Right now, I can’t see a simple way of starting part way through an album and playing the rest of it. Either you have to play the whole album or add individual tracks. A “play from here” option would be great - thanks 
10 Likes
Agree. Right now you have to PLAY the whole album, then in the playback window, you select say Track #4, and then you can playback from that track.
Would be nice to just right click on Album Track listing page and say PLAY FROM HERE.
Hi guys,
If you wish to add multiple tracks from an album in one go, try this:
If it’s the majority of tracks:
- Select an album
- Ctrl-A [Cmd-A on Mac] to select all tracks
- Click on the ones you don’t wish to play
- Once done, click on the play tracks icon (top left of screen).
If it’s only a few tracks, this might work better:
- Select an album
- Long click on the first track you wish to play
- Click on the additional ones you wish to play
- Once done, click on the play tracks icon (top left of screen).
1 Like
Also, just to add – if the use case is “i hate the intro” or “i hate the first 3 tracks”, clicking the track’s “favorite” heart twice will ban the track. This ensures you never hear those tracks, and can just play the album and hear the tracks you like.
If the goal here is just to play an album from the middle sometimes, we’re thinking about it for the moment. This has come up a few times since our launch, which is funny since I don’t recall anyone mentioning this once in 7 years of Sooloos… Wonder why that is?
Maybe it was before Al Gore invented the Internet?
@mike - “play from here” is how iTunes works by default. Come to think of it, it is also how CD players and record players work (i.e. just drop the needle on and let it play from there!), so I am surprised it has never come up in your Sooloos years!
As well as having this as a nice-to-have general feature, it is actually quite necessary for me. Because of all the AirPlay woes, I find myself having to restart the Roon server every few minutes, and each time I does this it forgets where it was playing before (which would be another nice feature - persist the current playlist across restarts). I suspect you never ran into this particular situation because Sooloos ran on a hardware platform you controlled so you didn’t have these kinds of user-setup-specific bugs. Thanks!
1 Like
I thought I was being dense & missing something obvious, but clearly not! This seems like a really obvious piece of essential functionality, surely?
The lack of this incredibly basic feature is driving me to distraction with Roon. In fact it’s so annoying that I often revert back to JRiver just so I can play on from any point in an album.
To give a good example of why this is so needed, let’s take an album with a suite of music, such as Dark Side of The Moon, for instance. The issue is that I don’t necessarily want to hear the whole album and want to take in chunks of it. Incredibly, for all its cost and complexity, I cannot do this with Roon.
I’m just dumfounded at the number of things you guys seem to have thought unimportant at launch, although full marks for steadily putting them right, the recent welcome addition of Asio compatibility being a case in point.
Please give this some priority.
2 Likes
Just because iTunes and JRiver do this, doesn’t mean it’s actually a good design
If I choose to play Track 3 of a 10 Track album, then I ONLY want it to play Track 3…and that aspect of iTunes and JRiver always playing the rest of the album [or adding it to the queue] always annoyed me
So I prefer Roon’s way of doing things, i.e. you have choices
- Play the Entire Album
- Play your marked Favourites from that Album
- Play the Track Picks [Editorial picks] from that Album
- Click Track 3 and 5 to ONLY play those tracks…and nothing else
- Follow the instructions from earlier in this thread from Carl and Mike as to how to choose a non-contiguous sequence of Tracks to add to the play queue
Personally, I wouldn’t like to see this “play rest of album”, as I’ve always considered it a poor design choice in other music players
1 Like
With you on this Ronnie,
If I choose to play a track I just want to hear that track, Roon has a great radio feature that continues to play, more akin to the radio which I would have on for ‘daytime listening’. From the now playing list there is a ‘play from here’ option which isnt too far away! Also playlists behave in this play a track and it continues method. A good balance of features?
I’m sorry but that is just too much hassle.
There should be the option for either method, either continuous album play or the ability to cherry pick. Why can’t there be both.
This way of doing things is as old as recorded music, if you think about it. Therefore it’s the way many people, myself included, are most comfortable with playing our music collections.
At first I assumed I was missing something, in that Roon wouldn’t do this incredibly basic thing. Then I gradually realized, along with others on here that it’s not there at all.
As much as Roon is blazing a trail in some important respects, this is an example of the overthinking that has plagued the launch - no apps from Day One, no Asio support (thankfully now sorted) and no continuous play.
And as far as the radio option is concerned, why is that so much better than my own vision of what I want to play and in whatever order? I guarantee I will never use it. This sort of software should be giving me more control over my music choices, not less.
2 Likes
I think “play this track” AND “play from here” could be options in the popup (with their play next and stick on end of playlist options). For me, the lack of “play from here” is definitely a backwards step from iTunes, CDs or vinyl!
2 Likes
“3. Play the Track Picks [Editorial picks] from that Album”.
There really needs to be a way to turn this off. I have no desire to see what other people consider good tracks. In fact, even seeing them there has annoyed me enough to stop using the player at times and just use JRiver instead.
This also goes for the star rating system. Give me a star system I CAN CHOOSE the star rating of the album. I have no interest in how other people rate the album.
4 Likes
I agree that the having the choice is positive but with the current setup I can achieve what I need easily.
Have you considered the knock-on implications of such a choice though??
You now need to FIRST choose whether to Play just that Track…or Play from here
And THEN, choose to Play it NOW…or Play it Next…or Add it to the Queue
So what is now a 2 Step process becomes a THREE step process
Absolutely, and to take that one stage further, the “editorial” that accompanies artists and albums is terribly opinionated and, frankly, apposite to my own thoughts in many cases. I’d much rather see straight “encyclopedia” based writing, rather than someone’s irrelevant view that such and such an artist isn’t up to snuff.
In my opinion, Roon has miscalculated a large percentage of their customer base, which is coming from the likes of JRiver but wants something a little less cumbersome to organize. We’re audiophiles, in the main, and not Sonos type casual listeners. My take anyway.
What this Thread does highlight is that something that some people think of as an “incredibly basic feature that’s missing” is actually a DESIGN CHOICE that suits the preferred listening styles of some [and I’d be tempted to say many]
So rather than it being an “Oversight”…it’s actually a carefully considered Design Choice
3 Likes
Just a very bad one.
I won’t be renewing if it doesn’t change. I have better things to do, and better ways, of just letting the music wash over me in whatever way I want.
Over thinking - there I’ve said it again.
In your humble opinion, of course…I think you forgot to add
While I do agree it’s a design choice (and a sophisticated one at that) that comes with a queue based system, it’s true most other software does allow for an easy ‘play from here’ option (even if it means they’re bluntly destroying the active queue). I like the way things are in Roon, but coming from Sooloos it’s probably easier for me to identify with it.
When click-holding or tap-holding a track, perhaps a ‘Play from here’ option could be embedded next to Play in the top bar, followed by the paw masher screen for play now / next / add to queue selection (the same way Play works from there). Unobtrusive and in my opinion ultimately a better option than placing it in the paw masher screen, since you can manage the queue position of your selection.