The interfaces are a bit basic, sure, but everything seems to be 2 clicks away at most, and the design language is pretty clear… What’s your issues exactly?
I sometimes wish for a bit more variety in the android TV interface (maybe a large “recently added” carousel that also shows short descriptions, or something), but I’ve never had anyone have any issues navigating and using the UI.
Actually no I do actually have a real complaint. Not having compact lists without tiles that don’t have labels.
A user should be able to open a folder or sub-library or section, and see many things and glean information from that without relying on missing scraped covers or FUCK scrolling text. Big labels where you can only see like ten characters and it has to scroll to see the entire thing makes me want to actually rage even just thinking about it. Or like in jellyfin, only seeing ONE text title (that you’re selecting) at a time. Jesus fucking Christ. It’s like whoever designed the interface was just trying to copy Plex or Netflix. God. I didn’t think you could design things worse than Plex, yet… There it is.
These designs rely on all of the same deeply flawed and limited principles: list of scrolling tiles of pictures and you click on one and it shows you details. Like come on. That’s how people’s brains work when they want to watch a movie? Give me some genre tags or era tags or searches based on related stuff. The actors/directors type stuff is awesome - more of that. Or like give me lists by studio or curated top lists that editors or other users make. “In 1999, these were the top grossing movies in theaters” or “all movies that inspired gta vice city” or “the Arnold extended universe” or “all the Ghibli movies”. Stuff like that. Stuff how people ACTUALLY think. That data is out there.
Like. This is piracy, too, not Netflix. We can actually have good lists that aren’t limited by licence, or limited even by what is currently available. We can have pages and lists of actual just suggestions or like “uncollected” because in this day and age, you can literally just go get it.
I think the modern, standard media server interface is fine. It checks the boxes, it has tags, and it has pictures. For casual movie and live action series, this is absolutely fine.
But, imagine, for a moment, that a person downloads fansubbed anime, sometimes multiple versions from different groups. Some hardsubbed, some softsubbed. Maybe you have an old dvd source version and a modern 1080p bluray version. Maybe a fansub version and then a Funimation version and then a laserdisc version.
This is a little esoteric and fringe case at that. But I think if you’re going to design an index and databaser with details and scraping, it should work for pirated things too, while keeping track of the meta release info, too.
Like I want to know who subbed it, what the source is, the details of the source, etc.
Someone tried to watch Inuyasha recently, and what a clusterfuck of revisionism and weird edits and stuff. The best version they liked is like 240p, and has iffy subs and was released in 2002. But it has all the original music, commercial spots, and the translations, while grammatically not great, are way more accurate because the translator didn’t try to change the personality of the characters, so it’s more authentic and accurate.
Also, the pack acquired seems to be of a bunch of different groups since, for whatever reason, nobody has all of the original raws and contiguously released all of it.
Considering all of this, the designs of all of the major interfaces and databases totally go out the window, and a user is once again reduced to using basically a file browser and player, and getting metadata manually from websites like IMDb.
I’m well aware this is absolutely not popular, even in anime circles. Which is why I can’t truly complain in any capacity and my opinion is essentially invalid. But, I still want it. I still wish there was a better way. And, while I’m in a tiny minority, here, I’m sure there are other people like me.
You can make your own if you know how to fuck with css
Alternatively bc I agree that jellyfin clients are weak you can just use kodi as a client, which also looks horrendous by default, but has 20+ years of themes
I minimise the time spent in that interface and launch whatever I wanna see as fast as possible. I assume you mean the androidTV interface right? The web and android interface is decent.
Yeah but how do you make the jellyfin interface not ass?
The interfaces are a bit basic, sure, but everything seems to be 2 clicks away at most, and the design language is pretty clear… What’s your issues exactly?
I sometimes wish for a bit more variety in the android TV interface (maybe a large “recently added” carousel that also shows short descriptions, or something), but I’ve never had anyone have any issues navigating and using the UI.
Boring, but functional.
Actually no I do actually have a real complaint. Not having compact lists without tiles that don’t have labels.
A user should be able to open a folder or sub-library or section, and see many things and glean information from that without relying on missing scraped covers or FUCK scrolling text. Big labels where you can only see like ten characters and it has to scroll to see the entire thing makes me want to actually rage even just thinking about it. Or like in jellyfin, only seeing ONE text title (that you’re selecting) at a time. Jesus fucking Christ. It’s like whoever designed the interface was just trying to copy Plex or Netflix. God. I didn’t think you could design things worse than Plex, yet… There it is.
These designs rely on all of the same deeply flawed and limited principles: list of scrolling tiles of pictures and you click on one and it shows you details. Like come on. That’s how people’s brains work when they want to watch a movie? Give me some genre tags or era tags or searches based on related stuff. The actors/directors type stuff is awesome - more of that. Or like give me lists by studio or curated top lists that editors or other users make. “In 1999, these were the top grossing movies in theaters” or “all movies that inspired gta vice city” or “the Arnold extended universe” or “all the Ghibli movies”. Stuff like that. Stuff how people ACTUALLY think. That data is out there.
Like. This is piracy, too, not Netflix. We can actually have good lists that aren’t limited by licence, or limited even by what is currently available. We can have pages and lists of actual just suggestions or like “uncollected” because in this day and age, you can literally just go get it.
\Rant
You can change the library view to a list
I think the modern, standard media server interface is fine. It checks the boxes, it has tags, and it has pictures. For casual movie and live action series, this is absolutely fine.
But, imagine, for a moment, that a person downloads fansubbed anime, sometimes multiple versions from different groups. Some hardsubbed, some softsubbed. Maybe you have an old dvd source version and a modern 1080p bluray version. Maybe a fansub version and then a Funimation version and then a laserdisc version.
Then, imagine you want to see the related things and make sure to watch them in order https://anidb.net/anime/4046/relation/graph
This is a little esoteric and fringe case at that. But I think if you’re going to design an index and databaser with details and scraping, it should work for pirated things too, while keeping track of the meta release info, too.
Like I want to know who subbed it, what the source is, the details of the source, etc.
Someone tried to watch Inuyasha recently, and what a clusterfuck of revisionism and weird edits and stuff. The best version they liked is like 240p, and has iffy subs and was released in 2002. But it has all the original music, commercial spots, and the translations, while grammatically not great, are way more accurate because the translator didn’t try to change the personality of the characters, so it’s more authentic and accurate.
Also, the pack acquired seems to be of a bunch of different groups since, for whatever reason, nobody has all of the original raws and contiguously released all of it.
Considering all of this, the designs of all of the major interfaces and databases totally go out the window, and a user is once again reduced to using basically a file browser and player, and getting metadata manually from websites like IMDb.
I’m well aware this is absolutely not popular, even in anime circles. Which is why I can’t truly complain in any capacity and my opinion is essentially invalid. But, I still want it. I still wish there was a better way. And, while I’m in a tiny minority, here, I’m sure there are other people like me.
I use this theme https://github.com/lscambo13/ElegantFin
I’m glad that works for you, but I hate that. Thank you very much for your response, though.
You can make your own if you know how to fuck with css
Alternatively bc I agree that jellyfin clients are weak you can just use kodi as a client, which also looks horrendous by default, but has 20+ years of themes
I minimise the time spent in that interface and launch whatever I wanna see as fast as possible. I assume you mean the androidTV interface right? The web and android interface is decent.