I use favorites just a little bit - a track that is new to me that I want to remember to listen to again when I’m having my dedicated listening sessions. I don’t favorite all my old classics or things I know well, because while those are favorites, it defeats the purpose of being reminded to listen to something other than Stairway to Heaven.
What I use mostly to access my collection are Tags. I have found this is a better way to drill into music that fits my mood of the moment. I have tags that effectively represent “when I want mellow” or “when I want to air guitar and jump up and down” etc. and so they are kind of like genres, except more of a mood match than anything else.
Tags are great for that. It just frustrates the heck out of me that Roon’s Tags don’t export (and they don’t import from embedded metatags either) which means the work is not portable, Roon is a Venus flytrap, and if Roon disappears or I decide to move my collection to another application, that work is lost. It’s not like that in any other application where you can embed the tags in the file.
Point taken, but I don’t think this takes away from the request for folder view. True, streaming albums won’t appear, but it would be so useful to those who simply cannot or do not want to put in the time to locate their folder organized local collections. If folder view wasn’t just the bare basic that basically every media player has, or if it was a tricky development, I’d reconsider. I just don’t think Roon’s decision to be different here is defensible. It’s like the best burger place in town will only serve burgers medium and doesn’t have french fries. Headstrong.