One of the consequences of the ease of digital piracy is the low investment in digital media. With a few notable exceptions artists and recording companies have dropped the ball in relation to artwork and images that could be bundled with music. The result is a space crying out for Roon to fill, if the non-trivial rights and licensing issues can be solved.
Whatever approach the Roon guys use I would make a plea that it remain within the Roon UI. Opening a general browser for artwork or cover notes feels clunky.
Well, sadly, we have to open an external program now for PDF liner notes viewing. Would love PDF viewing to be integrated into the UI, like jpg viewing.
Letās not forget the Roon main web page upon which their stated intent is to do exactly what this thread is suggesting - as per attached screenshot. Clearly Roon agree with the idea to bring back that which has been lost, in both audio quality and metadata. The only question is how and to what design. This thread should focus on how that design looks, or is implemented - minimal vs rich and all manner in between. If you donāt want it, probably good just to vote for an option to disable it in the settings somewhere. On that topic, I do note that some systems have a ābasicā mode - perhaps that would be more to the liking of those that donāt want the metadata - sort of like a minimal Winamp for those of you whom may remember! Then none of this would apply anyway. Great discussion, love it!
I think we are all hung up on the ābookletā idea and the skeuomorphic nature of that. Skeuomorphism lost favour with the death of Steve Jobs and Apple went the other way. Googleās Material Design is a nice balance. It represents paper but doesnāt try to imitate it. Skeuomorphism would say it had to have ruled lines so people can see itās paper.
There is a lot of information that could be accessible from the playback screen. Thereās a lot of information that should be accessible from the playback screen. Does that mean 101 buttons is the right approach? I donāt think so. Does it mean ignoring the content in favour of being a clean interface? I donāt think thatās the right approach either.
As an example - we have artist notes today on the artist page. Would it be interesting to read that while listening to a new artist? I think so. But itās now about 3 screens away from where you are. Today we seem to say that if youāve chosen an album youāre no longer interested in knowing about the artist. Album notes? Sure Iād like to read those too. Related images? Be nice maybe. Credits. The list goes on.
Enter skeuomorphism - we could āgo digitalā and have buttons and menus or we go for something that has another way of handling that. Like a book which has a table of contents. It offers a pretty quick and easy way of navigating a lot of paginated content. And paginating does have a place. Lyrics for example. Should things relating to a single track (lyrics, credits) be separated from other tracks?
I have seen this Roon marketing picture of their site show uo.a couple of times when people refer to Roon promise to show inlays but that never had to be taken literaly. They only show the difference of experience in the past and what players like Itunes (also a picture from the past) made out of it. There was never a promise that there would be exact copies of the inlays, just a promise of more rich metadata. Please donāt get me wrong, Iām fond of metadat regarding my music but Iām not a fan of skeuomorphism on the contrary I think thatās a thing of the past, a transition stage we all should leave behind by now. Again, you have to think the other way around. What information would you like to see, would you want it to be static?, dynamic?, interactive? Once you have set these parameters the design will follow. Donāt start with the layout, start with the content first.
Itās not often the Naim app is held up as an example for Roon!
It displays the same Rovi data and needs to be clicked to access it and there can be slight delays as the data is accessed/ downloaded.
It is not the ānow playingā screen, it is accessed from it.
Whilst there is room for improvement Iād be careful what you wish for guys.
Itās really more and better metadata not how the current stuff is displayed that is the elephant in the room. Letās get more data and then worry about how best to display it.
Interesting discussion. Personally, I think that Roon fulfils its promise - but its current natural home is the tablet. Thereās incredibly rich data with artist bios, album review and links between artists. Album bios (for want of a better term) to supplement the Allmusic reviews would be nice. I think for any more weāre at the mercy of record companies - perhaps weāll see some kind of digital interactive liner notes some day.
I think there could be scope for a ābig screenā version of the now playing screen that could show large artwork with the queue or album tracklist perhaps. I think this should be an āextraā and not replace the current now playing screen - which is perfect on a tablet.
āIām going to jump in here, mostly due to the fact that there has been a notable lack of controversial posts on this forum lately. Have we all gotten fat and happy? I find myself less interested in checking the forum when all the questions are about drivers and network settingsā¦ā
hi james, i think weāve pretty much given up putting together wishlists as the ergonomic and functional changes and updates are so few and far between. Just accepting the status quo at the mo and not banging our heads against the door which will not open.
I agree with you, Iām not visiting the forum nearly as much, no interest in 99% of the posts.
Fat and keen-to-see-so-much-more-and-making-do-because-thereās-definitely-nothing-better-overall sort of sums it up
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James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
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Fair enough! Itās also summer! (If I may be hemispherocentricā¦)
Haha. You are being kind to blame it on the seasons.
Iāve not got a problem with the lack of dev in the directions we would all love to see but itās just not happening, lol. We just have to accept it and move on, spend our time listening to music and discovering new hobbiesā¦like getting out in the summer sunshine with our portable players andā¦ oh noā¦ NOT Roon
The Naim example was used to demonstrate the depth & diversity of information available. In the example given, when I compare the detail available in Roon to that available in the Naim app, Naim has far more information available.
Like you, I am not unduly concerned about visual presentation at present. I would, however, like to see that depth of detail available in Roon (i.e. comprehensive Album Credits, Biography, Discography, etc.)
I must have a closer look but the only thing I feel is in the Naim app that isnāt in Roon is the discography. This would be nice to have but integrated into the Tidal screen where perhaps you can toggle full discography and Tidal discography and have a clear indication in full discography mode which are available on Tidal (and hopefully qobuz).
Fully agree on the discography requirement, if only to make up for the poorness of many reviews which include a phrase similar to āā¦not as good as their last albumā¦ā . Oh what album would that be then? That alone is my main reason for clicking out of Roon and into Wikipedia/discogs to search for the information.
