Hey, Neil. Doing well, thanks. What I am proposing would not hide anything from other sources. It would only move what you have in your library (local files or items favorited in Qobuz/Roon, moved to the top of the results). In the example where I am searching for moody, I wish it would look like this:
The Moody Blues gets moved to the top of my search results because it is a library item. All other results are still there, they just comes after the results matching my library items. You still get just as much, just in a different order so you can retrieve your favorite things faster while still being presented with all the other things that are relevant results.
It’s something I do all day long, but I would like prioritization applied to the suggestion list as well. That way I wouldn’t even have to click though to the result screen and then filter. Here’s the suggestions for “moody”.
@pscreed , I certainly have never had any such intent. As far as I’m concerned, anyone in the software business will “never get it right” (I speak from experience). And I’ve posted my share of criticism when I think Roon has let us down.
Two things:
As a looooongtime database specialist, I understand what Roon is going through trying to resolve issues with search. It will =never= behave like Google, so subscribers should realize the resources simply aren’t there, and stop comparing the two. And I do encourage subscribers that want Roon to search for “what they’re thinking” to understand that Roon can’t easily read our minds. Think about the keywords you’re using and how a search can be affected by your choices.
I wanted to bust Mike’s balls a bit. He’s a very knowledgeable asset to any software development team, and I can’t begin to emphasize how much that means. Well thought out, and well articulated ideas are far more useful than endless complaints. I hope Roon makes note of Mike’s suggestions, which continue to be some of the best I’ve seen in this community.
Thanks for taking the time to reply. We are planning some improvements soon to better incorporate the user’s library content, which should help mitigate some of these issues.
Besides the “The Moody Blues” being in your own library content, objectively, it’s highly likely that most people would expect them as the top result when entering “moody”. A similar thing to cases like “ace”, “led”, or “miles”. It’s definitely high on the radar.
Hi @zenit, my musical fare consists to 90% of classical and baroque music, and I must say that I am happy with the recently released enhancements of Roon’s search functionality. I easily can find what I am looking for, and searching for artists always brings up the artist as first result, before albums, tracks or even compositions. Search is noticeably faster, too. Your work shows and for that a big thank you!
Hi! IDK if this is the right place to put it, but to me, the most frustrating situation is when the search algorithm prioritizes an exact match below some random track I’ve never even heard of before. The screenshot below is one of the better situations, sometimes the one I’m searching for with an exact search term is so low priority it doesn’t fit the autocomplete dropdown.
With all these improvements to search, can we make the simple change that partial matches are worth less than exact ones?
If only that, and prioritizing items in my library could be added, it would finally get to an OK state. I like Roon for many things but the state of search is just so devastating I was considering switching back to Spotify just for UX if they release HiFi for real.
I think this a good suggestion and I have seen similar oddities. I would still weigh partial library results over exact non-library results (like the “Moody” example above).
I would like to add to @Marcell_Toth example above, which is also one of my Roon search pet pevees (search not respecting exact phrase):
Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling, Andreas Werliin - Ghosted
My search term in this case is ghosted. I hit enter and filter on albums. There is an endless scroll of albums and nowhere do I see this album. Also nowhere do I see any albums with the name Ghosted. Most of the search result has no album names related to that phrase.
I understand that doing a search and then filter on albums, will not strictly show me a search result for album names with that phrase. And Roon does give me as a first result in the artist section an artist named “ghosted”, so that is a positive!
However, if I go to the artist Oren Ambarchi and check the discography and sort on latest, the album is there at the top (released April 15th).
To me this is a perfect example where a respected phrase would have at least brought this up high on the result list, instead of now not even showing up after endless scrolling of the result.
Have a recording of this, but hopefully the written description is enough to repeat the steps.
Roon search seems to be quite literal, and unable to parse something as simple as a missing space between words. for instance, a search for the Mingus tune “The Drycleaner from Des Moines” shows a single, obscure result
Agreed just performed a search an album called Honey’s Dead by Jesus and Mary Chain. I didnt put in the apostrophe forgot it needed it but Roon puts it at 32 out of 33 without the apostrophe even though there are no other hits anywhere near this combo of words. Put in apostrophe first go it gets it. Come on Roon this needs sorting itsjust not good enough.
In that case I would type “nev tou band”, which is the way I normally like to search and works perfectly since several versions back. If I am not sure about a space, word, apostrophe, etc, I just skip it and voila… you can start each word from a single letter or two; of course as more correct letters you include, the less and better results you’ll get. Also works with a partial mix of artist and song. Hope this helps!
I never followed up on my original post, just wanted to say it’s orders of magnitude better these days. Appreciate that these are not simple problems but nonetheless I see progress. Thanks a lot.
I totally agree with this. Even Qobuz let’s you search with close enough spellings. You screw up one letter and no matches.
I’d also think artist should be first in results if there is a match. You think people want to see a single track over an artist? I actually like how Qobuz gives you options to what you want to search on.
