BETA: Craft your own experience with Personal Sections on tvOS and iOS

[Fofer]

Sweet! I've just upgraded the "Music" Channel Collection that was in our guide, into a fuller-fledged Personal Section in the sidebar, that includes:

• shortcuts at the top, to launch our favorite music apps (Spotify, SiriusXM, Pandora, etc.)
• An "On Now" section that shows thumbnails for all music-related content playing for TV right now, including some Virtual Channels we'd created of:
• Collections of concerts and music videos we've archived over the years
• Links to some favorite ambient 24/7 audio streams

This is an excellent new feature, thanks so much @maddox!

[maddox]

@Fofer

Cool! I love this feature. I understand how to add recorded game show episodes but is there a way to add an "On Now" section there too so we can add Game Shows that are live on air and/or streaming, right now? (just like the new Sports section)

Now ya can!

[maddox]

This is awesome!

[maddox]

Rows utilizing a Channel Collection containing movie in their title, will now present guide items with a poster aspect, just like On Now does.

tvOS/iOS Beta Notes

v2024.07.08.1743 • IMPROVED: present guide items with poster aspect in Personal Sections for Channel Collections with ‘movie’ in their title (like On Now)

[maddox]

@Fofer

Unlike Channel Collections, I noticed that their order on AppleTV is not matching the order I've added them via the Server Side Section. Feels like a bug?

Fixed in latest TestFlight beta.

tvOS/iOS Beta Notes

v2024.07.08.1801 • FIXED: Personal Sections were not appearing in the sidebar navigation in the order that they were applied.

[maddox]

As of the latest TestFlight beta, there is now a hard limit of how many navigation items you can apply to the sidebar.

After 15 items, no other items will show.

tvOS/iOS Beta Notes

v2024.07.08.1845 • IMPROVED: Sidebar navigation items are now limited to a maximum of 15 items. Anything after will be truncated.

[DemonLourde]

Does this work on Android clients? I can't get it to show up at all on Android clients. Thanks in advance

[Fofer]

Not yet:

@maddox

As of the latest TestFlight beta and server pre-release, Channels for tvOS now supports personal sections.

[DemonLourde]

Hopefully soon. I have apple 4k boxes but prefer androids so I'll keep watching for Android support hoping soon as this is a great feature no doubt Thanks for the quick reply brother

[maddox]

Android development for Personal Sections will not start until the feature is complete for tvOS / iOS, per our usual development process.

[cyoungers]

I hope everyone keeps posting their Personal Section examples. I get inspired by other folks ideas!

[Fofer]

Is there (or will there be) a way to add a single live channel to a Personal Section... or is the best strategy to just make a Channel Collection out of that one channel, and to assign that, instead?

[maddox]

@Fofer

Is there (or will there be) a way to add a single live channel to a Personal Section... or is the best strategy to just make a Channel Collection out of that one channel, and to assign that, instead?

Channels Collections will be the mechanism for getting channels into rows in your Personal Sections.

[jamesrw]

This may or may not be a bug, but it took me some time to figure out so I thought I'd mention it.

I made a new Library Collection to use as a content row in a Multi Row Personal Collection. However, when I went to add it using the pull down row it wasn't on the list of my Library Collections. After a while I discovered I had to manually reload the Personal Collection page with my browser to get it to show up in the list. Usually these things just automatically show up without having to do that so thought it might be an issue.

[maddox]

If you created the Library Collection in another tab while the Personal Section editor was open, then yes, you would have needed to reload the page for it to know about it.

[Fofer]

Can we get templates for "News" and "Sports" sections too? At least as a jumping off point for our own personalized customizations, to replace the built-in ones? I tried to make my own to match the originals but couldn't quite get there.

[jamesrw]

Just tested creating a Library Collection then immediately going to the Personal Section in the exact same tab, and it's not showing up without a manual reload. Not a big deal if you know, but it did take me a few minutes to try that.

[maddox]

OK thanks, I'll check it out.

[maddox]

@Fofer

Can we get templates for "News" and "Sports" sections too?

No, as these would require a Channel Collection, which wouldn't be in your library.

To duplicate the News section, the rows would consist of:

1. On Now: Channel Collection with Genre: News
2. On Later: This kind of row is not possible at the moment and it's unclear if it will be in the future.
3. Recently Added: Episodes row with Genre: News, Sort: Date Released
4. News Programs: TV Shows row with Genre: News, Sort: Date Updated

I assume it's the On Later part that had you stumped.