[Writing this request was triggered by this post from @Alden_Olson. Older posts related to this topic felt too old to extent upon, so I decided to start a new one.]
When you have more than a few albums of an artist, the artist page becomes a bit cluttered. All Studio, Live and Compilation albums are shown as Main albums. My request is to create separate categories based on the album type and the additional properties that an album can have. Possible categories are:
Studio Albums (Main album, no properties set)
Live Albums (Main album, âLiveâ property set)
Soundtracks (Soundtrack)
Compilations (Main album, âCompilationâ property set)
Bootlegs (Main album, âBootlegâ property set)
Singles and EPs (Single / ExtendedPlay) (already in)
In case an album has multiple properties set, like Live and Compilation, then the album will be included in the first category it applies to (i.e. Live Albums). The mock-up below has an example of this, the live compilation âUnplugged 1991/2001â is listed as a live album.
In my opinion, separating the main albums like this gives a cleaner view.
That is an excellent idea and has been discussed elsewhere also; I believe that I was one of the first to raise it and have mentioned it on a number of threads - not least on my âRoon 1.3: Top Prioritiesâ thread, where it is my third request:
I have also mentioned it here:
And here:
My list of categories is similar to yours, except I had not separated out live albums from studio albums, and I had an extra category for âDJ mixâ.
Thanks for providing the links, they did not show up in my search.
Bit of a pity that this feature is not confirmed for version 1.3, and maybe not even on the to do list as @mike still suggests to write a feature request for it in the post I linked above.
I would really like to see the separation between studio and live albums, do you see the added value of this?
I was just thinking, maybe it would also be nice to have a âPlay Allâ button for each of the album categories. A âone buttonâ click to play for example all studio albums (updated the mock-up accordingly).
Iâm not sure if it will be in 1.3, but I would be very surprised if it was not quite high on the priorities list as it has been requested by various users for some time and is IMHO an essential way to organise the artist home page, which can otherwise become a jumbled mess in the presence of multiple bootlegs etc.
In terms of the separation between studio and live albums, I can indeed see the value - especially for artists where there is a large number of both. Some users may have a lot of artists like this and others perhaps not so many. Which highlights another aspect of this categorisation system - that perhaps the separation into these categories should be an option for the user, ideally being able to turn on or off each individual category to their liking.
The play all feature is not a bad idea, though I think in your mock up it makes the screen look too cluttered and detracts from the nice tidy organisation scheme.
Maybe one of the devs - @danny@mike@vova@Eric - can confirm their current position on this feature?
This is all good fun and looking good, but what if an artist has only 10 or 8 or 6 or 4 albums, spilt over 4 categories? And how does the same for Tidal work out for you?
Thereâll be a whole lot of empty space and vertical scolling, Iâm afraid. Not good â especially for smallish screens / tablets.
RBM - not sure if you fully read my post - that is specifically why I stipulated that some of the âextraâ categorisations would be optional that the user could turn on and off!
Besides, if a user likes an artist that much that he/she has bootlegs, then there probably are a large number of entries on that artistsâ page!
Yes, a âsmartâ approach like this would also be good - though in my opinion having these things as user-selectable options would be superior as it allows for more specific customisation.
What if it was coupled to the âShow extra icons on browserâ setting?
I have this setting enabled and like to have my albums separated accordingly. If a user has it disabled then he is probably not interested in this split up.
Your remark about vertical scrolling made me realize that I never use the category at the top of the artist page: Top Tracks (Iâm an album listener). So I collapsed the list and noticed that this setting is kept after a restart of the remote. Nice scroll saver
If there was a setting to hide Top Tracks completely I had enabled it.
I am fully behind this organizational hierarchy and think it would be a great addition to the software. I have seen @extracampine request this feature many times previously as well so props to you all for staying on this and continuing mention of it!
One additional request related to organization: Allow live music to be grouped in âsetsâ (in the case of bands) and/or halves (as in a classical music concert, pre/post intermission).
The recent release of Roon 1.3 brings many good things but it does not appear to have addressed this essential feature. This is now among my top feature requests for the next version.
Currently you can select the âAlbum Typeâ as being either Main, Single, ExtendedPlay, Soundtrack or Other. Add in Bootleg and Anthology in there and allow the user to split the entries on the artist page using these criteria, and weâre laughing!
Has this been implemented/introduced yet? Iâm on my 3rd day of my Roon trial and this would seal the deal! I can sort Bootlegs, Singles & EPs but thatâs it. Even if I use âOtherâ, the live stuff albums are displayed as âSingles & EPsâ.
