I’ve been doing that but there are no matches. Artists like Barbra Lica in Canada and most of the DSD files from NativeDSD do not match, not to mention older ripped Canadian CDs…
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One more vote for some kind of folder browsing. I don’t need a windows explorer or mac finder like interface but at least some way to find my music by folder. I know where everything is. On top of that what I’m really missing is the ability to call everything in one folder an album. If that’s an album to me it’s an album. I have all kinds of reasons for it, for one that Roon is as bad as almost all other player to indentify various artist albums, specially when they are not complete. I also have old mix-tapes, demo’s, samplers, work related compilations etc. All are scattered out in Roon now. The simple ability to define everything in one folder as being an album would fix this inmediatly. I don’t like working with playlists, that works different.
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If you tag the mess of tracks in a folder with a consistent album tag then Roon will see them as an album.
Same applies to VA albums with missing tracks. As long as they actually look like an album with the same album tag then they should appear as an album.
Simply sitting in a folder with any assortment of tracks and mixed album tags is not going to cut it as far as saying what an album is.
For old tape mixes (I have those too) same applies. Use a tag editor and 30s of your time to tag the files as “Sjef’s old mix tape vol I” and they will appear in Roon as exactly that.
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Nearly all of this can be done in the Tracks browser now – just add the Path column and then filter.[quote=“Sjef_van_de_Ven, post:84, topic:8728”]
Roon is as bad as almost all other player to indentify various artist albums, specially when they are not complete.
[/quote]
If they’re in a folder on their own, and have common tags for Album and Album Artist (typically Various Artists) we should be doing pretty well – I’m a big collector of compilations, so I’ve banged on this quite a bit over the years.
If you have content that follows those rules and still isn’t automatically grouped into an album, let me know – I’d like to take a look.
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Are there plans for a visual file browser? I’ve tried the tracks/filter and it is not entirely useful for traversing my directory structure to see what’s there. Sometimes I forget what I have or can’t remember a name and being able to explore the file system is the only way to find what I am looking for.
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I’d be happy to work with you to see how my folder structure would be supported.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Well, all the functionality I was referencing in September is out now – starting with 1.3, Roon supports cross-platform browsing of local and network storage during configuration, and supports filtering by path in the tracks browser.
That said, I’m still interested in understanding the use cases here. Feel free to detail what you’re looking for here, in a new feature request, or by PM. Thanks for the feedback @Marty_Meyers!
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do you have a link to this new browsing capability (was i suppose to do something during configuration)?
also, a link to filtering by path in tracks browser?
sorry if this is basic and known, but today is day 1 of roon for me.
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Sure! Some more information here:
https://kb.roonlabs.com/File_Browser
https://kb.roonlabs.com/FAQ:How_can_I_find_tracks_by_path%3F
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thanks mike.
I don’t see the track browser, just a listing of all tracks.
i do see an album browser.
i’m using the roon remote app on an android phone.
any suggestions?
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@mike,
I don’t see a 'tracks browser" as shown in your 2nd link on finding tracks by path.
does this exist in android app? (which is how i play my music)
when i select tracks, i see a ‘play all’ option but nothing else.
as to the first link on file browser, are you suggesting that i get additional functionality if i set up selecting directories individually?
I’ve only got a week left to work this out, but right now without path navigation, roon is not useful to me.
thanks
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A phone is not the best way to use Roon IMHO. A good Tablet let’s you explore the UI fully. At least try this during your trial or you don’t know Roon, even if you think you do.
Thoughts, Chris
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@Chris
are you saying that the android app on a tablet gives me functionality that i don’t have on an android phone?
As I understand it, Roon was never designed to be on a phone, that came later as an extra due to demand. The sheer screen size is just too small for much beyond basic function.
The idea of Roon is its data and graphic rich interface making it so much more than browsing folders.
I use an iPad Pro which gives me plenty of screen area to enjoy a rich experience.
The upshot is, I can find anything in my library quickly and things group together naturally.
I have a friend bringing over an ipad friday, so i’ll check it out.
can someone confirm that there is additional functionality with the tablet app relative to the mobile app?
i’m assuming this is more than just a larger screen, right?
Yes. The tablet apps have feature parity with the desktop apps (Mac/Win) and have the same look and feel.
I thought I would provide a little feedback to the concept that the ability to Focus on albums based on Storage Location in the Inspector represents the ability to browse by folder structure. In my opinion, this alone doesn’t really do the trick.
The Inspector only allows us to filter based on the storage location configured in Roon. So (1) it does not allow one to go any levels deeper than the top folder Roon is configured to scan, so if a folder under the top level were, say, “New Arrivals” or “Incomplete Albums” we could not zoom to that level to see what is in that folder, and (2) it does not allow us to browse or play any media that is not contained in a location Roon is configured to scan.
Sure one could configure Roon to scan that storage location but there may be a lot of junk that we don’t want in the Roon library. May only want to scan or play a single track or something like that. We may also want to apply a tag only to that subfolder.
The Roon response may be that there are plenty of media players that do this - why do we need Roon to do it? There’s convenience, there’s the prospect that maybe we want to see what Roon’s metadata says about the media we are browsing, etc. But here is the main point: to commit to Roon, I and I am sure others have restructured their media playing network. I turned the computer I used to use for such purposes into a Roon endpoint and it no longer has a monitor attached to it. So now I’m, like others I’m sure, committed to playing audio via RoonBridge, and media players that can just play media dragged into a playlist won’t be able to play the media through Roonbridge. So I cannot just turn to Foobar to play it as a local file.
Also, for the same reasons regarding there being no local option at the Roon endpoint to play a file without Roon, I think Roon should be capable of playing tracks that are not indexed into its library. Yes I understand this is contrary to the new paradigm of Roon being a different way to access media, but as above, that doesn’t always work for every use case especially when one is now reliant on RoonBridge and I cannot beam my media to the endpoint without Roon.
I love the new metadata driven paradigm. I look at this more from it representing a utility necessary within Roon for special case exceptions, or when, as a poster above suggested, a friend brings over a hard drive or thumb drive to play some tunes that we don’t want indexed into our library.
I fully agree. I actually forget what I have at times but know I am looking for a jazz artist from a CD I’ve scanned. I can find that artist quickly in my computer file browser by navigating my folders. I would love to do the same in Roon. It would save a trip to my office to boot the computer…
But the design principle for Roon is that you can focus on albums by import date WITHOUT having to worry what folder they are in; you can focus on albums that are either not ID’d or have non-contiguous tracks (both these give you a view of incomplete albums (again without worrying about what folder they are in).
@AndersVinberg posted some great comments on the limitations of a folder driven world. Worth reading if you haven’t found yet.
I use a temp folder in my list of watched folders and any new rip or download drops into that. It is immediately available to play in Roon whether it is fully ID’d or not. I no longer need to use a right-click/play option of the files directly. If it’s a keeper I them move to a keeper folder.
Adding a thumb drive will take a few seconds/minutes to add to the library. When the thumb drive is pulled out then just kill that watched folder.
@pwright92
in your example of wanting to find a CD of Artist X - would you not just type into the Roon search “Artist X” ? If you knew that it was the Artist X folder then you will get Artist X back from Roon. Sometimes you know the album name (in full or part)…again Roon search will help you there without needing to know the folder.
Just highlighting that all these use cases can be managed without the need to drive from folders.
Thanks Nick. Yes, those are nice workarounds for specific situations. I’ve read Anders’ comments. I think folder access being viewed as “harmful” is quite over-dramatic! This is a hobby, not Obamacare 
All that said, my examples were just examples, and things that go into the Roon library simply don’t always show up as, or where, we expect. And after a couple of beers while friends are over, there isn’t a lot of patience for work-arounds, and then you are also counting on the metadata in the media on the thumb drive to be correct enough to easily find everything. What if it’s just my friends’ band in a wave file? Sure there may be ways to find it in Roon, but why not just take the direct approach?
I am not sure why some Roon users seem to view folder-based access, or the ability to play media without importing into the library, as a threat to the metadata or object driven approach. If making media available through means that people are used to helps to drive adoption, it will just help keep Roon alive and progressing.
No one is (or at least I am not) trying to turn Roon into Foobar - we already have Foobar – what we are trying to do is add a way to access some portion of our media that is convenient and intuitive to those of us that organize that way. I appreciate your response as intending to just help me use Roon, which is very nice. But some of the posts on this topic (not yours, to be clear) seem to actually view these suggestions as a kind of a threat to their way of using Roon. It’s almost like a political debate…