Obviously when you use of phrases like “…I would not feel like playing at all!” people get the impression you would not play them “at all”. So no, the answer is not all obvious. So get irritated if you want…it’s no skin off my nose.
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There’s a “Shuffle” for tracks, so why not a “Shuffle” for albums? If we call it that, instead of “Sorted by Random”, perhaps it will get more traction.
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Irrespective of the merits anything that adds another switch always gets push back by the roon design team for “ultimate” justification.
Which is a vast eruption of support (album cover view in 1.6) or a reasoned argument of massive benefit to all.
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I share the notion that every button you add to the UI should be well thought out. But I think a Sort by randomness or Shuffle albums is a great and necessary idea. All other sorting options don’t get me the same results. In particular the reverse order of Most played albums let’s me skim through lots of albums I have not listened to (mostly for a reason). But it does not add randomness. In particular on a phone skimming through lots of albums is no fun.
+1
Like I said, I DO NOT want a shuffle, I want to pick an album and play that. I want to shuffle the albums displayed such that I could see things I forgot about and decide to play them or not.
As a side note, implementing an album shuffle seems much more elaborate to me than what I’m asking.
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I completely understand that a major change in the UI like adding a button or a view is a complex undertaking and requires very careful consideration.
However, my ask could be implemented as one more option in the “Sort by” pulldown (Album view, top right). Currently I see Artist, Most Played, Date Added, Date, Album Title - I would like to add a Randon (and I would like to re-randomize every time I select that sorting).
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I was actually motivated to ask for this by someone’s comment that they like their physical media precisely because they “bump into” albums when looking around and that is something I have experienced as well.
It’s about making Roon appeal to more aspects of the music playing / rediscovery.
I certainly am an Albums (rather than Tracks) person, and I have found that many people are. Moreover, I have found that some people who have unfulfilling experience with computer playback do so because of these kinds of limitations.
The more features Roon can add that mimic the physical process (and even make it better) the more those people will enjoy the experience.
To achieve this you could set a Focus such as Played in the last 6 months, then negate that, then possibly sort by Most Played, then click the arrow to get least played.
What I am adding to your ask is a random sort, so you would see albums that you might have played often 2 years ago next to one you haven’t played at all. And then you might feel like playing one of them, or a different one.
While I don’t have any problem with Roon adding a “Random” sort order, I certainly don’t see not having a “Random” sort order as some kind of limitation. Roon offers so much more than what you get with a physical library it’s not even funny. Most people with a lot of CDs organize them in some way. I always organized my physical CDs by genre then artist. Roon lets you easily change how you look at your library by quickly organizing it another way which you can’t do with a physical library. It also lets you look for albums you have not played often or at all. You can’t do that with a physical library.
Roon does not allow you to organize your albums like a pile you keep on the floor and it does not need to do that to offer a MUCH better experience than a physical library. It certainly should be an easy enough view to offer assuming the people that use it don’t get too excited with the randomness of the “Random” view. But, it is not going to be an earth shattering improvement to Roon. It won’t even be a view that a lot of people use. So let’s not characterize not having the “Random” view as some kind of “limitation”.
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Roon is a great tool. I have been a lifetime subscriber since July 2015.
Please do not hijack this thread with arguments about different things you can do with Roon, you’re not telling me anything I don’t know.
I truly think that random sorting will add functionality not reproducible otherwise. I also think it is not a complex feature to add to the current architecture.
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Fully agreeing with Miguelito. I am grateful that he thought up the functionality and proposed it. While i am generally well versed in Roon (Speedracer), I think a randomize album view would be a most excellent and useful addition and I hope ROON will incorporate. Of course in our diverse universe of users there are those that won’t likely use such a view (perhaps Speedracer) and that is fine too.
A very enthusiastic +1!
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I think people largely have been clear about what they prefer. That’s great.
However, I would like this thread to remain focused on the original topic, which is an ask for an additional sorting method based on a random order of albums displayed.
Don’t worry, the folks at Roon will see that…regardless of the direction the conversation flows. It’s not like your first post is getting deleted.
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This is a great idea. Interesting things happen inside your head when you see apparently dissimilar things next to each other, Connections, references, memories, “oh, yeah” moments…
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100% agree with the OP - the ‘My Albums’ sorting options has always bugged me.
Nice idea to reverse order, but when I do this, I just end up back with 'A’s (not everything in my collection transferred over with a having been played tag). Again, I think randomize is a keen idea to discover what one has forgotten about amidst their collection
I’ve been a Roon user since July 2015. Yet, I have literally thousands of albums that I have imported since then that I have never listened to on Roon. So reverse order of played is useless to me in this regard.
More importantly, what I would care about is things like:
1- Show me all RCA albums, then randomize
2- Show me all albums from the 80’s then randomize
3- Show me all albums I have not played in the last 6 months then randomize
The ask is so clear and so unreproducible by any other means, it is not even funny that suggestions of alternatives are being espoused!
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There is absolutely nothing wrong with people suggesting alternatives to something they don’t agree with. While you have every right to make a suggestion, others have every right to disagree and offer alternatives. I would think the Roon developers would want to know how favorably an idea is perceived before devoting resources to it.
I understand, but I expect suggestions of variants to be in line with answering the ask or propose an alternative way to achieve the objective.
If I am asking for vanilla ice cream, it is not a reasonable answer to say “I like chocolate and I think that’s great.” That makes absolutely no sense.
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You know… I disagree with you. Not every idea shoved out there makes sense and is deserving of consideration. The idea of sorting by reverse play order is clearly not achieving the desired result. There’s no two ways about that.