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

[CasaAtardecer 27]

51 minutes ago, speechles said:

It just shows an empty space with just tagline selected

Hi. That's really odd. Often times, when I have experienced something not "printing" to the screen, regardless of the html dictating that it do so, I have found something amiss in my css that is "hiding" the html with a zero-height line or a z-order code issue or something like that. Is the basis of the web and mobile app using anything similar to Drupal? The view modules in Drupal are extremely powerful, but can produce funny results when building a GRID TABLE of items that might be pulling from different database tables whose image source fields so not have the same image settings. Could anything similar to this be happening with your DEV example? Is the far right image being sourced from someplace other than to two left images?

[speechles 2055]

4 hours ago, CasaAtardecer said:

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!

 

Okay. When using TV Mode, those fields are not clickable/linkable directly. Using those fields would require a context menu you can access when you press a button when focused on the item that would then contain an action to do something with any of those fields. The Roku does not have a context menu of any kind yet. But as more users ask for things which require the context menu it becomes clear that eventually there will be a context menu for the grid.  We can deal with that once we get past this hurdle.

At the moment lets get all the same fields the web app has and get them onto the Roku.

Both of the images below are using "Extra Large" with the "Title, Tags, Genres, Studios" fields checked.

The present web app in TV mode produces this screen. This is an in focus item.

 

The current DEV version of the Roku app produces this screen. This is an in focus item.

 

Very very close now in being identical with respect to what is shown on screen. The Roku loses screen real estate 65 pixels to the overhang at the top of screen. The web app has the entire screen to flow.  There is very little difference between the two.

Edited February 12, 2025 by speechles

[CasaAtardecer 27]

12 minutes ago, speechles said:

The Roku loses screen real estate 65 pixels to the overhang at the top of screen

Hello. That's just gorgeous! It is exciting to see your progress and it looks amazing!

It is completely understandable that context menus are required for clickable/linkable enabled SHOW FIELDS items and that will just have to wait a minute. In the absence of a context menu, the header overhang is especially useful to actively filter the display and appears that it can serve all the functions of any contextual menu in most regards. Are the header overhang items pre-named and locked in a programmed order? If so, will one of the ">" items off to the right of the current display be a PHOTOS media filter like Roku has now, or is that going away? It is noticeable too that FOLDERS is absent from the header overhang, which I personally am GLAD to see is gone. There's a great many reasons that users might wish to navigate their media content folder organization; however, that is a task that I imagine most people would perform "offline" in their computer's OS prior to publishing their libraries. As a user that has all content organized by year, month, and date in my folders, navigating them is a nightmare because it is often impossible to recall the date of a home video or photo.

The web and mobile UIs allow users to designate their preferred default media collection and whether it initially displays user COLLECTIONS, GENRES, TAGS, etc. Will that also be a feature that is being ported to the Roku UI? Most movie media streaming user will undoubtedly want to see their GENRES or COLLECTIONS as their default media library and view mode; however, as a Home Video+Photo user, I've elected to default to TAGS because all my content is tagged into groups by people, places, events, things, etc.; for example, all my Videos and Photos of family and friends' birthdays are tagged with BIRTHDAY which can be filtered further by other tags to get to the content that any of my family and friends want to view.

Thank you for sharing with me and the forum a glimpse of what's to come!

[speechles 2055]

27 minutes ago, CasaAtardecer said:

The web and mobile UIs allow users to designate their preferred default media collection and whether it initially displays user COLLECTIONS, GENRES, TAGS, etc. Will that also be a feature that is being ported to the Roku UI?

Yes. You can already do this on the Roku. Navigate to the library you wish to set a default. Then press the * button on your Roku remote.

Choose "Set Default tab" on the menu

 

For example on my Movies library when I do this the choices above are possible.

Depending on library type these might changes. But you should be able to do the same thing as the web app as far as setting a default landing tab when opening a library.

 

This is mostly why we have no context menu yet. The * we already use to access the default landing tab and as a shortcut to access the app settings. There is still discussion about that going on. But we will figure that out.

[CasaAtardecer 27]

26 minutes ago, speechles said:

Depending on library type these might change

Hello friend. Thank you for sharing the star-button SET DEFAULT TAB setting in Roku. The Home Video+Photo library type in the current Roku UI displays FOLDERS, VIDEOS, and PHOTOS only in the header overhang and I do indeed yearn for the COLLECTIONS and the TAGS header overhang in the Roku header (like those offered with the Movie library type), but realize that this thread is about bringing the Roku app into greater consistency with the web and mobile UIs and not specifically about generating consistency across different library types (heavy sigh). But then thinking about it again, the web and mobile UIs for my Home Video+Photo library type DO INDEED have those header overhang menu items, except MOVIES is renamed as VIDEOS, it includes PHOTOS, does not include SUGGESTIONS, but appears to have the rest of the items. Is it too much to anticipate and hope that the Home Video+Photo library type header overhang items already in the web and mobile UIs are ALSO being ported over to the Roku app as well as all the other SHOW FIELDS, like TAGS and OVERVIEW? If so, that just about sends me totally over the moon! Thanks again for the star-button pro-tip and the peek at the future. Ta.

[visproduction 315]

19 hours ago, CasaAtardecer said:

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.

Good question.  The star is rating from imdb members, which is the public.  They tend to rate higher, the movies that are popular with the average person and more recently released.  They tend to have lower rating for lesser known films from many years ago.

The Tomato rating is from Rottentomatos green and flattened until it reaches 60% and then becomes a ripe tomatoe.  This is the ratings only from "professional" critics, whose job is to know more about the history of film and TV and write published reviews.  They tend to notice that a film from the 40's or 50's was a classic and the rate more highly films that have good plots, story lines and character development and not have a lot of errors.

The final lettered rating G, PG-13, R... are more US government type of regulated agreement to try to help users and especially parents from deciding what type of rating that includes sex, particular violence, adult themes, story lines that are appropriate to children under 12, youth, 13 to 18, or adults and tell adults some info about if they are interested in seeing adult themes or not in a film.

Hope that helps. 

[CasaAtardecer 27]

1 hour ago, visproduction said:

Hope that helps. 

Hello. Yes, indeed, your thoughtful explanation does help and I can appreciate the difference between the three rating systems. My media content is mostly home video and photos, which I am anticipating streaming to TV using the more fully fleshed out Roku UI currently under development. For me, grouping and organizing similar themed content is driven almost entirely by TAGS which annotate people, places, events, subjects, etc. A major characteristic of a photo album is CAPTIONS, which I intend to create using Emby's strategically edited OVERVIEW text (strategic because of the vertical 5-line limit and the horizontal text character limit that varies depending upon media item image size). Metadata such as ratings, studios, suggestions, genres, and other information specific to movies seems to have taken precedent in development, naturally, since the great bulk of Emby users must be streaming library content filled with movies. It is so surprising and delightful that Emby devs are committed to bringing greater utility to the Roku UI, when one considers their audience for TV streaming. Ta.

[Neminem 1516]

If you want all that, I would using this for home videos and pictures.

immich-app/immich: High performance self-hosted photo and video management solution.

Emby is years away from what you want.

Edited February 12, 2025 by Neminem

[CasaAtardecer 27]

17 minutes ago, Neminem said:

Emby is years away from what you want.

Hello. Thank you for your recommendation. I am familiar with Immich as a photo management tool. I don't think Emby is trying to be a photo management tool; however, their devs are committed to TV streaming via the Roku UI, which is precisely what I want for my libraries. Immich, although highly developed as a photo library management tool, does not have any TV streaming apps that I am aware of. Thanks again for your suggestion.

[CasaAtardecer 27]

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

It will not be months away. Sooner than that.

Good morning friend. How are you faring? Have you any fresh screenshots of your Roku app UI reconciliation progress that you would be willing to post? It is really exciting to fantasize about having the same web and mobile UI experience on the TV via Roku! Have a wonderful day. Cheers.

[speechles 2055]

Display settings with show fields button highlighted

 

 

 

When all fields are removed only the images are shown and the text is shown at the very top with titles and some of the information about the media.

 

I am doing well. Thank you.

The images above are from the next build which will be pushed to Roku Beta participants to bug test soon and shortly after that pushed to the Roku store for everyone. Thank you as well for the wonderful day so far. I like reading that people are interested in the work we do to provide them with their requests. It is a process. Thank you for being part of it.

Edited February 25, 2025 by speechles

[CasaAtardecer 27]

54 minutes ago, speechles said:

Roku Beta participants to bug test soon

Woohoo! That looks amazing! The new Roku TV app is going to change the game! With gratitude and eagerness, I volunteer to share my personal experience with the beta roll out. Although my Emby libraries are exclusively home video/photo now and my primary desire is to show the TAGS and OVERVIEW fields with the media image on my TV, I will happily add to my library a few commercial movies and music albums, so I can fully play with your new beta Roku app and provide details about my experience. I appreciate your very strong commitment to improving and enhancing the Emby UI experience on the TV, as well as your openness to the users experiences in these forums. Thank you all. Cheers!

[CasaAtardecer 27]

On 2/25/2025 at 11:00 AM, speechles said:

Thank you for being part of it.

Good morning, friend. I hope this message finds you going well. I just thought that I would go ahead and circle back with you on your progress with the latest Beta release of Emby Server. My Beta version at present is 4.9.0.35-72409035. When you release the Beta version you're working on now, will I receive a notification of an available update via my Synology NAS? Or should I go through the Roku channel store for the Beta version? I'm a little bit confused about when and how I can participate in the latest Beta version evaluation period and am so excited to try it out!

[Luke 42077]

2 hours ago, CasaAtardecer said:

Good morning, friend. I hope this message finds you going well. I just thought that I would go ahead and circle back with you on your progress with the latest Beta release of Emby Server. My Beta version at present is 4.9.0.35-72409035. When you release the Beta version you're working on now, will I receive a notification of an available update via my Synology NAS? Or should I go through the Roku channel store for the Beta version? I'm a little bit confused about when and how I can participate in the latest Beta version evaluation period and am so excited to try it out!

 

[CasaAtardecer 27]

On 1/20/2025 at 3:50 PM, CasaAtardecer said:

REQUEST: Please add OVERVIEW to the SHOW FIELDS 3-dot options.

Hello friend,

This request seemed like the impossible dream 3 months ago, but look what has happened since!

The Roku UI is more fully functional now than ever. The value and utility of the Roku Emby app has become huge and is distinctly unique among its peers.

IMO, Emby is becoming far superior to the smart TV apps offered by Plex, Jellyfin, Roku, or mobile casting Google Photos or Synology Photos, all of which I tried to adapt to a private server, but all of which had fatal flaws.

I am looking forward to continuing to participate in the process of the project.

Cheers! Ta!