Just started a trial of Roon. I have a mixed classical and non-classical collection. Can someone please tell me how I view only my classical cds sorted in order of composer surname? This is a basic requirement for this software to be useful. Thanks. I’m sure i’m missing something obvious.
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Settings > General > Composer Sort By
Roon lets you sort under either the composer’s First or Last Name.
Thank you, but that does not solve my problem. You have given me a solution to see all composers in a particular order. That mixes up classical, jazz, blues, pop etc. composers in one list which is no use to me. I wish to see classical albums only in composer order. i.e. when I click Genres, then select Classical, then select Albums I wish to see the classical albums sorted in order of composer surname. There is a dropdown which lets me sort by album name, artist etc. but not by composer which is a fairly fundamental requirement for people like me who like classical music.
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As Goalline wrote, Settings > General > Composer Sort By, then Composers > Focus > Classical?
Should do what you ask for (but looking at my own collection, I see I need to cean up my database somewhat, a lot shows in this Focus I wouldn’t wanr when in the mood for classical).
This does it but as you say the Roon definition of Classical is probably still too broad for many. You can narrow it down a bit by using focus to select some of the wider options such as jazz and then inverting the jazz selection to eliminate Jazz. This cuts out those that are considered both Jazz and Classical. You can then bookmark this view. Not ideal…maybe someone has a better way?
What I do (so far, until I maybe get to tidying metadata and tags to my liking for Roon) is add periods (today all but Contemporary and 21st Century) to the focus.
Added: When you have this how you like it you can then bookmark this Focus.
Oops, I did miss the second part of your question. The Focus feature, as others have noted, will do the trick.
Dear Everyone, if I understand the OP’s request correctly (Album Browser, sorted in order of composer), it is simply not possible. Please try it yourself.
Been asking for this since 2013… 
We’re collecting feature requests for a forthcoming release focussing on improving classical support, and I’ll add this to the list for the Roon team’s consideration. (Ticket coming, @brian)
Hi. I am sorry, but the Focus feature will not “do the trick”. It is actually hopeless. If I go into composer then set the focus to classical I indeed get classical composers, but I also get composers such as Jerome Kern, Marcus Miller, Harold Arlen etc. who are not classical composers by any stretch of the imagination. When I pick one of these composers - say Harold Arlen, roon gives me all his works, none of which are in the classical genre, nor is classical listed as a Genre in the “Born … Died … Country … Genres” panel. otoh if I choose “Irving Berlin” as a composer, “Classical” is listed as a one of about a dozen genres he is responsible for (erroneously) but ALL his cds are listed, most of which are not classical. So roon is not keeping the focus on the Classical Genre. I think you have at least two errors. One is that there is I have a track (out of many) by Jerome Kern (say) that is wrongly tagged Classical. That causes Roon to regard Jerome Kern as a classical composer. And then roon wrongly includes all Jerome Kerns works in the Composer view focused by classical. If it just showed my works composed by Jerome Kern with Genre=Classical that would be ok, because I could identify the mis-tagging.
But even if you got all this working, it really wouldn’t be anywhere near as useful as giving me what I asked for! Which is a simple option in the Albums view to Sort by Composer. Just add a “Sort by Composer” option to the dropdown.
roon makes a big claim that it offers “Classical Music Done Right”. The vast majority of classical music lovers organise their music by composer. You cannot possibly claim to be doing classical music right if you do not understand this or deliver it.
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Yeah, Roon’s definition for classical is way too broad.
Another way in which Focus fails to do the trick is that I can’t see a way to get the pop up list of Composers to be sorted in any sort of alphabetical order: it shows the composers in descending numer of albums in the library. Am I missing something??
Be assured, the Roon team are aware of the weaknesses in this area. It will be addressed!
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When and how?
This software has evolved at such a rapid rate I find it difficult to stress over the small stuff. When it matures Roon will be something else . In my opinion, it is already special.
The most that is known about when is that it is part of the work intended to be released after 1.2. As to how I can’t recall any specific announcements. Sort by Composer is clearly necessary. Works and box set handling have been discussed by users. I don’t know what can be done to clear up genres. Classical is defined so broadly that the common meaning of the term requires exclusive filters to modify the genre filter.
I suspect by the middle of the year Roon will more closely approach the “Clasical done right” claim. That’s just my guess based on previous development and release flow.
The trial period enables people to try out the software and come back to it later after further releases if it’s not immediately what they want. Other users, including some onboard from the outset, dive in and participate in the development process with comments and suggestions. Whether you want to help build it or wait you can be sure that classical is by no means regarded as complete as it stands.
I have cancelled my trial.
imo you should not claim that roon is “Classical Done Right” when all you can do is guess that this might be true six months from now.
I am not Roon staff. I’m a user and a volunteer moderator. Roon’s claims are not my claims. My guesses are not Roon’s guesses.
The trial exists in order for people to try out Roon and see if they like it. I hope that you get to try Roon again when the Classical features have received further work and would encourage you to message @mike or @danny about a further trial when that occurs.
One of the best things about Roon is that the users are actively asked to engage in improving the product.
For me with a small amount of classical music, mainly from box sets the “works” way of looking at classical has hugely increased the amount of classical I listen to and my enjoyment of it.
SJB
If by “Classical” composer, one means “dead”, then using Focus and selecting “periods” seems to work quite well for me…
Although I notice that Roon seems to think that Carl August Peter Cornelius lived at a time when colour photography was around…
Thanks for that observation. Utterly useless to me I’m afraid!