Don't remove items from the Queue when they've played [done in 1.4]

I’d much prefer if the currently playing queue didn’t self destruct. Please give us the option.

Roon is the only software I’ve seen do this ever. Not sure how years of experience made this the right solution?

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+1 for a configurable, non-decomposing queue.

Before, in iTunes I’ve been accustomed to creating playlists for the evening based on some event, a thought, relationships between songs, or other common thread. When done with the playlist, I’d file it under an “Old Sets” folder. It’s fun to revisit an old set, or to see where we had gone that night, or a killer set from a year ago, or…

I’d love to have this functionality in Roon.

Hi Rob,

Roon does support creating and saving play lists … am I misunderstanding you?
Also every track played is in the history list and time stamped.

As for the queue being consumed as tracks as played, I’ve sort of gotten used to it … I can’t argue about having choice mind … providing the Roon dev can seamlessly weave it in to the UI… Maybe just scrolling to reveal the played tracks (different colour, or background) would work.

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@audiomuze, I’m coming around to the idea, but don’t know how I would want this integrated as I’ve become fond of the roon way. Guess it wouldn’t hurt to have the choice…!
@carl, I like the idea of scrolling up the play cue to reveal history, one less click… here we go again!

@Carl

We’re at the nexus of my not being very clear, and not very experienced with Roon. :wink:

As for playlists, the only thing I’m missing is the ability to create folders into which I can put playlists. Right now, it seems that every playlist shows on the playlist screen. It would be great to be able to create folders and subfolders where playlists can be stored.

As for the queue… I’d like the ability to choose whether to slough played files off the top (the current behavior), or to keep the queue intact, i.e., showing current track, future tracks, and what has already been played.

Hopefully that’s a bit more clear. I’ll go get a second cup of coffee now.

This is how I’d like to see it work and it’s usually how other software does it.

The queue stays around until you destroy it by choosing to straight play a new album, single song, playlist etc.

Now that we have the fantastic Build 88 (thanks guys!!), I’m really using Roon heavily for the first time. This is my largest new area of concern.

I have no idea why the disappearing, self-modifying queue is considered a good thing, but I accept that some people prefer it. However, it is unique behavior that I’ve never seen in any other player (JRiver, Foobar, HQPlayer, WinAmp, iTunes, lowly Windows Media Player) and I strongly dislike it.

When I’m using Roon, I just pretend that there is no queue, because I have no idea what’s (still) in it or what song is going to play next if I decide to play songs out of order, or what to do if I want to go back to a song I heard recently and enjoyed. And then there’s the peculiarity of having “Repeat” and back button functionality for songs that aren’t in the queue anymore. Furthermore, when I create a playlist, it’s usually after I’ve added songs to a queue that I’ve wound up enjoying together. I can’t do that if the songs are gone from the queue.

I can see from Mike’s initial response in this thread that they prefer the Roon/Sooloos method of queue management. I’d be happy with that being the default method, but can we please add a static queue as an option?

And just to be clear, in addition to songs not disappearing from the queue, I’d want the song order to remain unchanged as well. If I add a 10 song album and skip from the 1st to the 8th, I want the next song played to be the 9th, not the 2nd.

Perhaps in time I’ll learn what the advantages of the current method are, but I would greatly prefer to have the choice.

Hi Keith,
Just checking you’ve seen some current features. The History page is all about the past and you can select, play, add to playlist from the History. If you skip to Track 8 by selecting it and hitting Play From Here then Track 9 will play next.

Thanks for your prompt response @andybob and Happy New Year.

It’s great that there’s a history page and it addresses a few of my concerns, but only marginally. I didn’t know about “Play From Here” from within the queue. That’s good, but it’s an extra step that bypasses the point that I don’t want the queue or its sequence to be changed by Roon at all.

What we’re talking about is a fundamental difference of opinion on what the purpose of the queue is. I want to be able to add a whole album, for example, or several albums, and then be able to move around within and repeat those songs after that with the queue and the song sequence remaining intact.

With the current method, I feel like I need to manually select each song I want to hear, even to move around within an album, because I can’t rely on the queue - other than to play an album though, start to finish, or play music in exactly the order I initially chose, which I almost never do.

Maybe my preferences are outdated and more related to the way things have been in the past with records, tapes, CD’s and other media player software. I’d never dream of asking you to do away with the functionality you and the team prefer, but I feel that the Roon/Sooloos method is enough of a departure from what I (and others?) are used to that having the option to do things the “old” way is warranted.

+1 for a non-destructive queue. The current queue behaviour is just plain odd.

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+1 for non destructive.

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  • 1 for the option of setting queue to non-destructive.
    When listening to new, unfamiliar music (or just something I don’t know well) while doing something else being able to check What song was that? from just glancing at the screen is very useful. Now doing my part in taking care of a six month old baby when I’m home means ‘doing somethong else’ is pretty much all the time.
    Going to History is unlikely, unless really important.
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+1 for the option to leave the queue intact (a non consuming queue). I use Aurender this way and love it.

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-1 to static queue, I really like it the way it is and think it an improvement over how iPeng /SBT handles this (particularly when using Radio)

+1 to choice though, but I think there are much more pressing issues.

SJB

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+1 / -1 … follow the lead of a popular control point: BubbleUPnP and make it user selectable (i.e. consume mode on/off).

For me, the consume mode is super annoying because I tend to skip around an album or playlist and replay songs out of order.

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I’d also like to have the choice.
The idea of different colors for the already played songs, the current songs and coming songs in the playlist or the album would be most appreciated :heart_eyes:

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This is also my biggest complaint…as a workaround (until Roon adds the option to not remove played items, hopefully), I enable repeat. This moves the played song back into the queue.

I guess as I generally pick and album and press play I don’t have much of an issue with the queue as-is.

I do think choice is good though, but I wonder at what point Roon should stop trying to micmic everything else’s workflow (that people seem to have come accustomed to - me included), and not just let people adjust to the ‘Roon’ way…

When I first picked up Roon I wanted it to do x, y and z, because I was used to that, but over time I’ve come to like the way it works. I still question the play button having to be pressed multiple times, and the ‘play from here’ implementation isn’t to my taste, but I guess what I’m getting at is if they try and make Roon emulate everything else’s workflow, there’s a chance it might become a bit of a mess of options or lose its own uniqueness?

In the meantime, you can already re-order things once they’re in the queue, btw, (maybe some don’t realise that), but skipping back isn’t an option.

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Yes it is, you can press the back transport button (bottom left) to get previous items back into the queue. Or maybe you don’t mean that?

For the record, I like the queue the way it is. Please don’t change it.

I didn’t know that - thanks for the tip! :+1: