Hello.
The refreshed show view is awesome, thank you. However, how do I now reorder the episodes? They've defaulted to oldest first. I prefer the opposite.
It's defaulted to that order now and the option to change it has been removed, since it now will automatically take you to the next episode to watch.
@maddox I don't have the beta, so I kind of have no clue what I'm talking about here. 
I am assuming you're referring to recordings. And that brings up a question for me. I record a few news shows daily, and have Channels DVR set to keep only the newest episode. And similar to @severe, these series passes are configured to show the newest episode first, just in case yesterday's broadcast has not yet been pruned. Will the new ordering now make yesterday's news show first if it has not yet been pruned?
No, but the view will focus the newest show in this case, so there’s no scrolling.
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Well then, I move to retract my "thank you" and leave you with a WTF.
But seriously, not having the option doesn't make much sense to me. Say, for instance, you've chosen to "Keep Forever", as I have a few episodes, those episodes are now first in the list. And if it's five episodes you're saving, you're now scrolling off the screen to get to the current episode you wish to view.
I also don't choose to automatically be taken to the next episode. In the year+ I've been a user, I'm pretty sure this is my first complaint. I'm feeling like one of the guys. 
I'm aware it's a beta and remain hopeful.
I don’t think this is happening for me, if I understand correctly. When I go into the show, the oldest episode is focused in the beta version:
Whereas in the release version where I have the show set to newest first, it does what I expect:
This is really fundamentally different for news programs (playing newest first makes sense) versus serialized dramas, etc. (playing oldest first makes sense). If anything it’d be better to have the option more visible, rather than less visible/removed.
Great feedback. News programs were immediately thought about with this change.
It’s real tricky to make this work for both full season shows and news and we’re super aware of it.
So it’s gonna be a delicate balance.
I think finally making the option for setting watch order in the client (so it’s accessible) AND using it for sort is going to be the key to the success of this change.
Sorting full seasons backwards feels terrible with this new view. But news should be sorted frontwards. So, clearly having a global direction is never going to solve all cases.
This way you can have regular episodic shows ordered by season, and your news shows showing last recorded first.
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Would extending the existing setting under Recordings > Shows > All > Series > 
> Show Settings work? Presently the Watch Oldest/Newest First directs the Up Next order; an additional setting for sorting in the clients would make sense here. Or, use the same setting—Oldest/Newest—for both Up Next and sorting.
Yep, that’s what I was referring to.
Hey everyone, I'm back!
Ok I've put this new view through another iteration. I'm going to list all of the things that changed and how I think it can give us a better balance.
- No more autofocusing the next watchable episode. It was just disorienting.
- News and sports no longer have a seasons filter bar. It's hidden for these types of recordings.
- Any show that only has a single season in the season bar, won't focus the season bar. Focus skips right past it.
- The global sorting of episodes setting is back, but it's now defaulted to Oldest first, to better support larger libraries with shows with lots of seasons.
- We can now, after years, set the show options IN the app. This means setting the "Watch Order", "Ignore in Up Next", and "Ignore Commercials" options that were only available in the web admin.
- Now that we can set "Watch Order" easier, this option is finally respected in the UI for things like sorting and even better, Auto Play. Now, when your talk show is set to Newest for watch order, you can start watching the newest talk show and it will auto play the previous one.
So, out of the box, Channels will sort your shows in seasonal and episodic order. You have 2 options to adjust the order for your shows.
- Set the watch order for your show to newest, and it will reverse the order to respect that. This is of course great for News and Sports and we eventually plan on making this the default for those types of shows in the future.
- Set the order for all your shows with the global setting.
If your show is set to Newest for watch order, it will always be ordered that way. Anything else will be sorted based on the global setting.
So give this new iteration a try.
PS: I also through in some new options for Auto Play to let you include or exclude watched episodes. They're similar to the Shuffle settings.
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Nice to be able to adjust this in the client!
On an iPhone XS the settings get cut off pretty aggressively though, and the contrast (dark mode enabled) is a bit low.
I like seasons being hidden but sometimes they aren’t?
Finally I’m seeing (null) display with one show. Would prefer this just be replaced by the date.
Thanks, I hadn't even LOOKED at it on iOS yet 
The Episode Sorting is wonderful. Thanks guys. No more scrolling to the right to pick the earliest episode.
Just in case it’s not clear. This work is in preparation for local TV imports, which just went into alpha:
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Hey everyone, I'm back....again!
A new beta is on it's way up to TestFlight. This is pretty much the final design and will shipped out soon. Thanks so much for the help and feedback on this!
- Improved: Episodes are defaulted to order by newest again
- Improved: New design for Show Options that work well in iOS as well
Rechecking my earlier issues…
The presentation of Show Options looks better on iOS but:
- The name of the show is missing from the display now
- Nothing happens when I tap on any of the options
Seasons gone in Today now, but the sort order is strange — 218, 217, 219, 220?
The “null”s are gone in Amanpour and Company, which is good. However, the date shows up twice — perhaps you could hide the 2nd one (small text) if there’s no other episode title available?
Updated screenshots:
I screwed this up, it's fixed in the next beta rolling out now. Sort order is also fixed for the Today show. It was an artifact of the fact that Saturday airings are set to Season 0, so when the episodes were sorted into seasons (even though news doesn't present that anymore), they were ordered wrong. News and sports not longer get sorted into sections and THEN flattened, they're not sorted by season at all now. So order should be good now.
See, this stuff aint easy!
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All good now 
Thanks!
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