I very much agree with you. Didn’t realize Roon did this, but you’re right.
Nothing in Roon tells me that hitting Play Now kills the queue. I can see it becoming a huge problem, not only at parties where people will get mad each other, but at any occasion when I’ve made a careful selection of songs that I want to hear.
Not everything is worth saving as a playlist.
Sonos has
I think Sooloos doesn’t have the last option.
Think I would be quite happy with a very similar set of options as Sonos has.
Roon doesn’t have the first.
Sooloos, the predecessor of Roon, doesn’t have the last.
How hard would it be to combine and get all 4 options in the menu?
Plus one for never deleting the queue. So annoying…It’s a queue…add stuff to it at the front or back.
My 2 cents, having thought it over for a while: Clearing the queue SHOULD BE a separate thing that requires an extra keystroke or two (or whatever you iPad people do instead of keystrokes.) “Play now” interrupts the current song and shifts everything, including the current song, down in the queue. That’s how it ought to work, IMO.
As Anders has mentioned, one of the biggest complaints we heard about Sooloos was the queue staying around long past its expiration date-- thousands of tracks, some played or queued months ago, sitting around for no reason. It was extremely jarring when your after-dinner jazz listening was followed by something totally unrelated, queued days ago by someone else in your household.
One of the reasons for the long lasting queue in Sooloos was that it also functioned as a kind of work space – it was where you built playlists, and where you saw your (recent) history. Playlists and history are both real features now, with lots of exciting functionality planned on our roadmap. This let us design a queue implementation that no longer required “clean up”.
While designing the queue, we also recognized a real need to easily pivot to a whole new set of content as your mood changes. Sometimes I’ll wake up and queue something quiet while the coffee brews – folk, jazz, r&b, classical… An hour later, fully caffeinated, I’m getting into a groove with work and I’m ready for something with a little more energy. For better or worse, being able to switch the mood in a single, satisfying click was an experience we prioritized above “I want to interrupt the song, but not the queue”, which for now takes two clicks (Add Next > Next Track).
So, why not include a “Replace Queue” button? Well, we’ve also found that many people don’t even think about the queue. I may spend 10 minutes browsing and queuing the perfect mix of albums for the next couple of hours, but my wife sees what she wants, hits play, and lets Radio do the rest. When she’s ready for something new, she does it again, and she’s never faced with a decision about whether to “replace the queue”, a meaningless distraction for how she listens to music. All the options on the screen make sense to her and me, which was the desired effect.
This isn’t to say anyone’s wrong – we take all of this feedback into consideration and I wouldn’t rule out a change here, but that gives you guys some insight into how this was designed.
A few additional points for all three of you still reading this:
We are planning a party mode for times when you’re passing around a tablet and can’t expect people to understand the play choices. IMO, Play Now at a party is pretty rude anyway 
Our upcoming 1.2 release will add an undo button to the “12 Tracks Played” notification that pops up (kind of like Gmail), so you have a few seconds to correct your mistake if you accidentally kill your queue
Needs to be one click.
Otherwise: from an album, go to queue, click Clear, go back, Play. 4 clicks.
Worse, click Play, from the pawmasher realize you wanted to clear first and click on the side to get out, queue, clear, back, play. Six clicks.
Oh, the horror, the horror…
Mike, thanks or the long explanation. I can understand your thinking. But at the same time, respectfully, I think you might be overthinking this. When I hit the “Play Now” button, it’s doing something other than playing now, and it’s destructive: it’s killing my queue. And there’s no logical connection between playing a song and killing the queue. You don’t want your software doing unexpected, destructive things, IMO. This is pretty basic, and to me its basic-ness means it trumps (sorry–hate to use that word right now) long-term usability for Roon pros. Don’t give your users unexpected bad experiences by doing stuff they didn’t ask Roon to do. This isn’t a democracy–you guys get to design Roon however you want to–but on this forum at least, a non-destructive “play now” seems to have a lot of support.
Cheers.
jca
You made me change opinion entirely on this matter with your reasoning. The way it currently works makes total sense now.
Coming to think of it, I actually had this experience just this morning at work with Sonos, where I played some quite angry Infected Mushroom before my colleagues arrived, but queued up some softer music just before they did. And then suddenly during the day, the rest of IM The Supervisor scared the hell out of one of them.
I can teach myself to not kill the queue, and for everyone else it just works as they expect it to. But a party mode is much needed—that would be a great addition.
Party mode is a great thing.
Also cool if I can restrict it to a specific Focus…
Debates about preferred default options usually have equally vociferous supporters on both sides. I think the answer is customisation. I’d like to see a right click bring up a complete menu of selectable options, any one of which can be configured as the left click default. No more debates about defaults.
I’d like to see an ‘Add Tracks to Queue without Confirmation’ option in Settings.
Just like Sooloos…
I can’t agree with @Jim_Austin more. There is a reason why all the other popular players don’t exhibit the destructive queue behavior. This is not a I’m used to this or I’m used to that debate, it’s what is more logical. If a queue gets to long over time, the user can choose to delete it or pair it down song by song.
I partially work around the issue by turning repeat on. This way, after a song is played, it goes to the end of the queue instead of being deleted. A little clunky, but it works. If it’s helpful, the iPeng implementation of a queue is the best I’ve used.
But you can do this by tapping “Play Next”. I think the current options Play Now, Play Next and Add to end of Queue work just fine.
If I’ve just had a great night of listening, is there a way I can create a playlist from what I’ve listened to?
Hi Kerry,
Go into History and highlight the songs. Then click the 3 dots icon at the top of the screen and select Add to a Playlist.
Cheers, Greg
Cool, thanks Greg!
Nothing is coming up in my history now for some reason. I’m using the iPad app. Help!
Wait, my history is back. That was strange!