get involved in the forums as a result? Or people would just ignore it? it would be an interesting intellectual exercise, in any case…

That @elan thinks so little of the opinions of us Pass users is pretty evident. I wonder if the free users would react in a similar fashion.

159

@elan said:

I would urge you to read this post for a slightly different viewpoint on things.
Here’s another post that addresses some of the points made in Balter’s message, and comes to a different conclusion.

… but iOS doesn’t allow editing auto-tags either, so I’m not sure what to tell you.
But Plex does allow editing of auto-populated tags, in every other Library type. Got nice little orange lock icons to prevent our edits from being overwritten by auto-population, too.

That tells me two things:

  1. The ability to edit tags will likely come to Photo Libraries someday (the ‘feature parity’ goal).
  2. This is yet another example of a feature being rolled out half-finished. “Release ugly, release often.”
160

@beckfield said:
Here’s another post that addresses some of the points made in Balter’s message, and comes to a different conclusion.

I like how this guy says:

The typical 80/20 rule is: 80% of your customers use just 20% of your features.

The “release early” folks take this to mean: Just implement 20% of the features you think you need, because if that’s good enough to get 80% of your sales, this is a much simpler, efficient, and therefore profitable way to operate a software company.

This is what I think we’re seeing here. Just get anything in front of people, and they are going to like it. It’s not what they want, but it IS something… And those vocal about what they want? They are a minority and we can blow them off or piss them off and they will just go away.

In fact, adding features is one of the few ways to test what customers actually want, because:
Customers are notoriously bad at providing feedback

But does this mean to add features that the customer hasn’t actually asked for? Those active on the forums have been providing lots of feedback. Some of it is really negative feedback on the company’s direction. Both in the Pass only forums and in the Free forums…

Relying on unreliable information as the primary driver of product decisions is unwise.

This in a nutshell explains a lot… The primary driver Plex has used is what? Forum usage metrics? Facebook posts? Has there actually been a poll (such as the one for plugins) asking what the users want as new features?

Using flawed data to come to a decision means the decision is likely to be as flawed. Until the Team realizes this, nothing will change.