Look at these two screen shots… The selection criteria seem to look the same, right? But the results they give are very different…
In the first case, both criteria are tags - one for albums by the label ‘BIS’ and the second for albums with ‘String Quartet’. Both tags combined are interpreted as a logical ‘OR’… show me all albums tagged as ‘BIS’ OR albums tagged as ‘String Quartet’. I can see no option to combine two or more tags as a logical AND.
In the second case, the label ‘BIS’ has been selected using Focus. Now, adding the tag ‘String Quartet’, the combination is interpreted as logical AND.
This inconsistent behavior while visually giving no clue at all doesn’t seem right to me. We can build a list of selection criteria using Focus criteria, tags or ‘hearted’ items. All items in the list of selection criteria should behave the same, as long as they are visually shown as the same. The Boolean logic when combining two or more selection criteria is not being consistently shown.
When using tags as selection criteria, combined tags are interpreted as boolean OR, even if the tag’s button shows the symbol ‘+’ which stands for AND. Clicking the tag’s button changes color to red and it negates the tag’s value as NOT, but there is no option for combining tags with a logical AND.
Tags have been OR, this is nothing new. In fact, when the OR was taken away in 1.8 for bookmarks, I showed other users how they could regain what they had lost using the TAGS Or functinality.
I heavily use the TAGs Or functionality and want no changes to it.
The solution is to indicate that Tags are being used, either by a different color, or a different shape.
This is not the point. We have a list of items, be it albums. And the system offers two complementing ways of drill down and select items by one or several criteria. Visually it looks the same if you use criteria from Focus or from your Tag list… but the behavior is not the same and that is confusing.
I never asked for the OR logical concatenation of tags being removed. But the solution offered at this moment is at best half-baked.
Why not offer the possibility to have selection criteria by Focus and/or Tags treated as equal, with a choice to decide if one wants a combination of any criteria to be interpreted as logical AND or OR?
Edit:
Playing a little with the option of Focus criteria as ‘Match Any’ = logical OR or ‘Match All’ = logical AND, it seems to me that this works quite well, without being overwhelming to those who would have difficulties to cope with more complex or more abstract logic. I can understand why Roon would do it this way. But then, why not offer the same possibility for selection or drill-down by user-defined tags? Especially so, as selection by tags and selection by Focus criteria can be mixed and combined.
Another suggestion I’d like to make is that in the list of used selection criteria it should be visually indicated if criteria are being interpreted as meaning ‘Match Any’ or ‘Match All’…
in any case, the tags logic is not always OR…
i tag all artists (actually performers) with ART if they have a photo in roon, with PHOTO if they have a custom added one. no artist have both tags, some have none.
so, focusing:
Hi Niccolo - I’m here to confirm your findings which I just stumbled upon this afternoon. When using the negated tags, they connect with AND with the rest of the tags (which are normally connected with OR). Have we seen a statement about this from @support? Bug or intended behavior?
