Severe limitations of 3-dot settings available via Roku Emby app versus web UI

[CasaAtardecer 27]

Hello. Hope you are well. The differences in the settings and tools between computer UI, mobile UI and smart tv UI are really striking. Since OVERVIEW metadata can be read by Emby for photos and one can only choose to view photo OVERVIEW when using the computer UI and mobile UI, but never viewable in slideshow mode, can't we at the very least have the option to show OVERVIEW with the photo thumbnail views so the user can see the details about the photo using the SHOW FIELDS 3-dot options? Additionally, why are GENRES and TAGS completely eliminated in the smart tv UI?  REQUEST: Please add OVERVIEW to the SHOW FIELDS 3-dot options. Thank you.

[ebr 16169]

Hi.  The Roku interface currently does not have any "context" menu and a photo does not have a details page (where such a button or information could be displayed).

More of these options will come as we figure out how to properly implement them in the Roku system which generally leans towards extreme simplicity over complex features.

Thanks.

[CasaAtardecer 27]

Hi. thank you for your reply. As a matter of fact, there are no less than six or seven different MB meditator tags that can be displayed in the Roku app. For example, rating, year, review, etc. My request is that a simple tag like TAG  could possibly be added to the 3-dot SHOW FIELDS menu that is currently, already available next to the photos in the Roku app. Thanks again for your reply.

[ebr 16169]

Hi.  You requested an "overview" field.  There isn't really a way to effectively show that in one of the fields under an item in a list or grid.

Tag is a bit problematic as well as there could be many of them but, perhaps, just the first couple.

[CasaAtardecer 27]

34 minutes ago, ebr said:

There isn't really a way to effectively show that in one of the fields under an item in a list or grid.

Hi. Thanks for your reply, which is funny to read, especially when one considers that you CAN already show/hide Emby-readable metadata Titles, Community Rating, Critic Rating, Parental Rating, Year, Runtime, Container, and Resolution (see attached screenshot of Emby's Roku app UI). Do we really need THREE rating options? Can't one of THOSE be replaced with OVERVIEW? It doesn't actually seem to be too problematic when there's already EIGHT photo metadata tags already available to SHOW/HIDE that are accessible now via the 3-dot settings to the far right of the screen. Thanks again.

[ebr 16169]

The Overview on an item is typically a long text field.  This does not lend itself to that tiny space for display.

Also, the number of users who actually have an overview defined for their images has to be very, very small.

So, I do not see that field as a reasonable candidate for those items.  Tags, perhaps but only if we limit it to one or two and then it may be difficult to tell what you are looking at when you just see random words under an item...

[CasaAtardecer 27]

You're joking, right? Not enough space, really? If I select all EIGHT available fields from SHOW FIELDS, that pushes the display to accommodate all EIGHT lines, with 3 or 4 characters per line -- Talk about wasted space and random words below an image! Also, the EIGHT fields available for display on images seems to be fairly RANDOM: I mean seriously, THREE ratings options are really necessary? And these are available now for images, really? The number of users who actually have THREE ratings for their image has to ZERO, and yet, there they are, ready and available to eat up that space.

Your so-called explanation just doesn't actually seem like it is really an obstacle to adding the OVERVIEW to the list of SHOW FIELDS. When one considers that EMBY has restricted the space allowed for image TITLES to a single line that is only viewable within that space, an OVERVIEW of the image is a perfectly logical and reasonable option to describing just a little bit more about the image. If you're concerned about how much text users put into their OVERVIEW field for images, you can always truncate the text and restrict it to just one or two lines that are visible. In fact, this is precisely how you already handle TAGS, by restricting them to the first 2 or 3 being visible, depending upon the number of characters in the TAG. Users will just have to adjust their OVERVIEW text and the number of characters so they are getting the best value for the truncated, restricted number of visible characters allowed below the image.

Oh, one last point, your blogs are FILLED with user requests and comments about OVERVIEW and wondering when/if OVERVIEW can appear when in image slideshow mode. Those requests and comments are YEARS old and despite lots of "wait and see" dev remarks, no progress has been made, apparently. I am just asking that ONE of the THREE ratings be swapped out for OVERVIEW. It really shouldn't be that big a problem. Let me know what you think. Thanks.

[CasaAtardecer 27]

On 1/21/2025 at 12:06 PM, ebr said:

perhaps, just the first couple.

Any progress on those “just the first couple” tags?

[speechles 2055]

18 hours ago, CasaAtardecer said:

Any progress on those “just the first couple” tags?

There is a limited amount of space for text. Only a maximum of 5 lines of text can be shown on the Roku app. If we add "Tags" as a field that would mean some of the other fields above would need to be empty of data or disabled as fields if they contain data. Since if everything is checked (and has data) including tags that would create more than 5 lines of text. Only the first 5 lines will appear regardless of how many fields you check. That might be one way to handle this. But we need some way to deal with it since you cannot have all those fields the web app has checked at one time on the Roku app and keep the scrolling mechanism from having a panic attack because it might not all fit on the screen depending on the image size chosen. A field will only eat up a line if it has data. If it is empty of data and checked it will not consume line space. The logic in the Roku app knows to consume that extra line space to extend/wrap the title (on all types) and/or subtitle (of tv episodes).

If you choose "Extra Large" image size on the web app in TV mode then enable all those fields you will see the panic attack when scrolling. It isn't possible to keep the image and all the text on screen at once. A compromise is made when initially landing to prefer the text. But when scrolling then it jumps to image centered rather than the text and this is the panic attack. It changes preference from text/image when centered scrolling and the rest is off the screen.

We will look at doing something. We will be adding tags as a field in the Roku app. I just cannot say when it will be pushed into a release. It will not be months away. Sooner than that.

 

Also.. about the overview. It may also be appearing but only when using the "list" view of the grid on the Roku app. There will be a list view on the Roku app at some time in the future too.

Edited February 7, 2025 by speechles

[CasaAtardecer 27]

On 2/7/2025 at 12:33 PM, speechles said:

or disabled as fields

Hi. Thanks for the reply. How about disabling 1 of the 3 rating fields available now in the Roku app? Does anyone use and require all 3 ratings? Really, 3 ratings? How about disabling the container field? Does anyone need to annotate their library view to know which items are avi, mp4, mov, mkv, etc. Is that useful to anyone? Users can’t even sort or search by container so what’s the purpose of this field in the Roku app? Finally, if you could just give Roku app users 1 of the commonly used groupings (i.e., collections OR genres OR tags) as 1 other item to select among the ever static folders, video, and photo menu headings, the power to narrow the focus of a user’s library would be GREATLY enhanced. Think about it: The content of the vast majority of Emby users has got to be media for TV, yet all the best tools and buttons and features are crammed into the mobile and web apps. No one’s watching their 4K epic Marvel selection using the mobile app, you know this is true. Thanks for giving me hope for the Roku app in the near future.

[speechles 2055]

3 hours ago, CasaAtardecer said:

Hi. Thanks for the reply. How about disabling 1 of the 3 rating fields available now in the Roku app? Does anyone use and require all 3 ratings? Really, 3 ratings? How about disabling the container field? Does anyone need to annotate their library view to know which items are avi, mp4, mov, mkv, etc. Is that useful to anyone? Users can’t even sort or search by container so what’s the purpose of this field in the Roku app? Finally, if you could just give Roku app users 1 of the commonly used groupings (i.e., collections OR genres OR tags) as 1 other item to select among the ever static folders, video, and photo menu headings, the power to narrow the focus of a user’s library would be GREATLY enhanced. Think about it: The content of the vast majority of Emby users has got to be media for TV, yet all the best tools and buttons and features are crammed into the mobile and web apps. No one’s watching their 4K epic Marvel selection using the mobile app, you know this is true. Thanks for giving me hope for the Roku app in the near future.

In your screenshot above you have disabled community rating, critic rating, parental rating, runtime, container and resolution. With all of those disabled if there was a "tags" field enabled and tag data was there it would show up. So would the "genres" and "studios" fields if they were enabled and the rest shown above were disabled. If those fields are enabled and have data they will show up in place of the disabled fields. We are working towards having these extra fields available for you to choose from.

It is about managing the fields to enable what you do want to see and disable those you do not want to see. But keep in mind, if you enabled too many we need to have some kind of sanity check to keep the information from overloading the screen and pushing any of it off the screen. This is where the 5 line limit comes into play.

Edited February 9, 2025 by speechles

[CasaAtardecer 27]

I am confused. Genres and Studios and Tags are package deal? It is all or nothing? I am simply requesting that EITHER Overview *OR* Tags *OR* something else useful be included in the SHOW FIELDS so a library of HOME VIDEOS+PHOTOS makes sense. Specifically because the TITLE is already truncated and limited. You mentioned a sanity check. Here's a sanity check: 3 Rating Options that are available right now? Really? Who needs 3 ratings? Who needs to show Container? When I talk about Genres OR Collections OR Tags in the MAIN MENU HEADER, it was in reference to the ever present, ever static FOLDERS, VIDEOS, PHOTOS that appear in the header region of the WEB UI, MOBILE UI, and the ROKU UI. Thanks again for the reply.

[speechles 2055]

12 minutes ago, CasaAtardecer said:

I am confused. Genres and Studios and Tags are package deal? It is all or nothing? I am simply requesting that EITHER Overview *OR* Tags *OR* something else useful be included in the SHOW FIELDS so a library of HOME VIDEOS+PHOTOS makes sense.

Apologies. This is work we are doing in progress. As I have already said in my comment above that would happen. But not just "tags". There are "Genres" and "Studios" that are in the web app as well. The "Overview" will not work on the Roku as a field since it must span/wrap to be useful. It must wait until we have finished the "list" view for the app. When using "list" view it will show the overview.

What do you mean by package deal? I do not understand. It will be exactly as it is on the web app. The overview will not be a field. Instead it will appear during "list" view on the grid of the Roku app. These are things coming in the future. I believe you will have exactly what you want but I am not the best at explaining it.

Edited February 9, 2025 by speechles

[speechles 2055]

To help you better understand. This is exactly what will show when "Titles, Year, and Tags" are checked in show fields. The rest are unchecked. The "3d" on the bottom is from tags.

Edited February 9, 2025 by speechles

[CasaAtardecer 27]

Thank you for the clarification. I understand what you mean about your work with Genres and Studios, which is not of a particular interest to me since I am presently using Emby for HOME VIDEOS and PHOTOS only. The OVERVIEW idea below the media item comes from BOTH the web and mobile UIs, in which OVERVIEW is absolutely in the SHOW FIELDS options there. Even though the SAME space limitations are present in BOTH the web and mobile UIs, both manage to allow for the OVERVIEW to be viewed (truncated, of course) below the media item. One naturally wonders why the Roku UI cannot have the same feature. As far as the "Titles, Year, and Tags" example you have shown to me, I completely understand what you are suggesting as a future dev for Roku UI. I am VERY familiar with it already, since it is already a feature of the SHOW FIELDS 3-dot menu in BOTH the web and mobile UIs. As far as the list view (versus the grid view) that you are working on. I get that it is being developed as some sort of table view, with OVERVIEW included to allow for a description (like a synopsis or plot summary for a movie). I tried the table list view mode in the web UI and it pushed content out of the viewable area, including the buttons to change it back to grid view. It was fairly hideous. I don't think I'll be using it. I will continue to try to plead for OVERVIEW to be one of the available SHOW FIELDS 3-dot menu options in the Roku UI that are already available features of the web and mobile UIs, I use them A LOT. Thanks again.  

[speechles 2055]

I cannot imagine that can look good with normal items. Not saying it isn't possible. I agree if you manually edit the overview for each Photo view to something short it can work. This is also true with tags. If there aren't an abundance of overly longs tags. It looks like the web app cuts this off at the first 2 tags. We can do that on the Roku. But it is hard to wrap my head around the overview being on normal grid items.

Because... the majority of the overviews are going to be so much information, that displaying just the first bits from the front is going to be sorely lacking. This is why I suggested it was best to use on the list view. This list view can easily fit the long overviews. It is very difficult for me to see a situation where the overview visible on a grid item would be worth it with such a limited display area.

Can you show us a screenshot of your overview showing on photos from the grid of the web app? That way I can better understand how this can be useful for more than just photos. Thank you.

Edited February 9, 2025 by speechles

[CasaAtardecer 27]

Hello again. You're the first dev I've encountered that seems really engaged in the notion of improving the Roku UI, so I am grateful for that and will be as helpful to answer your questions as you have been to answer mine. It is perfectly reasonable to assume that a long-text field like OVERVIEW lends itself to a movie synopsis or plot summary to describe a film in detail when one is browsing a lobby poster or just a movie's title.

I agree with you that a grid view of movie lobby posters is NOT the place for lengthy movie synopses or plot summaries to appear below the lobby poster, especially given that the OVERVIEW is truncated to 3 lines of text, whose number of visible characters are dictated by the grid image size. That is why movies have TAGLINES: Short caption-like descriptions when people don't WANT to know the plot.

That being said, BOTH the web UI and the mobile UI already permit OVERVIEW as a SHOW FIELD option in the GRID view, as well as A LOT of other SHOW FIELD options in the GRID view from which users may select. Oddly, TAGLINE is not a SHOW FIELD option in the Roku app, despite its obvious utility for streaming movie watchers.

Additionally, TAGLINE and OVERVIEW are not searchable nor linking fields in any of the UIs, whereas TITLE, TAG, or GENRE fields are searchable and the latter two are also linkable (again TAGS are truncated to the first two TAGS regardless of grid view image size, as you have pointed out).

And yet, all these features named above and much more are available NOW in the web and mobile UI SHOW FIELDS options in GRID view, notwithstanding their reasonableness, or utility, or space limitations, or other dev tests of usefulness. And they are NOT available in the Roku UI, where they would have the greatest utility since a TV is where you want to watch your movies. Again, I am not using Emby to stream movies, so my desire for these SHOW FIELDS options is not to improve my movie watching experience.

As many other users have opined in the past in their feature requests and development desires, the OVERVIEW is the best candidate to be used as a PHOTO CAPTION in GRID view that can tell the Emby TV app user just a little bit more about the PHOTO they might be viewing without having to use its truncated TITLE. Media like photos are uniquely different from movies in several significant ways: 1) a photo is a single image that doesn't require a lengthy plot summary or synopsis to explain its content, 2) a photo often times only requires a very short CAPTION to describe facts like the time and place that the photo was taken, 3) a photo doesn't tend to require SHOW FIELD options such as Genre, Studio, Runtime, or THREE different rating options, and yet many of these are available NOW through in the Roku app, 4) a collection or album of photos doesn't really make much sense to have the media content in a LIST view, even with the option of having the photo OVERVIEW displayed, and 5) a collection or album of photos is definitively presented in a GRID view.

I have included an example of a photo from the web UI that shows the OVERVIEW as a PHOTO CAPTION. Unfortunately, I don't have examples of movies nor can I demonstrate the utility of TAGLINE in the web or mobile UI because, despite it being listed in SHOW FIELDS for grid view, it does not actually function.

I hope that I have answered your questions with the same attention to detail as you have answered mine. Best regards, and many thanks.

[speechles 2055]

@CasaAtardecerPlease give us a little bit of time and you can re-evaluate the Roku app again very soon after we make a few changes. You have a very valid use case. Please stay tuned.

[CasaAtardecer 27]

Thank you, friend. Your reply and confirmation of utility improvements is exciting news and I'm very grateful to the dev team for its willingness to evaluate user feedback. I will be happy to participate in the re-evaluation of the Roku app whenever your planned programming edits are published. Since you mentioned your work on the LIST VIEW modes, I revisited them in the all the UIs and find them very problematic. Whereas a LIST's horizontal or landscape orientation does lend itself to providing a single record's data points on a single line, in the same way that a database or spreadsheet table contains a single record per row, the content of the data points are hugely impactful on the width of the table. At present, the LIST VIEW modes push the data points beyond a reasonable or comfortable display area and really undermines its utility. Professionally, I'm a spreadsheet and relational database user and developer, and a significant advantage of presenting data points in a table view is its ability to sort the rows by column headings. As an organization tool, it is the superior method; however, as a media library presentation tool, I am not convinced that it is worth developing further. Another significant advantage of a table view is the ability to hide/show columns, so I really hope that your work on LIST VIEW mode will permit hide/show columns, while also allowing the user to order the columns so the metadata points can be ordered in a way that give the table view the greatest utility for all users. Thank you again for your encouraging news and hard work. Cheers.

[visproduction 315]

I use all three ratings, year, duration and resolution and I like them.  If they were removed from any Emby version, I would be disappointed. 

When you test to see what breaks a page, you need to make the icons as large as possible and turn on all the options and force the use of an extra long title.  Nothin should get cut off or overlap and ideally at least two rows should be viewable on whatever the lowest expected resolution.  For TV's this probably does not cause any issue.  They are mostly 16:9, but some may still have 720P.  If any of these tests fail, it would be considered a bug that either needs to be fixed or agreed to be ignored.

As far as who likes what, the forum is setup to try to get that answer.  One person saying they don't like extra ratings is one vote for that. Other users may have a different opinion.

[speechles 2055]

There is not any fields removed. This is about adding all the fields the web app has. Then depending on how the user enables or disables these fields can lead to something like below.

 

The only fields left checkmarked are the tagline and overview. This is how "Extra Large" looks. The text gets to span more width using extra large.

Rest assured everything will stay the way it presently is. The only thing are new additions that will enhance the display for users that wish other fields to show. The order the fields appear on the checklist is how they appear on screen. If fields above are unchecked and fields lower are checked you can get the 5 lines you wish to show up.

 

  

57 minutes ago, visproduction said:

When you test to see what breaks a page, you need to make the icons as large as possible and turn on all the options and force the use of an extra long title.  Nothin should get cut off or overlap and ideally at least two rows should be viewable on whatever the lowest expected resolution.  For TV's this probably does not cause any issue.  They are mostly 16:9, but some may still have 720P.  If any of these tests fail, it would be considered a bug that either needs to be fixed or agreed to be ignored.

We test in both 1080P and 720P on the Roku. We have logic to determine the resolution the user is in and renders correctly for each resolution. Depending on the shapes of the images we also have logic which determines the best format type (primary) to display the grid with. You can also change the format type if you want something different as an image. There is also logic to determine how many items per row will show on a grid depending on your image size and format type chosen. There is logic to determine the centering as you scroll the page and automatically applied as you scroll. All of this is done to allow us to use these oversized images. If you ever spot any alignment issues with any media types or shapes getting images or text cut off please let us know. We try our best to never have these types of display issues occur in the hands of users but you never know.

Edited February 11, 2025 by speechles

[CasaAtardecer 27]

59 minutes ago, speechles said:

The only fields left checkmarked are the tagline and overview.

Hello again. Short feedback: Setting web and mobile UIs to extra-large and checking only TAGLINE and OVERVIEW metadata in the SHOW FIELDS does not achieve the same results for me. As you already know, TAGLINE isn't yet available in the Roku UI. Interestingly, TAGLINE does NOT appear in the web or mobile UI when PRIMARY, BANNER, DISC, or LOGO image view are selected; however, TAGLINE does appear in the web and mobile UI when THUMB image view is selected, and then the TAGLINE appears superimposed justified LEFT over the bottom left corner of the THUMB image and the OVERVIEW is LEFT justified below that. I didn't try LIST or TABLE views because your example using HP EP4 above is clearly not in LIST or TABLE view. Try as I might, I could not achieve the same result as your example, or perhaps your example is a LAB TEST. I am currently using your BETA version. Could that account for the discrepancies, do you think? Thank you again for hearing your audience. Cheers.

CORRECTION: TAGLINE does NOT appear in any case above. What I thought was the TAGLINE in THUMB view turns out to be TITLE superimposed on the left bottom corner of the THUMB image. -Ta.

Edited February 11, 2025 by CasaAtardecer

[speechles 2055]

26 minutes ago, CasaAtardecer said:

Hello again. Short feedback: Setting web and mobile UIs to extra-large and checking only TAGLINE and OVERVIEW metadata in the SHOW FIELDS does not achieve the same results for me. As you already know, TAGLINE isn't yet available in the Roku UI. Interestingly, TAGLINE does NOT appear in the web or mobile UI when PRIMARY, BANNER, DISC, or LOGO image view are selected; however, TAGLINE does appear in the web and mobile UI when THUMB image view is selected, and then the TAGLINE appears superimposed justified LEFT over the bottom left corner of the THUMB image and the OVERVIEW is LEFT justified below that. I didn't try LIST or TABLE views because your example using HP EP4 above is clearly not in LIST or TABLE view. Try as I might, I could not achieve the same result as your example, or perhaps your example is a LAB TEST. I am currently using your BETA version. Could that account for the discrepancies, do you think? Thank you again for hearing your audience. Cheers.

The image of Harry Potter I showed above was when using the Roku using our present DEV version in testing. We are currently in development of exactly the feature you are requesting with extra fields on the grid. We were already in the process of this task before you asked. But your asking about it has now sped things up a little bit to get everything included. The tagline/overview was not going to make it in and would've been cut if you had not brought up this topic. But you have convinced us of the usefulness of this. Tagline and overview will be coming to the Roku because of you.

The Roku has some advantages over the web app since it must always run in TV mode. You need to make sure you have the web app set in TV mode to get the same comparison. Then you should see similar behavior on things. Everything will be close to working the same. One client may have more features than another because as things evolve each client gets better. The main goal is to at least match the web app which the Roku was not doing. Thank you for being part of this development process.

 

This is the web app in TV mode using "Extra Large" images with both "Taglines" and "Overview" selected. The fact the web app expands the image for focus doesn't help the text area at all.

The web app isn't showing the tagline regardless of which screen or type. It just shows an empty space with just tagline selected. Which is odd.

On the Roku all of this is working correctly with any sizes you choose. Mainly because it has to or the entire display will go wonky.

 

Edited February 11, 2025 by speechles

[CasaAtardecer 27]

I am very grateful. On behalf of Roku app users everywhere, I THANK YOU! Although my primary utility of Emby is for Home Video+Photo, porting the fields from the web and mobile UI to Roku is going to explode everyone's appreciation of the power of Emby via the Roku app. On a side note: I would have GLADLY paid the full-length video playback fee charged for the mobile UI in order to use the full-length video playback fee on the Roku UI. As I've mentioned a lot, the TV is where the bulk of your audience is watching their media content. 

Personally, my home video and photo viewing experience will be HUGELY enhanced with the ported SHOW FIELD options. While the Roku UI is going to become even more remote-control usage heavy, that is an insignificant price to pay for the bonus convenience of bring the clickable, linkable SHOW FIELDS to the TV screen!

Thank you again for your work. I do something similar professionally, so I get the intricacy and challenges of bringing a marketable, useful, and beautiful tool to the users.  

[CasaAtardecer 27]

2 hours ago, visproduction said:

I use all three ratings

Hello, fellow Emby user. As someone whose content doesn't rely upon ratings metadata, but as someone who is considering it, perhaps you would be willing to share with me how the three available ratings are useful to you. I have not been able to get my head wrapped around three different metadata fields to help me to know when a movie is rated G, PG-13, R, etc.

Also, please allow me to echo the dev team's comment about their work goals in ADDING features and not DELETING features. All the previous talk from before about disabling SHOW FIELDS was purely a misunderstanding of the difference between CHECKING/UNCHECKING a metadata field and how us end-users can custom build our GRID views with a vertical limit of 5-lines and a horizontal limit of text characters that depending upon the size of the image view you prefer.