Plex is one of the most popular media organizing and streaming solutions available around for all platforms. It has apps available for iOS, Apple TV, Windows, Android and for the web. The team behind Plex have shipped much needed improvements to their web app which include faster and smarter search, useful tweaks to the user interface and gesture support for both trackpads and mouse users.
Once you login to the new web app at Plex.tv, you will be greeted by the updated interface which is now built on React, a popular JavaScript library. The interface has subtle transitions and animations which make it a joy to use. The interface is also smarter now and shows the most played content or content that you have not played in a while, right on the new dashboard. Users can also scroll through horizontal lists using the mouse or trackpad which makes it quicker to browse content. Last, but no the least, users can now use a new zoom slider to increase or decrease the size of posters for their video content.
The new search is probably my favorite new feature. It is super fast and intelligent and now lets users perform search queries up to 50 – 75 times faster than the previous search engine, no matter how much content there is. The search also has auto complete and shows results for the cast, directors and other related information. Even if you mistype a search query, Plex is now smart enough to show correct results for what it thinks you meant to search for. For example, you could type in Jernifer and it would show results for Jennifer.
The updates are available on the web app to try out now. Hopefully, Plex will roll out the new search features to their native platform apps too soon.
Plex have released a new update to their server software which brings the Plex/web version to 2.6.0 along with a number of fixes so make sure to upgrade your installation.
