I’m new to Roon. I’m trying to figure out something that I expected to be basic.
I’m trying to search through my library for a track by name. I want that to be easy and quick on my iPhone in Roon, like it would be in, say, Spotify. But it isn’t. When I go to Search and start typing the first few letters, I get lots of clutter— stuff that is not in my library that shares a few letters in common with my track. So yes, I understand I have to press the Library icon (although… why? Shouldn’t my own library be prioritized automatically?).
But even when I press the Library icon, my song doesn’t show up! And the only thing that does show up is something that is still not in my library!
In order to actually locate the track that is actually in my library, I have to type the bulk of the entire first word. For example, I have a track titled “utemlennoe solnste” (a Russian tango). If I just type “ut” it shows me irrelevant clutter that is not in my library (even with the library icon pressed!) I have to type “utemlenn” before it shows my library track. This is frustrating. I just want to quickly locate my own library tracks.
What am I doing wrong? Or else, why is the design for quickly finding your own library tracks unintuitive like this?
The main Roon search is a “fuzzy” search that is designed to accommodate misspellings, near-misses, etc.
If you want something more exact, you should use the “field based” filter functionality in the track browser. Unfortunately, that doesn’t exist in the phone version of Roon. It only exists in the tablet (e.g., iPad) and Desktop versions.
But the “fuzzy” search doesn’t find my library tracks at all on my phone app, even when they’re spelled right! It will show me non-library stuff, or even say “no matches”, and NOT show me my stuff even when it’s correctly spelled (if the fragment is too small), and even if I have the “library only” icon pressed.
Is this a bug? How is it possible that finding something in your own library on the iPhone app can be so difficult?
There are several frustrations with the limited features on the phone, where the cut-off for what’s available and what isn’t doesn’t always seem logical. There are many open requests in Feature Suggestions
In the end, very few people are entirely happy with just the phone and nearly everyone uses a tablet and/or PC of some sort.
