Difference between Bookmarks and Playlists?

Sorry to ask, but what’s the difference between a Playlist and Bookmark.

All my favourites are stored in a Bookmark and find this easier to use (just one click on Bookmark symbol top right of screen).

What am I misunderstanding (thanks for any replys).

Hi John,

A Bookmark is a “smart search” that will apply the Focus filters within it to the whole library. It is dynamic so it will include recent additions within those filters. You can bookmark Albums, Artists, Tracks, Compositions etc.

A Playlist is a collection of Tracks. It is fixed and won’t change unless Tracks are added or deleted.

You’ll find explanations for a lot of this stuff in the Roon Knowledge Base.

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If you select Tracks, then highlight the ‘Heart’ symbol. hitting play will shuffle through your favourites.

My understanding is that Bookmarks are intended to apply to literally any screen outside of settings. So that makes them essentially a smart search if you save a screen that is the results of a search. But there are also many uses of Bookmarks which are not to do with searches.

Subtle conceptual difference perhaps but important for understanding the possibilities.

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Presumably a Tag is static as well

For example if I want a Shortcut to my ever changing Beethoven Piano Sonatas then a Bookmark is the answer

If I want a shortcut to my fixed Beethoven Edition either a Tag or a Bookmark will do it

Have I got it ?

Mike

A Bookmark is a short cut. A Tag is a user-defined Focus marker.

You could, for example, Tag all your Beethoven orchestral Albums according to the hair colour of the bassoonist. You could then Bookmark a search on that Tag either with or without other Focus filters.

Yes, except if you Tag an Artist, the results on Albums becomes somewhat dynamic, new Albums by that Artist show up.

Sadly, both not really true. A Tag is not static, for the reasons that @AndersVinberg mentions. It is not “user-defined” because Roon choses other stuff to put “in the tag”, which the user did not ask for.

I moaned about this in some detail in What happened to my Tagged Compositions?. I find this to be pretty much the only thing the Roon team has managed to screw up since release. And as Tags are a minority feature, not enough people complain about it for it to get high enough up the list. So those of us who need tags end up dealing with a system which functions poorly.