ARC - Workaround for Tags

Roon doesn’t have an easy way to deal with audiobooks or with podcasts. My workaround with the core library has been to Tag audiobooks and podcasts either as I import them or when new episodes appear. That part works fine as you can call up Tags in Roon.

ARC, however, doesn’t have a way to call up Tags, that I have found, at least. My suggestion would be to have Tags appear as one of the master search choices at the level with Artist/Track/Genre, etc.

But meanwhile, the workaround I’ve discovered is to search by Artist - remember this is for podcasts or audiobooks. All the podcasts or books by that author then appear. Roon treats the podcasts or books as separate Tracks in the database.

I’ve been listening to and enjoying Andrew Hickey’s “A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs”, which I recommend highly. If I search on “Andrew Hickey” and then choose “Albums” the podcast episodes then appear in the search.

I don’t understand you when you say you cant use tags, you can focus in albums, tracks, artists for Roon library tags in ARC, I I do all the time just click on the tag icon and chose the one you need then use the filter to get whittle it down more. I use them to identify all my local files so I can’t download them easier.

Finding Tags was not at all obvious for me. Rather than existing at the “top level” as it does in Roon (My Stuff → Playlists/Tags/History, available with only one click of the mouse), in ARC the Tags are only selectable under Library-> and then either Albums, Artists, or Tracks, or 3 levels down.

It isn’t that three clicks is some onerous task, it just shows that Tags is buried three levels down within the structure. For those of us who use Tags frequently, it’d be nice to have it up top in the data hierarchy at the same level as Playlists.

I think arcs place for it makes more sense, you can focus on tags in main Roon app but it’s hidden in focus itself I like the fact it’s external like the heart and download icons.

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I know this is an older topic, but the issue for me is not solved. I also use tags for playlists, and there is no option to filter playlists with tag ‘X’ in Roon ARC. I certainly like the way tags work within Roon itself, that you can mix albums, artists and tracks by assigning them a tag. I love to have this option in Roon ARC as well.

If you want to add audiobooks and podcast files to your library, you can control ways of organising them at the file level, before you add tags in Roon.

For instance, you could change the id3 tags of all your audiobooks to have the artist name ‘audiobook’, and all your podcasts to have the artist name ‘podcast’. Then you put that author or title of those files under another id3 tag, like ‘title’ or ‘album artist’.

Then all your audiobooks would come up under the artist name audiobook in Roon, and all your podcasts would come up under the artist name Podcast.

Basically, you are able to organise your files however you wish using powerful id3 tagging tools like Tagscanner.

I personally think there are better ways to take your audiobooks on the go with you i.e. not using Roon or ARC at all, and relying on other apps and services. But my point is that you don’t need to rely on Roon’s software to do all the organising for you. Take control of your files.