Infuse 7 - new design, new problems

So this will be a bit of a ramble regarding the current state of Infuse and some suggestions that I believe could lead to be a better experience. I’ve noted some of these things before but I figured that I should go ahead and put them all in a post. Note: I’ll be referencing the Apple TV app a lot because I feel that Infuse already pulls a lot of good UI features from there, and it could honestly pull a lot more from it.

Firstly, I believe that Infuse has fallen behind in regards to algorithmically-created “smart” features such as smart suggestions to suggest movies and shows to the user based on their previously watched media. This could be used throughout the app of course, but will likely feel right at home in its own “Watch Now” tab similar to the TV app. Heck, I wouldn’t mind a straight copy of the TV apps version of this. Basically a smart tab with different rows of suggestions, collections, movie showcases, and general quick-access buttons.

Moving along the bottom tabs of the app, I’d suggest only a small change to the search tab. Currently, it’s rather bland so I believe a simple fix would be to move the beatiful icons when you tap on “By Genre,” “By Rating,” etc. to the main search screen for quick access and possibly place them intelligently and dynamically. The "All Movies and “All TV Shows” buttons on this page can likely be moved to the previous “Watch Now” page at the very top similar to the TV app.

Moving along, the “Files” tab can honestly be removed as it can already be accessed through the settings. Those of us with media servers such as Jellyfin have little to no use for this after initial setup and it just seems out of place, especially if you have other users on your server. I suggest replacing this with a “Library” tab where you can simply browse through your entire library in similar fashion to the main tab we have today.

All of this including all the smaller features that I’ve seen users clamor for since Infuse 7 came out would be great. Better handling of data surrounding actors (pictures, and being able to tap on them to view other movies), possibly a slight redesign of the video player, I see no reason why a big popup needs to come up and stop your media when you decide to turn on/off subtitles, for example. Maybe relegate the player gestures to the edges of the screen with a visible bar similar to Netflix’s brightness control. When tapping on a show under “All TV Shows” there should be a description page with a prominent poster similar to movies and a drop-down to simply choose the season you want to watch similar to basically any streaming service instead of having to tap a show > tap a season like it currently is. Better description data for movies and shows for easier discovery of content for users on your server, if applicable. An easy “play next/continue watching” button like I’ve seen suggested before. Support for Live TV would be huge as well, can likely implement TV Everywhere support so users with cable or a supported TV service can watch media in one place (honestly just copy the Channels app, I’d happily pay monthly on top of my lifetime sub for DVR functionality).

Lastly, not sure if it’s just me, but tapping on a show under “recently added” on the main page takes you to a page with some random episodes from that show with no rhyme or reason as to what episodes show up (I’ve added the most recent episode of a currently airing show only for the recently added page for that show to show only episodes 2 and 6, neither of such was the most recent).

In short, just copy the TV app and hire that guy that made the Infuse 7 concept a few months back, it would be greatly appreciated.

:joy: tough crowd lmao

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Just to add a bit of additional feedback, I also strongly dislike that the episode list is now on a separate “screen” (need to scroll down to view). This is the first time I immediately wanted to revert from an update.

My request would be users be given an option between the new design and the previous. I really, really dislike that extra step of needing to scroll down to view episode lists.

EDIT: I just went back to directly compare the Infuse 7 vs Infuse 6 episode lists and (in my opinion of course) Infuse 6 is SO much better. As a long time Infuse user (since the original Apple TV and Seas0nPass days), I implore you to please give us the option to switch back.

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In short, and most important - for whatever Infuse team adds to UI or functionality, there need to be an option to turn that thing off.

At least there are options to get rid of all the clutter on the home screen, but initially, it was hidden and I needed help here to disable all useless info around my list of favourites. Now same comes to the file description before viewing. Sure, if you want, have that pointless preview image from a random frame, but have it optional. The same suppose to go for flattening folders. If I want a video in a root folder I place it in a root folder and when I want a single video in a folder I place it there. Don’t decide that you - Infuse designer, know better what I want - you do not !!!

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I have a problem with infuse 7 on Apple TV, the rearrange option of the main menu is great but when I moved the Movies and TV shows to an other place I couldn’t get the back in the favorites section, also the favorites section displays in a different way than the others so it would be great if what goes in the favorite section can also go out of it, it would be duplicated one in favorites and one outside of it , also should be able choose what goes in the favorite section.

Long time lifetime PRO user here, but I never felt I needed to post before. Today I had to sign up because this new ATV UI is a downgrade for usability.

Biggest problems are already discussed. What I haven’t seen mentioned are the multiple clicks it takes to “delete” an episode. I have to scroll over and then down from PLAY to get to EDIT, then click to select, then scroll down to DELETE, click to select, then scroll to confirm my choice and click to select again.

How about adding an option in preferences to allow long pressing the play button to bring up a delete screen? Infuse is a great app, but this pretty new UI is a downgrade for usability.

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I am not sure how properly submit a bug report, so I start here, and someone can point me in the right direction.

This is regarding that weird big image when you open episode details.

Based on my observation, this is a combination of bad design, lazy coding and bad or ignored testing. For example, I will use the show “The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent”, which currently has 6 episodes.

In this example, all episodes are located in the folder “The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent”, and no extra files are added.

  • if all episodes named like - [ASW] Seijo no Maryoku was Bannou desu - S01E01 [1080p HEVC].mkv, then no matter how many episodes you have, Infuse (6 or 7) will flatten the whole folder where all episodes are located. The big image here displays a random frame from each episode.
  • if at least one episode named like - [ASW] Seijo no Maryoku was Bannou desu - 05 [1080p HEVC].mkv, then Infuse keep all episodes in the folder (no flattening) but still display a random frame for each files big image.
  • if all episodes named like - Seijo.no.Maryoku.wa.Bannou.desu.S01E01.1080p.HEVC.mkv, then Infuse will automatically find the Show icon for the folder, descriptions for all episodes (with a bug, where if the description for the episode is not available, Infuse will place show description instead) and one big image for all episodes, that makes more sense then the random frame from each episode.

One big image for the whole show looks more reasonable; however, all file renaming to get rid of the custom frames is not practical. As one of the solutions, I would suggest creating a special file in the folder with video files with a description for custom file names, so Infuse could go with the last approach and autodetect show with a single image using custom file names. I know that it is possible to edit Metadata by hand for each show, but that is not practical if you have multiple shows. But also, after editing metadata, Infuse creates an extra folder icon between the Show folder and actual files, which is not nice. And that system is also bugged because if you force the folder to take local metadata and then inside the folder try to edit metadata to take online one, Infuse go crazy.

However, Infuse online Metadata Fetching place lacks information. It could not find “Needless” Anime or TV Show “Space Above and Beyond”, so autodetect any videos might be not so practical and better to have the option to disable top image completely.

I like the big image on the top but I wish it was a bit smaller so we could also see the thumbnails of the episodes right from the start instead of scrolling. Also, would be nice to be able to turn off the option of seeing the name file in the bottom of the screen. I think it adds unnecessary info (for me) that only makes it more crowded.

It feels that Firecore thought it more important to keep as much of the poster unobscured as possible. But the poster is cosmetic. Makes more sense to move the existing controls up (including the episode lists) for more convenient access.

-Alan

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Quick update here.

We’ve had a lot of positive feedback on the new ATV design in Infuse 7, but realize people use Infuse in many different ways and this new style is not for everyone.

Over the past few days we’ve been working to digest much of your feedback (thank you!) and working through a number of ideas. We have a plan which I believe will address most of the concerns which have been brought up, while keeping things looking fresh and modern.

We are targeting the 7.0.3 update to have these changes available, and with any luck will have some visuals to share within the next few days.

Stay tuned. :slight_smile:

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Thanks James! Appreciate you guys always being open to feedback and how transparent you are. One of the reasons I’m such a huge fan of Infuse! :smiley:

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Wow, thanks for looking into this UI issue. I look forward to the update!

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Listmode for mobile devices? :kissing_heart:

5 posts were split to a new topic: Choose custom genre artwork

Can be Option to customize media and homescreen fanart separately, customization of fanart for seasons,
Landscape film poster,

Movie trailer …

thanks James

An option to switch to posters again for movies would be greatly appreciated!

Most TV shows have beautiful fanart but for movies, especially older ones, that’s often not the case. Then you have an ugly screenshot taken from the movie and that just looks lousy.

I could of course change fanart within Infuse, but because i’m using Plex-integration i’d have to fire up a webbrowser or the Plex-dash app every time. Not very convenient.

+1 to bring back poster support on PrePlayback for movies!

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Hi, here is one more thing, that makes me wonder.
When you press: Mark as unwatched, it toggled between watched and unwatched in V6. Now it doesn’t react anymore. I would be happy, if it would behave like in V6. Thanks.
Btw, in general I like the new design, but I also agree to the remarks and wishes in this thread.
So, I am looking forward to the improvements.

I noticed this too. The only way I could get it to work for now was to enable “Watched Indicators” under Settings. Now, my main program thumbnails are full of loaded orange corner cuts and progress bars. I previously never had to enable this option to get watch/unwatched to toggle. I hope it’s just a bug, as I too prefer the v6 method but if not I can live with this new design. What I really hope for is a quicker way to delete shows, too many scrolls and clicks right now. And, secondly I prefer seeing all the thumbnails of TV season on the PLAY screen without having to scroll down.

Hi, thanks for the tip. It works with the indicator set to on. I agree. These orange lines and markers don’t look very attractive. Toggling should also work without these indicators. I think, that should be fixed.
And about the color of the indicators.
Why not change the color to blue, or make it adjustable?

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I’ve had no issues whatsoever with Infuse 7. It’s a fantastic release. Currently, I pay yearly for a Pro subscription and would happily pay more considering how polished and professional the whole package is.