I searched for “Erroll Garner”–I have quite a few on his albums on my NAS–and got the results shown in the embedded image.
Why would Roon, in the initial search input, find everything but the artist? It seems like the artist would be the most-desired choice. In fact, when I click “See all results,” it shows him as the “Top result.”
Don’t get me wrong. Roon is terrific. It just sometimes does odd things in searches.
I get the exact same search results as you, but I don’t fell they are at all odd.
Erroll Garner is an artist who happens to be a composer, too. If you select the first result given in the drop-down search bar (Composer Erroll Garner), it will bring up the exact same screen, as selecting the ‘Top Result’ from ‘Search all results’… the Erroll Garner ‘Artist’ screen, with an added tab for his compositions.
I see what you mean. Selecting him as composer does bring up his albums in my library. But it seems more intuitive to show the top result (Garner as artist) first. It’s great to be able to find his compositions, too, but I think the average user typically would want to find an artist (at least a nonclassical one) before finding his compositions. If Roon ultimately shows Garner as artist as the top result, why wouldn’t it first show him as artist when one searches with the magnifying glass?
The screens for ‘Artist’ and ‘Composer’ are exactly the same… The artist may be a performer, a composer, or even both at the same time. Selecting him as ‘Artist’ or ‘Composer’ brings up the same screen and so it doesn’t really matter which one you select.
Personally I’d rather see Roon abandon this generalizing concept of ‘Artist’ altogether, and clearly distinguish between ‘Performer’, ‘Composer’ or even ‘Lyricist’. Even if the page design for each is the same. I’ve far too many albums in my library where a ‘Composer’ (like L. v. Beethoven) is credited as ‘Artist’ or even ‘Principal Artist’, because this distinction is not clearly made.
BTW, this failure to semantically distinguish between a given artist’s role is similar to the failure to distinguish between ‘Composition’ and ‘Performance’ which I feel is very unfortunate, indeed. Other forum users have pointed out that it is impossible to ‘heart’ a given performer’s ‘performance’ of a composition. Heart it in one album, and all other performances of that same composition will be hearted in your library, like or hate them…
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