The topic name says it all. This proposed button would add functionality similar to Amazon’s Kindle store, where you can buy a Kindle book with one click and download it to your chosen mobile device with one more. This ability would be fantastic on Roon, where we users are more accustomed to exploring using standalone Roon rather than the mobile ARC app. Getting ready for a long trip would be a delight rather than the slog it currently is.
Any takers?
There is a button to download albums to Roon Arc from within Roon ARC already.
So, that being said, if I am reading this correctly, you want a button in Roon Remote to download albums to Roon Arc, instead of using Roon ARC due to the familiarity and comfort you have with Roon Remote, Correct? Just making sure I read and interpreted that right.
I think that would be cool. Proper Roon has so much more options to zoom in on things, and I interact with it more often, so a button right there for “I want this in the go” would be neat
I’m out of feature suggestion votes, but this certainly would get my vote if I had one left.
bearFNF: Yes, that’s exactly right.
Just to continue the analogy to ebooks on Kindle: the current situation with Roon is like only being able to get new books from inside the Kindle app. For some people that’s acceptable. I never do that because I’m on my computer far more than on the Kindle, which I think of as mainly for reading - not shopping or exploring. And so having a button right there on the computer screen to “buy this book and then put it on my Kindle” just makes life easier.
It would be the same with Roon and ARC. The main reason to use ARC is to listen to music, because (like a Kindle) it just doesn’t have the full searching and filtering functionality of Roon itself. I suspect most users spend far more time on Roon than on Roon ARC. It seems strange to have to switch to ARC to download albums we’re listening to or finding on Roon itself.
Whist it’s a good idea. The issue here is you can’t background download on iOS the app has to be open and in the foreground and active all the time. So wont work for a big majority of people. Same goes for Android unless you have battery optimisation off for the app.
Better solution is fix ARC’s very basic library functions and make downloads quicker like rival apps manage.
Wouldn’t there be ways to send a command to an iOS app telling it to download something? It’s possible to Airdrop after all. And on Android I used KDE Connect to send files from the Ubuntu desktop to the phone, and the KDE Connect app is not excluded from battery optimization
You can push apps and music to iOS from iTunes but that’s about it as far as I know. Airdrop is an iOS Mac system level protocol so can’t compare it to a 3rd party app. It’s also not usable outside of Apples ecosystem and it doesn’t put files in apps.
Hang on there, CrystalGipsy and Suedkiez. It’s not necessary for Roon Remote to actually launch the Roon ARC application when my button is pressed. These are often running on different physical devices and I can well imagine the nightmare (technical, security, and otherwise) than could ensue from this. This is not at all what I meant to suggest.
Instead, think of the humble Kindle. If I’m on the Amazon website and buy a book and then click “Deliver to my Kindle Fire,” the tablet doesn’t wake up, launch the Kindle app, and then download the book. It does so the next time it’s turned on and the Kindle app is launched. This is the model I had in mind.
Yeah but clearly there are ways to signal to a sleeping phone app that it should register some action. Not sure how much iOS limits that to Apple, but certainly there is a way, and be it via the Roon cloud, to inform an app that it should do something. Or for the app to check when it wakes up.
It’s how I understood it too. Anyway, KDE Connect on Android simply let me push a file to the phone at any time via wifi
Apple are a lot tighter on restrictions than Google on what app can and cannot do and more so whilst an app is in background or suspended. Cloud apps still require the user to manually start downloads they don’t push direct to the device.
Given Plex has been using downloads for years on devices for videos and music you would think they would be using a system if it was possible but they don’t. It might not be impossible but likely not worth the hassle. But I don’t know of a single app with this functionality on iOS that I have come across.
Just tested KDE connect it kills the connection when in the background or phone is sleeping. So I think that answers your question nicely this stuff just won’t work on iOS.
But that’s still better then having to search for the album again on ARC. At the very least it should be possible to mark the album in Roon, add a button in ARC to “Download marked albums”
I still don’t see why that wouldn’t work, and I think this what the OP wanted
Perhaps, I read it as pushing downloads not flagging them. You could do this know with a tag though, albeit one at a time. I would rather they sort out ARCS shortcomings on the app fro this myself though as this just hides the problems with its current architecture rather than fix it.
I still don’t see why that wouldn’t work, and I think this what the OP wanted
Exactly right! The download doesn’t actually have to happen automatically for this to be helpful. Pressing the new “Download to ARC” button on Roon Remote would simply queue up albums for downloading en masse, with a single click, once you get over to Roon ARC.
That would be incredibly useful - and technically straightforward to implement on any platform.
I would like from roon remote to be able to send my local albums to download on Arc