Now that folder browsing is here and anyone can experience the look and feel of the feature, I thought it would be interesting to get an idea of its impact.
Folder browsing will cause Roon’s user base to:
Increase
Decrease
Stay the same
0voters
Folder browsing will cause existing users’ satisfaction with Roon to:
Increase
Decrease
Stay the same
0voters
Now that I can see folder browsing in action, my opinion about this feature has changed:
I absolutely welcome roon´s effort to satisfy minorities with desired features, but we should not overestimate the importance of folder browsing. It makes sense for a very very limited number of roon users. And before using roon extensively with a non-standard library and coming to that ´Help me, where are my bootlegs?´ moment, no one would think about folder browser or the necessity therefor.
When it was discussed, I did not take part because I thought I would never use it (I rather assign correct tags manually to an unidentified album). Now as it is implemented I have to say this is neatly integrated and there are some use cases besides nostalgic ´Pre-iTunes´-UI. For example when certain tracks (bonus tracks in particular) of different versions of an album got lost and I wanted to move them manually, roon folder browsing gave me an instant overview what is where. So I might use it more often than I thought but it is still not a vital feature to me.
Like @Suedkiez, I have no idea what the impact on Roon’s user base or user satisfaction will be, so I can’t answer those questions. Only Roon Labs will have the data. I’d be more interested in a survey asking whether users are actively using folder browsing or not. However, once again, only Roon Labs are likely to know this with any degree of accuracy…
This is a third order issue for me. I have an extensive personal collection which pre-dates Roon (and continues to be added to) and I have always ensured high quality metadata by undertaking editing before I load files to my Roon library.
However, as with many Roon features, this has strong appeal to a number of users, thus my vote that it will assist Roon in keeping and growing its customer base - which, of course, is good for all Roon users.
I also try to be meticulous about metadata. However, I’m very simple minded when listening to my local collection, as I almost always know just what I want to listen to and I know exactly where it is. (My folder structure is quite revolutionary btw: /artist/album/track).
My impression was that it was a pretty loud minority (I imagine some hardcore deadheads collecting 1,000s of bootlegs). And that is absolutely understandable, no one wants to pay for a music library software that is not letting you access a part of your collection. Really love roon for paying attention to such detail.
As always users needs are diverse. I will not use Folder Browsing, but I think (also after the voting results) that the user base interested in the functionality is not so small… as it seems 30-40% see it as an improvement. It seems at least one out of three will probably use it somehow
On the other side I see no drawbacks for the ones not using it
For me folder browsing is a clumsy antithesis to Roons philosophy.
But then, if people want that feature, its here now. Would be useful, if we could edit the sidebar, to hide features one never uses.
It surely is. But if you have a part of your collection without any metadata or perspective of getting some, it is a useful workaround.
What really surprised me is the level to which folder browsing has become a part of roon being accessible from every track listing and allowing library operations, while it seems to be seamlessly integrated without people who would not use it being annoyed.
Awesome addition! It would be useful if one could enter the folder browser from an artis/album page. So if you’re browsing an artis and suspect you’re missing something you can enter the folder structure rightaway.
I suppose it depends on the make up of your library, I have no bootlegs and if I remember rightly about 200 albums in IDed, most of which I can explain.
Will I use it, unlikely, I have fine tuned my navigation techniques in Roon and rarely have a problem finding the desired album.
Personally I thought one of the biggest selling points of Roon was that it did the metadata thing for you, but I still reckon many users groom metadata for the fun of it.
That said , my only gripe is that this took up dev time that could have been directed at something I would use say Box Sets
While that works pretty well with popular genres and either record labels or listeners providing consistent metadata, there are lots of voids in this system.
I do not think so. It is a lot of work and eating up a lot of time. I did it because roon was delivering a smooth experience with 80-90% of my albums and I wanted the same for my whole collection. In the end I have narrowed the number of albums down to a core collection I really listen to, the rest got migrated to folders being usually disabled.
You start grooming and discover one album after another not having links to composers, coming without genres or unidentified compositions. You want to have it fixed and it gets more and more.
Looking back I might have opted for disabling most of albums with inconsistent metadata. Really wished to have some focus filters and routines for that.
The voids are as you say down to record labels giving poor or little metadata on their releases. Roon has no control over that,
Even crowd sourcing , MusicBrainz, doesn’t fix it
That said working away through multi nested folders isn’t really the answer either , albeit a method of finding an album. This requires a level of discipline in your file structure on disc to be really useful
I’d answer IDK though, because I don’t