I can see a lot of good use cases for this concept, but as suggested, I could also see it being detrimental to convenient use. I would want everyone to have access to anything, but also for there to be some means of protection. I would want separation of views rather than separation of physical libraries and be able to choose what is in my view.
This feature request also seems to be something that requires extension of the way user profiles work. There is also Roon Security via Profile -- aka "Party Mode" / "Do No Harm" which could be satisfied by means of a read only profile.
I think that extending user profiles to have collection that go beyond just private or shared playlists could be a good approach - some very quick thoughts for discussion:
- Introduce the concept of a system tag that is associated with each user profile - called it a user tag. These tags are used only to drive a user’s personal view of the library for browsing, search, and roon radio including any user feed on what the radio is playing. Like other tags, multi user tags can be associated with a single item. (Is one of them considered an owner? - probably too complicated?).
- This tag would be automatically assigned to library item according to some user actions from the current user profile at the time of the action: Adding to library from Tidal/Quobuz, Adding a radio station.
- Allow these user tags to be associated with music import folders, so music from that folder automtically gets the user tag during import.
- Add user tags collections (so that like playlists, they can be private or shared giving each user the means to organise their private view of the library).
- Metadata might seem to be a problem - I dont want to be managing other poeple’s import metadata, but if its wrong, I want to correct it, but I also dont want other to make correct metadata wrong - so I dont have a view of how this could work.
- Each user tagging is effectively a reference. Reference items cannot be physically deleted until all references are removed.
- Editing of a tag or a playlist etc from another profile requires it to be first copied into the current profiles unless it is a shared tag or playlist. However, I can see a use case where not all shared playlists and tags should be universally editable - ie share for read only, or share for anyone to change.
- Allow for a guest profile - these are effect party mode. It has read only access to other profiles, but unable to change anything that has an impact beyond itself. Once in party profile, a PIN is required to exit it (think like guided access mode on iOS).
- An admin profile - also PIN protected - it is the final arbiter of anything. It can force remove, correct metadata, maybe lock it down etc.
- Maybe all profiles could be optionally pin protected for entry and maybe exit as well in some cases.
These of course go beyond this feature request to encompass other possibly related ideas (related in that they could be satisfied by a single feature set or ‘epic’ for the agile practitioners here).
Another important consideration - for the techies among us - permissions based systems are well understood, however in my experience for non-techie users, they often just end up being a barrier to convenient use and can drive users away, so the intent here is to gain some segregation, some protection, but without generally imposing the kind of barriers and complexities that many permission systems end up imposing. Maybe think in terms of open source - anyone can see anything if they want. You can copy it and adapt to your needs, but you cant mess up the original without some arbitration going on.