Folder Browsing

The whole point of Roon is to get away from folders. I appreciate people used to folders may find the transition uncomfortable at first, but once you realise you can fine anything quickly and easily (I do anyway) you just move on.
Who remembers programming their old video recorders back in the day? That was a lot more complicated.
I was reminded of the first time I sat in someone’s Hybrid car. Tasked to move it. It took me 5 mins to work out what to do… :joy:

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If people want folder view (I do not myself) what is the issue. The rest of us do not have to use it. If it brings value to them, then who are we to question it.

The same with people who can hear the difference in the Music that comes via an auiophile switch that costs a thousand £€$. If it makes them happy…

Roon is a fairly small community (these forums even smaller) that we can I’ll afford to chase people away.

Mike

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We don’t want to build it and we don’t want it in the product. We believe it’s absolutely wrong in Roon.

If we can afford to chase file browsers away, what’s the issue? Those who want file browsing have many options.

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Danny my reply was not aimed at Roon as a company, but more of a general note that over the last several months the forums seem to have become more polarised and more representative of the current divided world we live in. Maybe it was always this way and I just didn’t see it before.

As the maker of the software you have every right to decide it’s feature set and to turn down customers who don’t want to do it the Roon way or don’t understand what Roon is.

Regards

Mike

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Quickly and easy? Do you have your cd’s organised in your bookshelf by full front cover or in traditional way, having them side by side (which is the closes thing to the term “list view”). I have over 700 cd’s and yes, browsing a list is much more convenient than scrolling hundreds of pages of images. Same like looking on my bookshelf which is organized in A-Z manner. I use text, names to quickly find what to listen to. I do not lay all the cd’s on the floor and choose by the cover.

Heck, I could live without folders but at least add List View to Artists and Albums so I can see more data at once.
So far Roon focuses on attacking the user with colorful images where Artist/Album name is much less important.
I would be glad to pay for the product because I think it is the best so far, especially when it is integrated with my Lyngdorf player. But I do not want to use it because it is a pain in the UI department to work with and makes me spend more time looking, searching rather than listening and enjoing my music.

But anyway, it does not matter as @danny already confirmed it would not be implemented.

Just use focus and/or the funnel. It’s so easy to find and sort anything.

Clearly I am either too old or just not a target user for this New Age UI.

Ok, forget the folders. Most of the app already generate a library based on tags, no issue with that.
But even default Music app on iPad lets you list view Artists, Albums, Compilations which is much more convenient rather than clicking new options, then specifying filters and maybe getting the desired results in the first place. Why do I need to do that in the first place when List View is present in every typical media playing application?
There is still so many screen space wasted by artists squares with no image just because one of the artists happen to be on some 4CD compilation and now is occupying the screen with the rest one-time artists which happen to be once on some album, even if they are not the target of my search.

IMO, Roon does not offer a folder view because that is a ‘digital’ way of doing things.

I think Roon wants to present an ‘analogue’ view and more closely approximate the experience of holding an LP cover, reding the liner notes, looking at the cover art, etc.

BTW - I am 70 times around the sun. You?

But Roon is all about digital, most of it’s major features are digital or digital related. And what you just wrote can be presented when choosing which record to play. You play a track and then you have a personalized, even intimate experience with full cover art, artist bio, lyrics etc.

It just the road to that experience is frustrating for me because I actually appreciate those options, even if I often do not use them. But they are there and can be launched any time. I assume you dont have your LPs glued to the wall front cover towards you. They are probably stacked in the box, one next to the other like cassette tapes, cd’s, dvd’s/BD’s. You select a certain album/LP/track and then you can enjoy it, for example a cd booklet or the vinyl record artwork in you hands.

I’m from 1986 and started my audio journey as a child fiddling with cassetes and postcard records. And I am all in for new technology, that is why I bought the Lyngdorf amplifier as one of the most up to date feature set in it’s budget. And I am struggling with Roon, do not want to end with upnp server or listening via airplay all the time with so many cd’s ripped to flac just sitting there and waiting on the storage disks.

[Sigh]

Not trying to start argument. Just my opinion of why Roon is so adamant about not having folders. Something I agree with, BTW.

Maybe your observations are better directed to someone else.

You are struggling with old behavior and expectations.
If you just let Roon do it job for which it is designed, it will be a breeze to play music; on premises or with streaming.
Oh and by the way, my CD collection was digital from the day i bought my first CD ; )
Not as accessible as it is now, but hey you can’t have it all.

Me neither, do not take this as something offensive. I did not had any hidden and negative agenda in my post.
I asked because many of the UI “rules” or “guides” come from the world that surrounds and human intuition just work the way it works. Can you glue them or put them on a shelf front cover? Sure. Will they look better than stacked one besides another? Yeah, probably. Is it convenient? No, because for start, you need much more area to present them in that way and often that is not possible.
It is easier and faster to just browse them in box or on the shelf. Same like documents and folder in a office drawer or in a binder or in a cloud drive (you do have more view options there for different types of data like photos etc.)

Easiest example would be using your computer operating system. Do you browse folders in Windows/MacOS/Linux with GUI or do you use Search function only? Which is faster and more convenient for you? Having more data at once in one window or browsing very big 4x folder thumbnails and scrolling for 5 minutes?

I would like to have an option for similar experience. Just List View, no folders.

@danny are List Views possible or also a no-go like folders?

Thats apples to oranges. Or apples to rabbits, if you will.

How much time and effort do you put into organization?

My library is rock and classical, there is no common file structure that suits both. Rock is Artist Classical is Composer, or is it Composition

How do you handle multi Composer discs , Various Artist Rock compilations

Or do you segregate by FLAC, MP3 , AAC , then what , I could go on , I usually do

My vote is let the software do the work, I have done it the other way , got the T shirt

I too am 70 and been collecting and organizing for over 50 years , I have been totally digital for 10 years , no physical media

Roon and JRiver serve my needs perfectly

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Not that much. I do not like to over complicate my library. I keep id tags to minimum.
I have 5 main groups (folders): Artists, Classical music, Games, Movies-Tv music and Various compilations (not tied to any specific artist group or label). Inside them, there are separate folders with flac files opposed to the mp3s. Both file types are tagged the same.

Within those folders, my music is id tagged with title, album name, artist name, album artist, year and that is it. No other tags are necessary for me, like for example genre or composer. This way I have pretty good experience browsing through them.
Having just a list view with text or small album/artist art next to the item is just better to browse for me and goes along other apps that I use on my system, tablet or smartphone.

Hi Jack,

Folders are OK, and useful in certain application. Everything I have is sorted in folders. Roon doesn’t need them though. I use them for my own internal management system and my master music file. In my case, several program access the same file setup and the folders serve as the “storage rack” per se. The works good for JRiver MC, and I take a direct folder copy for use with my Bryston BDPs. The BDP MPD has a database sorter, but I access the stuff in group folders (CD, Hi-Res, etc and alphabetical sub folders A-F, G- L, etc).

At least in Artist view you can just type the first letters of an artist and go right to that part of your collection. Somewhat similar to finding the albums for Rolling Stones two-thirds of the way down your album stack. Can’t do that in Albums, but it would be much easier with fast scrolling capabilities. That would be at least closer to the ‘easy to get there’ experience you are seeking.

This bothers me at a fundamental level. I haven’t actually been able to figure out why or how to articulate it. Not specifically regarding file browsers, but that there is an ethos at Roon that makes them comfortable making a group of users feel unwelcome.

Maybe I am feeling it is elitist of a sort. I dunno but I don’t like it. It’s one thing to make a compelling argument why there are better methods of accessing music or that you are trying to break a paradigm with your product. “chase” away doesn’t feel right.

I also feel like this enables the “Roon is perfect if it’s not for you then go away” crowd more than it needed to. If you want user feedback, this portion of the forum should be discouraged from chasing people away, not encouraged by like activity on the part of the Roon team itself.

My $.02.

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I worked at a start-up with no angel funding. No investors. Just two guys, their savings, a stack of credit cards, loans on their houses, and a dream. An emerging industry that most people thought was a fad. I got this job because I was ambitious and, basically, willing to work for the experience. I was still in school and didn’t need the cash. I slept under my desk regularly because of the long hours. It felt more like roommates than co-workers with how many hours we were there. From the view outside it was a horrible job with tremendous risk. I loved every single minute of it. I also had, still do, tremendous respect for the founders because they were willing to say “No”.

When you’re building a company it takes cash to say “yes”. A return on that cash, on any cash, isn’t guaranteed and the more “yes’s” you’re juggling the more diluted your dream becomes and the more risk there is of the whole thing failing; your dream failing. Every single day a “customer” would call us and want something that wasn’t part of that dream. Wasn’t part of that core vision. It wasn’t a “bad” idea. It was technically possible for us to do. It just wasn’t right to allocate funding / resources to it as it wasn’t part of the dream or the core of what we were building. They were not shy about saying “no”. That boldness would often come across as arrogance and “they don’t know what they are doing” was repeated regularly. In fact, it angered others enough they want and started competing companies. Truth is, we were already overworked with no cash to expand beyond the very narrow focus of what we were trying to build. That company was wildly successful. The others kind of disappeared over time.

I totally get what you’re saying. When you’re looking at something that seems completely obvious and the response is “go away” that’s not a big comfortable hug from a company you want to give cash to every month / year / lifetime. But, if you’ve ever been on the side of a small company saying “no”… well, it changes your perspective of why “no” is so very important to successful companies. That’s why I have tremendous respect for the Roon team. I’ve been there. I’ve lived it. I know the passion of saying “no” in order to focus on your dream and your core. But you’re right. It’s uncomfortable to hear but it can, and I believe it does, make Roon better.

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Folder browsing was happening 30 years ago when all the available software weren’t able to manage files in a more user friendly way.

You can still stick to the old days of WIN 98 or go ahead and learn a new software…we’re in 2021…c’mon :joy:

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