@opoth said:
I know that Plex likes to obscure coming features/revisions from their userbase but this is one case where some external input on the UI would have probably been very helpful prior to release.
Plex did ask for input when they first released the UI on the Plex Desktop version in August (https://www.plex.tv/blog/new-hope-for-meda-browsing/). With the amount of feedback on the Xbox One app, I’m curious what they heard with the desktop version back in August. And since they’re rolling out this UI to all platforms in the future, the feedback here should be useful for them to provide customization options for viewing libraries on Xbox One and other platforms especially TV platforms (Roku, Android TV, Apple TV).
@cayars said:
Desktop is one thing when you have a mouse or touch screen display which can make the navigation a bit easier. But with a game controller?
Plex it seems has wanted to build a better “mouse trap” but they built the cat’s litter box instead. LOL
Yes, it definitely is, but it appears Plex was expecting users to test as if it was a TV interface rather than mouse/keyboard. I just looked back at the Plex Desktop feedback and there’s very little input about the interface. Some kudos some critical feedback, but in general very little. There is feedback about navigation though, just not that much. Xbox One might be the first real opportunity to get feedback from TV users.
Frankly I like the interface/navigation, but can understand how user customization could make it even better. Since I do like the interface, now I’m just hoping Plex provides user customization vs going back to the long list of libraries. That way we can all be happy.
@cayars said:
Desktop is one thing when you have a mouse or touch screen display which can make the navigation a bit easier. But with a game controller?
Plex it seems has wanted to build a better “mouse trap” but they built the cat’s litter box instead. LOL
Yes, it definitely is, but it appears Plex was expecting users to test as if it was a TV interface rather than mouse/keyboard. I just looked back at the Plex Desktop feedback and there’s very little input about the interface. Some kudos some critical feedback, but in general very little. There is feedback about navigation though, just not that much. Xbox One might be the first real opportunity to get feedback from TV users.
Frankly I like the interface/navigation, but can understand how user customization could make it even better. Since I do like the interface, now I’m just hoping Plex provides user customization vs going back to the long list of libraries. That way we can all be happy.
Out of curiosity, do you have multiple movies libraries or multiple TV Show libraries? If you only have one of each the new UI is no problem. It’s only bothersome when you have multiple of the same type. It gets un-intuitive fast with multiple libs.
@cayars said:
Desktop is one thing when you have a mouse or touch screen display which can make the navigation a bit easier. But with a game controller?
Plex it seems has wanted to build a better “mouse trap” but they built the cat’s litter box instead. LOL
Yes, it definitely is, but it appears Plex was expecting users to test as if it was a TV interface rather than mouse/keyboard. I just looked back at the Plex Desktop feedback and there’s very little input about the interface. Some kudos some critical feedback, but in general very little. There is feedback about navigation though, just not that much. Xbox One might be the first real opportunity to get feedback from TV users.
Frankly I like the interface/navigation, but can understand how user customization could make it even better. Since I do like the interface, now I’m just hoping Plex provides user customization vs going back to the long list of libraries. That way we can all be happy.
Out of curiosity, do you have multiple movies libraries or multiple TV Show libraries? If you only have one of each the new UI is no problem. It’s only bothersome when you have multiple of the same type. It gets un-intuitive fast with multiple libs.
Yes, I do…probably not as many as others though. Movies - 2, TV - 4, Music - 2, Photos - 6. If I was sharing with a lot of other users, then it would certainly be a bigger problem. In that case, being able to switch servers vs having servers\libraries integrated might be better. I’d just like to keep the option of having servers\libraries integrated. Plus, I didn’t really like the long list of libraries on the left because the more I added, the longer it took to get to the ones at the bottom. Definitely seems like Plex needs to come up with a way to cater to users with 10-15 libraries vs 20+. User customization would probably do the trick if there’s a way to implement it without being too confusing.
I agree new App is absolutely terrible! I refuse to use plex now until its resolved. has anyone else noticed you can no longer us LT and RT to rewind and fast forward?
I never use the desktop/web plex interface except as a last resort or out of utter boredom. Sometimes even accidentally.
The ecosystem is driven towards content on devices, not my PC. Plex demands a library structure (which suits my OCD to a tee) which means if I want to play something on my desktop whilst I’m doing something else, I just open the file and play it directly as it’s super easy to find and identify.
I would never think to ask for UI/UX feedback from desktop and expect that to carry across to other clients. I’m kinda shocked (am I?) that Plex did expect it to be equal.
I’ll add another gripe.
Search. It’s there, and it’ll happily search across ALL available content. But you can only access the search if you drill down into a library first. Why isn’t it an icon to the right of “Videos” on the main top menu?
And I’m going to reiterate that it is slow when transitioning now. I actually thought it had crashed numerous times when we watched 1 show about an hour ago. Now whether that was the client itself or the server I haven’t investigate, I don’t know if I have the stomach to tonight, or whether it was related to our internet being offline (and if that did influence it, that’s hardly a positive).
@cayars said:
Desktop is one thing when you have a mouse or touch screen display which can make the navigation a bit easier. But with a game controller?
Plex it seems has wanted to build a better “mouse trap” but they built the cat’s litter box instead. LOL
Yes, it definitely is, but it appears Plex was expecting users to test as if it was a TV interface rather than mouse/keyboard. I just looked back at the Plex Desktop feedback and there’s very little input about the interface. Some kudos some critical feedback, but in general very little. There is feedback about navigation though, just not that much. Xbox One might be the first real opportunity to get feedback from TV users.
Wait wait wait there’s a bit of confusion here… “Plex Desktop” is not a thing, Plex Media Player is the client for desktop computers. It has both a “web” interface used for management and a “TV” interface used for viewing media. TV interface used to be like the “old” XBox app, it was called TV1, then TV2 was released that is identical to what you have now on XBox.
That said, saying that there was “not that much” feedback is an understatement: there was a lot of infuriated posts when TV2 was deployed on PMP, and after months there is still people complaining about bugs (which is somewhat ok) and UI/UX. Seeing here, after months, the developers of the XBox “port” of TV2 looking almost surprised that people are complaining is ridiculous, they had MONTHS of complaints on the very same interface, and now they look like “oh why don’t you like that? I didn’t expected that”
Frankly I like the interface/navigation, but can understand how user customization could make it even better. Since I do like the interface, now I’m just hoping Plex provides user customization vs going back to the long list of libraries. That way we can all be happy.
Out of curiosity, do you have multiple movies libraries or multiple TV Show libraries? If you only have one of each the new UI is no problem. It’s only bothersome when you have multiple of the same type. It gets un-intuitive fast with multiple libs.
I, as many others, have multiple libraries in each “category”. I have live action movies, and anime/cartoon movies, I have live action TV shows and anime series TV shows. Is it so surprising? I don’t know what metric of users’ libraries Plex have, but it looks like the new UI was based off an “one library per category” use case
Frankly I like the interface/navigation, but can understand how user customization could make it even better. Since I do like the interface, now I’m just hoping Plex provides user customization vs going back to the long list of libraries. That way we can all be happy.
Out of curiosity, do you have multiple movies libraries or multiple TV Show libraries? If you only have one of each the new UI is no problem. It’s only bothersome when you have multiple of the same type. It gets un-intuitive fast with multiple libs.
I, as many others, have multiple libraries in each “category”. I have live action movies, and anime/cartoon movies, I have live action TV shows and anime series TV shows. Is it so surprising? I don’t know what metric of users’ libraries Plex have, but it looks like the new UI was based off an “one library per category” use case
Yes, it definitely appears to be geared towards people with a small number of libraries per category. I prefer the grouping the way it is, but I don’t have a ton of libraries and I don’t have very many shared servers.
@cayars said:
Desktop is one thing when you have a mouse or touch screen display which can make the navigation a bit easier. But with a game controller?
Plex it seems has wanted to build a better “mouse trap” but they built the cat’s litter box instead. LOL
Yes, it definitely is, but it appears Plex was expecting users to test as if it was a TV interface rather than mouse/keyboard. I just looked back at the Plex Desktop feedback and there’s very little input about the interface. Some kudos some critical feedback, but in general very little. There is feedback about navigation though, just not that much. Xbox One might be the first real opportunity to get feedback from TV users.
Wait wait wait there’s a bit of confusion here… “Plex Desktop” is not a thing, Plex Media Player is the client for desktop computers. It has both a “web” interface used for management and a “TV” interface used for viewing media. TV interface used to be like the “old” XBox app, it was called TV1, then TV2 was released that is identical to what you have now on XBox.
Yes, Plex Media Player. Soooooorry.
That said, saying that there was “not that much” feedback is an understatement: there was a lot of infuriated posts when TV2 was deployed on PMP, and after months there is still people complaining about bugs (which is somewhat ok) and UI/UX. Seeing here, after months, the developers of the XBox “port” of TV2 looking almost surprised that people are complaining is ridiculous, they had MONTHS of complaints on the very same interface, and now they look like “oh why don’t you like that? I didn’t expected that”
I didn’t look through every post and did find some, but it didn’t appear anywhere near the amount of feedback provided in the Xbox One forum. Regardless I guess, Plex did get feedback during the PMP release and appears didn’t change anything. User customization seems to be the answer. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the second round of feedback pushes the app to a place that works for everyone.
I’m also adding in my vote to PLEASE roll back this update. I’ve been a Plex Pass supporter for years now and for the first time EVER I am thinking about canceling and going with another server platform. Basically, this update seems to have never been tested anywhere EVER or by anyone outside of Plex’s own developers.
I say the following things as a software developer:
How do you release a version of an app where subtitle support fails on every movie played after 5-7 minutes of the movie playing? Did no one sit and test a movie for more than 10 minutes? Did no one look at the log files being generated to see if there was an error? How this bug made it past QA testing amazes me.
How do you release a version of an app with such a HUGE UI change without even reaching out to end users and asking “How does this work for you?” Has no one at Plex ever heard of focus groups? Staged betas? UI testing? Furthermore, after YEARS of clamoring for an update, why was no one ever told that you guys were even working on an XB1 update? You have a community built up here. You’ll bring in Plex Pass memebers to test the latest server builds and experiments, but for something like the XB1, eh, screw it? Elan back in the day used to actually share with us, the users, what was going on with the clients and the server. We felt like we were paying to be a part of a community. This sets things back years.
How do you release a version of an app without features such as FF and RW? This is 2017. Video players are no longer being redefined. See #2.
Alex support is HORRID. What used to work is now broken (again). Alexa can “see” what is in my local server about 50% of the time and can control my XB1 about 50% of the time. The major problem is that when my server can be seen by Alexa, my XB1 can’t.
If you guys are going to force XB1 users to use a version of an app that is less than beta quality right now, at least give us a chance to opt in or out of that. Right now, the previous Plex app, for all the issues it had in the past, was 100x better than this version.
New items I noticed last night, to add to the crapfest that is the new version:
I use an Xbox remote with Plex, not a controller because, you know, easier.
Rewind/FF buttons on the remote no longer Rewind/FF. They now act like the controller, jumping back/forward in increments. That is NOT what I want them to do. When I want to rewind or FF, I expect to get that, with multiple presses increasing the speed. It takes a LOT more to get back 5 mins when my wife left the room and comes back when I’m jumping back a few seconds at a time vs rewinding at 32x.
When I went into my Halloween playlist (422 movies) last night and had it select a random movie, it would NOT select anything outside of the first 50 movies in the list until I had scrolled through the entire list on the right side first. I initially tried and noticed I was only getting anything that started with A - C. And continued selecting a new one over and over until I had gone through all of the first 50 movies. It NEVER chose anything outside of those first 50 until I had scrolled through the full 422 movies. Then this morning, after it had been shut down, I reloaded the playlist and tried again. Once again, it was limiting itself to the first 50 until I scrolled through the list of all of the movies in the playlist.
@ThunderVamp9 said:
New items I noticed last night, to add to the crapfest that is the new version:
I use an Xbox remote with Plex, not a controller because, you know, easier.
Rewind/FF buttons on the remote no longer Rewind/FF. They now act like the controller, jumping back/forward in increments. That is NOT what I want them to do. When I want to rewind or FF, I expect to get that, with multiple presses increasing the speed. It takes a LOT more to get back 5 mins when my wife left the room and comes back when I’m jumping back a few seconds at a time vs rewinding at 32x.
Rewind/FF didn’t make it into this version of the app. No idea why a common function like that was left out. But, we’ve been told they’ll be adding it back in.
@ThunderVamp9 said:
New items I noticed last night, to add to the crapfest that is the new version:
I use an Xbox remote with Plex, not a controller because, you know, easier.
Rewind/FF buttons on the remote no longer Rewind/FF. They now act like the controller, jumping back/forward in increments. That is NOT what I want them to do. When I want to rewind or FF, I expect to get that, with multiple presses increasing the speed. It takes a LOT more to get back 5 mins when my wife left the room and comes back when I’m jumping back a few seconds at a time vs rewinding at 32x.
When I went into my Halloween playlist (422 movies) last night and had it select a random movie, it would NOT select anything outside of the first 50 movies in the list until I had scrolled through the entire list on the right side first. I initially tried and noticed I was only getting anything that started with A - C. And continued selecting a new one over and over until I had gone through all of the first 50 movies. It NEVER chose anything outside of those first 50 until I had scrolled through the full 422 movies. Then this morning, after it had been shut down, I reloaded the playlist and tried again. Once again, it was limiting itself to the first 50 until I scrolled through the list of all of the movies in the playlist.
This is extremely unacceptable.
for your point 2, I need to do some testing when I get home but I have a cartoons playlist with about 900 items and I noticed it only plays shows from the first 3 seasons of South Park as that’s the first show in the list.
@opoth said:
I know that Plex likes to obscure coming features/revisions from their userbase but this is one case where some external input on the UI would have probably been very helpful prior to release.
I read that blog article, I laughed when I read this part of it:
“See, it turns out Lydgate was full of ■■■■: you CAN please all of the people all of the time. (Well, at least when it comes to two semi-conflicting modalities of media browsing.)”
I don’t know who wrote it but methinks they were overly optimistic!
Whoah whoah whoah…!!! Slow down. You mean this UI is rolling out to all of the other devices as well? I guess I breezed over it when I read the original blog post… I didn’t understand the storm that was inbound.
I went life on PlexPass. I really don’t want to, but this has me thinking lobbying for a refund is in my future.
@opoth said:
I know that Plex likes to obscure coming features/revisions from their userbase but this is one case where some external input on the UI would have probably been very helpful prior to release.
I read that blog article, I laughed when I read this part of it:
“See, it turns out Lydgate was full of ****: you CAN please all of the people all of the time. (Well, at least when it comes to two semi-conflicting modalities of media browsing.)”
I don’t know who wrote it but methinks they were overly optimistic!
@AmazingRando24 said:
Whoah whoah whoah…!!! Slow down. You mean this UI is rolling out to all of the other devices as well? I guess I breezed over it when I read the original blog post… I didn’t understand the storm that was inbound.
I went life on PlexPass. I really don’t want to, but this has me thinking lobbying for a refund is in my future.
It seems there’s been enough of an uproar in the Xbox One forum that the UI will change to accommodate at least some of the feedback. They’ve said they’re listening and discussing internally. Probably worth giving them a little bit of time to fix it before giving up your lifetime Plex Pass. And hopefully they take this as a sign to wait on updating the other devices. Maybe we’ll be the “beta” testers before it reaches other devices.
