Most of the time, the blend of Tidal with the NAS or the “Local” library is a great feature. In my case, there is an iTunes library on a network drive.
However, on occassion, I would like features like suggested below. I am sure that this is not a complete list.
SCENARIO 1 - LISTENING TO HIGH RESOLUTION MUSIC ONLY: I am having a “high resolution evening”, and so I would like to push a button on the ROON dashboard with the functionality: “Show all recordings of a high resolution format”. It could be DSD, WAV 24/96 etc.
SCENARIO 2 - LISTENING TO YOUR OWN STUFF ONLY: I am having a retrospect evening where I would like to dive into my own local library. In this case, the availability of TIDAL albums and playlists blended into/with my local library becomes pure noise. This blending litterally disables the search and survey of my local library. (I.e. where is it, among all that TIDAL music?) And so I would like a button with the functionality: “Show ONLY the music available in the local library”, possible with another toggle button with the functionality: “Keep feeding me with the Tidal metainfo related to my local library”
SCENARIO 3 - INVESTIGATING THE LIBRARY AND MAKING SURE EVERYTHING IS INCLUDED IN THE ROON LISTINGS: There is a discrepancy between Roon and an Android media player. The latter finds several hundred more tracks than ROON. And so I have the same need as in scenario 2, but for another purpose: I want to make sure setup of the local library is perfect.
Until I have these features, I must quite often exit Roon and use my traditional mediaplayers, but Roon is so much better and I want to stay there!
Perhaps this is already possible, only I did not find it as a newbie?
Explore the Focus search tools. Your first example can be done with Format. You can OR multiple formats, or invert a search filter by toggling + to -. Similarly under Inspector/Storage Location you can select only Tidal, or invert to exclude Tidal. Once you have your filter right, bookmark and name it so you can recall it with one click. Bookmarks are dynamic and will apply the stored filters to your current library.
Firstly, it doesn’t seem logical that a collection of music, even when virtual, is called a bookmark. There is no perceived affordance on the part of the user - Ie they will expect a bookmark to be a pointer to a page not a different type of playlist.
It also doesn’t seem logical to provide 2 completely separate collections of lists. wouldn’t it be much more logical to have one type of list…a playlist…and then we would be able to browse them all together and there could be minor visual differences to denote a ‘smart playlist’ or a ‘focus playlist’ from the user-generated kind?
Whilst we’re at it, we could add an icon next to the bookmark icon to access playlists and then we could very easily access playlists or saved pages/views.
Would this make sense to others, or is it just me?
The term bookmark just means saved to me, bookmarking a search doesn’t seem out of place.
Playback happens from the queue. You can get music into the queue in a variety of ways. Two of those are playlists (fixed content) and Play All after a search (dynamic content). A search is not always intended to be played, so turning it into a playlist seems limiting. It’s a search, the Play All command just loads it into the queue.
Playlists are a menu selection away. Why not an icon for every menu selection ? Soon gets cluttered.
I’m a bit on the fence on this one. Like andybob to me a bookmark is a saved “view” (or window?) on a sub-section of my music that I want to browse and select from and not a playlist so I would not want to combine bookmarks and playlists. However a more refined search/view is one way to create a playlist and whilst I’m also wary of cluttering up the UI too much it seems that an icon to make a search result a playlist rather than a bookmark would not be too difficult to add.
The option to turn a search into a playlist is there under the + icon. We could have 3 or 4 icons instead of one with a menu, but it feels unnecessary.
I wondered if there was a way to do it already. All my bookmarks are Album based as that is the way I prefer to browse and I had not seen a + on those views. It seems the + only appears in track view and then you have to select one and select all and then select the + at the top to make a playlist so it can be done but its a bit clunky. Is there an easier way to do playlists or is there a way to create a playlist from searches on Album (or Artist) or can you easily swap to the track listing from an Album or Artist search?
Thanks for feedback and it solved my problem and will be used, but I have to admit about my clumsyness as I used more than 5 minutes to locate the “Focus” option as it was new to me and not present in the screenshot that was coincidentally open when I started to look for it. In other words, this feature seems to be subject to context, rather than being a core feature, which I find a bit confusing. The metaphor of my user behavior: Whatever I do, I may suddenly feel an inner urge to leave what I am doing and immediately access my local files. Where is the button?
In Spotify, there is a menu headline called YOUR MUSIC, including a subsection called “Local files”. The “Local files” section is thus available aside the other options in what Roon entitles “Carl Henrik’s stuff”. Its function is immediately spotted and understood. I suggest to implement something similar in Roon!
To convert the “local files” to a playlist or a bookmark will work just fine, but it would represent a terminology confusion as measured against the “defacto” meaning of those words. This support forum would most definitely receive a lot of questions about it.
Secondly, Roon is offering expensive media player integration for enhanced audio quality, and from these fingertips it would look coherent and elegant if such (excellent) integration was followed up by a new core feature, i.e. to filter out anything but high resolution audio formats. If nothing else, it would at least satisfy audiophile communities and attract customers.
One of my bookmarks is HiRes files try focus and then format from the list to the right end of the focus window. Or did you already find this and are suggesting something different.
You can also use the format options under focus or inspector to generate a bookmark just local files and under inspector you can even bookmark local files stored in different locations.
I’m not sure why you find bookmarks more confusing than other options. Yes Roon is different from other programs and so there is a learning curve. But once you are past that In general I prefer the way Roon works over other programs.
The plus menu doesn’t show up on an album Focus search result, but if you make a selection by right-clicking or select all (ctrl-a or longpress) then it will show up next to Play in the top bar. If you select all then right-clicking will deselect particular albums.
A playlist created from a selection of albums will include all the tracks on the albums in the order of the selection. You can adopt a different sorting view to change that order before making the playlist or shuffle the playback of the playlist which will scramble up all the tracks of the selected albums.
Focus appears on screens in the “Collection” section of the main menu, being Artists/Albums/Tracks/Composers/Works. The available tools under the Focus button vary according to which screen of your Collection you are viewing.
Have a play with the Focus tools for each screen, and you’ll discover various functions. Clicking on the Album/Date Added tool, for example, you can click and drag to create a period. Clicking on the Album/Years tool lets you define a start and end year.
Thanks @andybob I’ve tried that out for creating playlists from focus searches starting with Albums and now I know how it works just fine for me as is.
The term bookmark just means saved to me, bookmarking a search doesn’t seem out of place.
But wouldn’t it be more useful to the user to identify what was saved? If you like a particular search result/Focus definition/etc then turn it into a “smart playlist” that updates itself on its own and is saved for the future - treating a collection of songs in the same way as a page may appear to be logical but not as helpful to a user as it could be. If, on the other hand, you like a particular ‘page’ then bookmark it - no argument.
Playback happens from the queue. You can get music into the queue in a variety of ways. Two of those are playlists (fixed content) and Play All after a search (dynamic content). A search is not always intended to be played, so turning it into a playlist seems limiting. It’s a search, the Play All command just loads it into the queue.
Agreed…a search should not become a playlist by default…only when it’s chosen to be saved/turned into a smartlist/bookmarked: “Save as smart playlist”
Playlists are a menu selection away. Why not an icon for every menu selection ?
Yes, an icon for every menu item would just be silly
Like andybob to me a bookmark is a saved “view” (or window?) on a sub-section of my music that I want to browse and select from and not a playlist so I would not want to combine bookmarks and playlists.
Definitely don’t think that they should be combined but their respective purposes could be better and more clearly defined.
it seems that an icon to make a search result a playlist rather than a bookmark would not be too difficult to add.
This wasn’t what I was suggesting. I feel that on the main screen it would be beneficial to add a way of accessing playlists as well as bookmarks. I still think that this would be the way forward. It could be that playlists have been placed in the hidden menu because when Roon was conceived, the product designers felt that playlists would be a secondary behind the much cooler ways to explore and collate music that is possible within Roon but not possible within other players where playlists are the main collating mechanism. I personally use playlists all the time as a way to remind myself of cool tracks I’ve discovered, great parties, fun family occasions where someone else has taken the role of DJ/MC and created a list I’d never even have contemplated creating, but it would be interesting to see the stats behind playlist use in Roon.
I completely agree with the original couple of opening posts on this thread. It popped up on my search to try to find out how to manage Tidal vs. my own library of purchased music. However I can find any of the suggested functionality. Maybe I should open a post with the same question? Can anyone point me to an article or a clear/up-to-date explanation of how to achieve what the original post here was requesting?
