MediaHub 0.6.0-beta — Themes, Personalisation & Interface Update I’ve now released MediaHub 0.6.0-beta for Android TV.
This is a fairly big visual and personalisation update for MediaHub, focused on giving people more control over how the app looks and how they use it day-to-day without moving away from the clean TV-first interface MediaHub has been built around.
The biggest addition is a completely new app-wide Theme system, with eight different themes now available across MediaHub.
There are also new Home screen personalisation options, a Last Used startup mode, an app-wide Compact display density, improved loading and error states, more consistent D-pad focus styling and a number of smaller interface improvements throughout the app.
The aim with 0.6.0 has been to make MediaHub feel more polished and personal without adding unnecessary complexity.
VegaOS / Amazon Appstore Update A quick update on the VegaOS version of MediaHub.
MediaHub has been submitted to the Amazon Appstore, however there is currently a dispute regarding the MediaHub name which needs to be resolved before there is anything further to announce.
I’ll provide another update once there is something useful to share.
Android remains the main MediaHub development platform and development here will continue as normal.
What’s Changed 0.6.0-beta includes: Eight app-wide MediaHub themes Centralised theme and colour system Theme-aware interface, Settings, dialogs and player controls Home shortcut personalisation Show/hide and reorder Home shortcuts Improved Home card customisation Last Used startup option Standard and Compact app-wide display density Improved loading, empty and unavailable states More consistent D-pad focus styling Improved selected/button/dialog styling Subtle navigation and focus transitions Improved Management restriction integration Existing IPTV, MultiView, timeshift and Media Server functionality retained New MediaHub Themes The biggest change in 0.6.0 is the new Theme system.
Until now, MediaHub has largely had one visual identity built around the original blue/grey interface.
That is still available as the default Steel Blue theme, but MediaHub can now be changed between eight complete app-wide themes: Steel Blue Dark Glass Slate Purple Midnight Teal Crimson Glass Frost Glass Volt Lime Amber Smoke These aren’t simply different accent colours.
Each theme controls the wider MediaHub interface including backgrounds, glass panels, cards, borders, focus states, selected items, buttons, text highlights and information panels.
Changing to Crimson Glass, for example, gives MediaHub a proper dark charcoal/red appearance rather than simply changing a few blue highlights to red.
Likewise, Dark Glass provides a much darker neutral interface, Frost Glass gives a lighter charcoal/glass appearance and Volt Lime brings a more distinctive graphite and electric-lime look.
Themes apply throughout MediaHub, including Home, Live TV, TV Guide, Movies, Series, Media Server, Search, Favourites, Accounts, Settings, dialogs and playback controls.
Your selected theme is remembered automatically.
The original Steel Blue appearance remains the default, so upgrading to 0.6.0 won’t suddenly change the way MediaHub looks unless you choose a different theme.
Themes can be changed through:
Settings → Interface
Home Screen Personalisation 0.6.0 also expands the Home screen customisation options.
The main Home sections can still be shown, hidden and reordered, but you can now customise the smaller Home shortcuts as well.
Through Settings → Interface → Edit Home Shortcuts, you can control: Favourites MultiView Search Accounts VPN These can be shown or hidden depending on how you use MediaHub and reordered within their relevant Home groups.
Settings remains permanently available, so it can’t accidentally be hidden through the customisation system.
The idea is that somebody who mainly uses MediaHub for Live TV can keep the Home screen simple, while somebody using IPTV, Media Servers, VPN and MultiView can keep those shortcuts readily available.
New Last Used Startup Option There is also a new Last Used option under the Startup Screen setting.
Previously you could choose a fixed starting point such as Home, Live TV, Movies, Series or Media Server.
Selecting Last Used allows MediaHub to remember the last main area you were using and return there the next time the app starts.
Temporary areas such as Settings, Search and Accounts are deliberately ignored.
If the remembered destination is no longer available, MediaHub safely returns to Home.
Standard & Compact Display Density Another new Interface option is Display Density.
There are two choices:
Standard The normal MediaHub interface and the default.
Compact A tighter app-wide layout which allows more information to fit on screen.
Compact carries across Home, Live TV, TV Guide, Movies, Series, Media Server, Settings and the wider interface.
Text is deliberately reduced less aggressively than cards, spacing and padding so Compact should still remain comfortable to use from a TV viewing distance.
Standard remains the design baseline and can be switched back to at any time.
Interface & D-pad Polish There has also been quite a bit of work behind the scenes to make the different areas of MediaHub feel more consistent.
Shared controls such as Back buttons, Search fields, Sort and Filter controls, dialogs, player actions and selected controls now follow the same theme-aware focus and selection system.
Loading, empty and unavailable states have also been standardised.
So rather than different sections having slightly different versions of messages such as No matching items, Nothing saved yet or Server unavailable, they now use a common MediaHub design which automatically adapts to the selected theme.
There are also some subtle interface transitions in 0.6.0. These are deliberately quick and restrained, with no large zoom, slide or bounce effects that would interfere with D-pad navigation.
MediaHub Management MediaHub Management 0.9.2-alpha is also being released alongside MediaHub 0.6.0-beta.
This release includes the new 0.6.0-beta managed Android application engine, so generated managed MediaHub applications also receive the new themes, personalisation, Compact mode and interface improvements.
Existing Management functionality remains available, including multiple managed IPTV providers, hidden provider/DNS configuration, branding, app controls and restrictions, managed VPN configuration, managed Jellyfin/Emby addresses and customer-owned Android signing.
The Home and startup personalisation system now respects Management restrictions more closely as well. For example, if an administrator disables Movies or Series, that destination will no longer appear as a selectable Startup Screen or Home customisation option.
Updated Docker, Docker installation and native Ubuntu 24.04 packages are being released with the updated Android engine.
As always, MediaHub is still Beta, so feedback across different devices, IPTV providers and Media Server setups is really useful.
For this release, I’d be particularly interested in feedback around the new Themes.
There are now quite a few different visual combinations to test, so if you notice an area where a particular theme has poor contrast, an incorrect colour or something that doesn’t look consistent with the rest of the interface, please let me know.
I’d also be interested to hear which themes people actually end up using and whether you prefer the new Standard or Compact layout.
If you experience an issue, logs and MediaHub Diagnostics information are extremely useful, but please remove IPTV usernames, passwords, provider addresses and Media Server tokens before posting anything publicly.
You can also join the MediaHub Discord for troubleshooting, bug reports, suggestions and development updates:
https://discord.gg/8dyJPJYMF5
Thanks again to everyone testing MediaHub and sending feedback.
A lot of the changes in 0.6.0 have come from gradually refining how MediaHub feels to use on an actual TV, and I think the new Theme and personalisation system is probably the biggest change to the overall look and feel of the app so far.