Sorry for the rerequest, but I still think it would be better as a menu option.
‘Play from here’ is my default listening mode. Now you have to right click a song, click the top button and then you still need to choose play now, add or add next.
A normal ‘Play now’ clears the playlist anyway so I’d like it to continue playing. Just like radio mode but different :).
I’d suggest a threeway switch: off, continue, radio.
A replacement for the ‘Play Radio’ button would be fine too, I haven’t used it once and it already is a setting anyway so the big button is not really needed: if radiomode is on, ‘play now’ does the exact same thing as ‘Start Radio’.
It’s great that it’s been acknowledged, but as implemented its a bit ‘messy’ and still doesn’t overcome the problem that if you’re a play from here by default’ type household, it still doesn’t really work as expected and you’d have to be shown what you need to do as a newcomer. A simple setting would be soooo much better.
Indeed, paaj’s post is what it boils down to imho…people coming fresh to Roon (ie…household members who aren’t geeks) are confounded when the music doesn’t simply continue on from where it started. It’s not what people are accustomed to, and is simply unintuitive.
There have been a number of threads now about play preferences, often arguing for different default behaviour with a single left click.
I’d suggest making a left click default user selectable and the right click a broad palette of choices. That way users can pick what they prefer as a single left click option but retain flexibility.
Some people might choose “Play Now” which destroys the Queue, others may want “Add Now” or “Add Next” which preserves the Queue. Still others may want “Play from Here Now” or “Play from Here Next”. Give the Right click every possible action, and let users select what they want to be Left click.
I think it comes down to what you want to user experience to be from the beginning. The queue management is confusing I think most people will agree. I think that some thought should be made to making it as user friendly as possible to people not familiar with the software. What I want is to be able to use roon in a social setting. Right now, I have a Sonos system that is used when I have company because it is so much more user friendly.I can pretty much leave a controller out and people will use it to look up music and add it to the queue for the night, if someone wants to play a song now, it doesn’t clear the queue for everyone else. It makes for a very enjoyable experience with people always asking me about buying one for their house. I would so rather have them ask me about buying roon, I think it is a better player but the queue system is not very good for the average person.
It’s clear people really do have different preferences here, and also that it has quite an affect on Roon’s usability in some households…. and ‘Play’ is a button that we all use pretty often I guess.
The only way to (try to) please everyone is to have a level of customisation.
I would personally like pressing ‘Play’ to:
-Just start playing (‘from here’ in Roon terms), without further ado, if there’s nothing already playing or queued.
-pop up a screen with my preferred option buttons if there’s already something playing or queued.
‘Playing from here’ would be a household default, although I suppose there will be the occasion when I just want to add a single track to the queue. I’m sure theres a nice way to do this.
I have been asked several times by others using Roon for the first time why it just stopped after the current track, and they also needed a bit of help understanding the queue (what ‘play now’ does). The press and hold for ‘play from here’ has to be taught for sure, and isn’t obvious - not unless you’ve followed these forums. Once it’s all explained though its very simple to understand so I can’t see how anyone actually finds it difficult to work with once you know how, but I think a ‘zero explanation’ situation would be ideal…
Hitting a track and have it instantly destroy any queue you had carefully crafted ( the Spotify way of doing things) was a big bone of contention for me with Naim when they updated their Naim app and aligned themselves with the Spotify way of doing things. Why not simply add a button to the grey option screen that opens up (Play Now, Add Next, Add to Queue, etc) when selecting a track or ‘play’ button.
You should never be able to destroy a queue except if you consciously hit the Play Now button.
I’ve used Roon for many months and I still do that. I think it’s from exasperation from having to make at least three selections just to get a song/album to play.
