Currently, alternate versions are being treated the same as hidden tracks on the Tracks page. I don’t think this makes much sense.
For instance: There might be a remix (or acoustic version etc.) of a song marked as an alternate version. The alternate version won’t show up in the Albums page, which makes perfect sense to me cause it is just another version of the same song. Doing the same on the Tracks page seems off though, since I image you want to see all the tracks that you liked (or even just added to your library).
I only would like to hide tracks that are more of a duplicate than another version of the song. Currently, I have added CD versions of albums as hidden albums if the MQA version is also available. I then might unhide those CD albums and use the filter to listen to lossless only tracks using my favourite HQPlayer filter (mostly because I find MQA to be limited with the options of filters I enjoy using with that format).
Hope you understand and agree with the use cases I mentioned and proposed and update the process. If not, I’d love to hear Roon’s point of view on this specific matter. Thank you in advance for all your support.
An example that Roon sees as alternate versions by default are Alicia Key’s Show Me Love singles. There’s the original version, with just Alicia Keys and Miguel. And then there’s a remix with 21 Savage included.
If I ungroup these two Singles with Roon, both versions will show up in the Tracks page, but then they would also be shown in the Albums page. Alternate versions are being treated the same way as hidden tracks on the Tracks page (which I believe are two different concepts).
If you would group any two albums/singles together to make an alternate version, then all but the Primary Version will be hidden from the Tracks page. So, it’s not an issue specific to an album, but a workflow issue.
I’ll be sure to pass this along to the team. I would recommend also posting your suggestion in the 'feature request" section of the site.
Our product team and developers keep a close eye on that category, so that’s definitely the best place to propose a change like this and get feedback from the Community.