Roon, could you please get the basic usability stuff out of the way whilst you blaze new trails

evand · January 19, 2020, 10:58am

Whenever I have some time to get down and listen to music meaning heavy interaction with Roon I find myself increasingly frustrated by the same niggly little usability issues that team Roon are either oblivious to or have very low down or not at all present on a priority list (we all ultimately settle into our own pathways re how we use an app and in doing so become oblivious to or forget issues we don’t encounter in our pathway).

Whilst I look forward to new developments and capabilities within Roon, I do feel that team Roon should not lose sight of things left unfinished, unpolished or poorly implemented. These little things coalesce to ultimately become significant detractors from the user experience and at some point the frustration they bring will outweigh the incremental value any new functionality can bring and they become incredibly difficult to address because they become part of a poor foundation and necessitate revisiting code that’s not been looked at in months/years.

I’m going to post about the little things that come to mind for me. I’ll add to this thread as I encounter them, and I respectfully ask that others do the same - use this thread to post about the little niggles that annoy you, not new feature requests or longstanding issues like box set handling. Issues posted here should generally only require a little polish or fix be added to Roon as it currently is. Use screenshots to illustrate / bring the issue to life for team Roon and other users.

David_Crosbie1 · January 19, 2020, 11:31am

One for me is consistency of UI between platforms, or rather removal of unnecessary Ui on the full size version.

On mobile, the volume button is volume
And switch zones and this makes sense. On the full version the zone is a button but also for some reason there’s this poorly tagged on volume button which does some of the same things that are already available in the zones button.

Just make it one or the other, get rid of clutter. Just put a volume slider next to each zone or something.

Which brings me to best bugbear. In audio settings you can pick an icon for your device, yet in a totally seperate place you can replace this icon with a zone icon. Why isn’t this just the same thing. It’s twice the work for the same result.

What’s weirder about the zone icon, is that it’s not even quickly changed from the zone menu. It’s quicker to change it from the volume menu.

Quite a poor flow if you ask me.

I like roon, I’ve paid for it after all. But there’s some really basic UI hash that could do with being addressed.

evand · January 19, 2020, 11:40am

FAILURE TO IDENTIFY AN ALBUM BECAUSE ROON’S METADATA SOURCES HAVE NO TRACK DURATION OR NO TRACK LISTING

I kinda get Roon’s reluctance to blindly match albums based only on Album Artist, Album and perhaps release date/year, but then at least allow us to filter on albums not identified for the aforementioned reasons - I have almost 4000 unidentified albums, many of which would fall into this category. Being able to focus that subset of unidentified albums would make for a significant reduction in the number of unidentified albums because I could handle them quickly, especially where only track duration is missing or track titles are missing but track count matches.

INABILITY TO SORT ALBUMS WHEN BROWSING CONTENT ASSIGNED TO A TAG:
Some of my tags contain hundreds of albums, there are no sort options e.g. Sort by Album, Year, Label etc.

INABILITY TO SORT SEARCH RESULTS

I’m presented with an unordered list spanning several pages. Now what? Is it really necessary to use filter to find the artist or album I’m after?

PLACEMENT OF PLAYING XX TRACKS POPUP ON MOBILES:

That bloody little popup gets in the way on mobiles, please move it out of the playback control area.

Desktop - not interfering with you:

Mobile - what do you mean you want to slide through the track, piss off I’m in charge here, you’re just a bloody user.

MAKE ROONALBUMTAG AND ROONTRACKTAG FIRST CLASS CITIZENS WITH RESPECT TO PERFORMANCE AND FOCUS
There have been numerous reports by users that use of ROONALBUMTAG and ROONTRACKTAG causes performance issues within Roon. Architecturally I can’t see why they’d be any different to any other browseable/ searchable data point within Roon. Please implement the necessary indexing or whatever optimisation is required in the code or database to make these first class citizens

When the performance aspect has been addressed, add them to Focus criteria to enable users to drill down into subsets of their library that include ROONALBUMTAG and ROONTRACKTAG as focus elements.

ADD BOOLEAN CAPABILITIES
Need I say more…
ENSURE BROWSE POSITION IS REMEMBERED WHEN BACKING OUT OF AN ALBUM OR ARTIST
There’s nothing more annoying than browsing a list (focused, filtered or otherwise), clicking through to an item and then being taken back to the first entry in the list when backing out. Fix it, please!

Frank_Daman · January 19, 2020, 11:43am

The main frustration I have has partly been touched upon by @evand, but only partly.

Roon’s UI is a cluttered affair. I don’t like it. To be fair: the same thing goes for all music players I’ve ever used. They are all cluttered.

I navigate almost exclusively by usung search.

Roon is supposed to be both player and library manager/navigator, so search should be the foremost basic usabilty requirement for fast, efficient retrieval.

So DEVELOP A REAL SEARCH FUNCTION WITH BOOLEAN CAPACITIES.

wizardofoz · January 19, 2020, 12:53pm

When searching from a specific browser area like Genre or Album…show the results of that browser initiated result first…dont when searching for a Genre list the results 5 levels below - this makes no sense what so ever. on a smaller display thats maybe 3 or pages below…on my 4K its still below the first page

Mike_O_Neill · January 19, 2020, 2:01pm

I’ll restate my red hot cherry

Box Set navigation is a pain, many classical compilations run to tens and many cases hundreds of discs, my classic example is Alfred Brendel where there are 114 discs , probably 100 or more were original Cd releases originally

The best Roon offers is 114 nice little hyperlinks (1.7 gave us a limited all track option ) you can’t filter or search without pulling back the entire db search . Eg filter on Beethoven would help . The All Track option is just as limited when it comes to big sets.

It needs an architectural rethink, a Box Set object with subordinate discs each with assignable artwork

Something so fundamental is missing , if I can set up something to do this in JRiver why can’t Roon

This is how it looks elsewhere

But AI and mobile are far more sexy

I will join @evand in posting stuff as it happens , but all this has been said before to no avail

My 2p

Mike_O_Neill · January 19, 2020, 2:16pm

The next weakness is Composer View,

Bach for me shows 1452 compositions ., admittedly you can filer on this view

Roon in general is Album based so why not show Composers by Album as an option with some Genre Buttons to filter by. Composition makes some sense but I personally tend to listen albums not single works. Take Chopin as an example many of his works a merely minutes long so there is a tendency (in me) to listen the Etudes en mass say

I suppose I am not alone in having a “Complete Works Set” for Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Brahms and Chopin in my collection. This makes my favourite composers difficult to navigate

This is how it looks in “another place”

in a mobile app I am 5 taps away from anywhere with no typing

xxx · January 19, 2020, 3:00pm

The unbearable persistence of Shuffle -

Constantly getting sandbagged by this. In the morning I listen to a Shuffled jazz queue and in the afternoon I tried to listen to some Mahler, e.g… We all know what happened. A shuffled symphony doesn’t make much sense.

I’ve gone through several iterations on how to address this.

Iteration #1 - Turn Shuffle off when a queue finishes. That is, the message “Go find something to play” is displayed… Problem is that, I suppose some people want Shuffle on all the time.

Iteration #2 - Have a switch that tells how one wants Shuffle to work. That is, whether it should persist until turned off or whether it should be turned off when the queue is ended. Problem is that, another switch is a kludge and a blight on society.

Iteration #3 - So simple. When a queue is started save the state of the Shuffle. When the queue ends, restore that state. That way, no matter what the present queue is set for, if Shuffle was on before that queue, it will be set to on when that queue ends and if off then it will be set to off. To set a new default for Shuffle, set the indicator state when the queue is empty.

This way everyone will be happy, but more importantly I will be happy.

This probably affects only those who listen to a mix of classical and something else, but still…

I am guessing the queue is a C++ object, so a new variable and a line of code in both the Constructor and Destructor. If they give me the source and I’ll code it for them.

It’s been a while since I’ve used other media players, but as I recall Shuffle only lasted for the duration of the queue. Why Roon can’t address this to be inline with other players, when it would take so little to change and not effect the way Shuffle works now, must be due to some perverse stubbornness from the developers.

lorin · January 19, 2020, 5:06pm

“Play album” should reset shuffle. It doesn’t say SHUFFLE album. Shuffle persists even on restart. It is so stupid. I get infuriated just thinking of the number of times this has come up when using Roon.

I am convinced nobody at Roon uses shuffle, ever… otherwise how would this ridiculous, clunky behaviour persist? I get it Roon is “opinionated” but nobody has ever given a satisfying explanation as to why this is the way it is.

lorin · January 19, 2020, 5:14pm

I edited my post to remove a comment about the shuffle state being unavailable on an empty queue because that has apparently been addressed. But I stopped even trying to use shuffle a year ago because of this behaviour so I didn’t notice and the main issue detailed above still remains. I wonder if “giving up” is/will be an issue for Roon with some of these LONG unaddressed issues we all deal with.

Personally I almost never visit the forums anymore because of that. Happy customers don’t visit forums they say. I guess exasperated ones neither. This isn’t “fix it or I’ll unsubscribe!” … I get value from Roon. I just find the path of development disappointing. Prioritize some of these long standing issues. Or they just don’t recognize them as issues. Anyway, back to not posting.

evand · January 19, 2020, 5:39pm

As other software players catch up I suspect it will become an issue. First mover advantage doesn’t come with longevity these days and people will switch to other solutions if they provide more of what they want than Roon does.

I’m a lifer and I find value in Roon but at the same time I find it incredibly frustrating and at times infuriating to work with (I’m thinking of you, you ill-placed, pointless little track count notification fcker). I’d even be prepared to continue contributing financially, but if the basic usability issues remain unaddressed and all we keep getting is bells and whistles whilst the basics aren’t bedded down I’ll switch as soon as there’s a better alternative.

AndersVinberg · January 19, 2020, 6:41pm

WRT Shuffle: we have that.

Whether settings should persist, and whether we should introduce a switch to control the choice, is a widespread issue. Should the seat heater be persistent, or apply to the current trip? Should delayed shutter apply to the next capture or until the camera goes to sleep or until the camera is turned off or until reset?

A switch is a blight upon humanity (see today’s camera menus), but there is a better way and Roon has it: two different actions with different behaviors.

If you go to the queue and turn on Shuffle, it stays in effect until reset.
If you click Shuffle instead of Play, it applies to that action and doesn’t persist. This is true whether you shuffle an album, a focus, a genre, a playlist or whatever.

xxx · January 19, 2020, 8:44pm

Not if one wants to add more than one album to the queue.

If one adds an album to the queue and Shuffle has been turned on from the queue screen, then Roon will Shuffle the new addition with the current queue contents.

If Shuffle is chosen from the album screen, then the first album to be queued gets Shuffled, but succeeding albums (where Shuffle is chosen form the album screen) just overlay the present queue with the newly chose, albeit Shuffled, album.

Indeed!

The best way is option #3 in my post.

At least, we agree on that.

AndersVinberg · January 19, 2020, 9:32pm

Which seems correct. But the problem with that mode is that the setting is persistent, messes with the future Mahler.

Who would want to do that?

You are right, incrementally building a queue and playing it shuffled doesn’t fit the model.

Similarly, on my Fuji camera, there is no way to specify that the next dozen pictures of the river should all have self-timer (to reduce shutter blur) but for the next half-dozen pictures of the waterfall I don’t want it.

evand · January 19, 2020, 9:34pm

Poor analogy I think, taking pictures is generally an active undertaking, listening to music not. I don’t expect to see similar functionality or workflows in camera and a music player.

xxx · January 19, 2020, 9:43pm

Exactly, my point.

No one.

The OP of this thread wanted complaints about Roon’s usability.
This is my complaint and judging by the times I’ve seen noobs say their album tracks are playing out of order, it is a legitimate complaint.

Truly, I don’t understand the defense of the way Shuffle currently works.

The logic I’ve outlined in my option #3 will address the Shuffle problem without necessarily changing the way Shuffle currently works, and with minimal coding effort.

Two lines of code and a global variable, at worst…

Ahh, so it goes…

AndersVinberg · January 19, 2020, 10:44pm

As far as I can tell, and if I understand you correctly, that’s the current behavior.

Set shuffle in the queue page OFF
PLAY an album: it plays in order, afterward the setting remains OFF
SHUFFLE an album, it plays shuffled, afterward the setting remains OFF
Set shuffle in the queue page ON
PLAY an album, it plays shuffled, afterward the setting remains ON
SHUFFLE an album, it plays shuffled, afterward the setting remains ON

So in effect, there are two settings, one on the queue page and one pertaining to the current action, with separate states, and they do not affect one another.
If at least one is on, the album plays shuffled.

xxx · January 19, 2020, 11:20pm

Anders, are you having a bad day? I feel we’re having a failure to communicate.

I want to change the way Shuffle works when it’s set on the Queue page.

If it’s set on the Queue page it remains in effect for the next time a queue is started.
That’s what screws everyone up when they complain about the album tracks playing out of order.

If the state of the Queue is saved before the queue play is initiated and restored when the queue ends, i.e. the message about '“Nothing playing, Go find something to play” (sic) is displayed, then Shuffle is no longer persistent and it will return to what was in effect before the current queue started. Whether Shuffle was set on or not for that queue is irrelevant.

As for as your suggestion to initiate Shuffle from the album page, that will work if one is dealing with only one album, but for multiple albums to be selected then, as I’ve said, that will overlay any queue that is currently playing with the last album where Shuffle was selected from its album page. Probably not what is wanted. .

At this point, I’m going to let my prior posts in this thread speak for themselves.

AndersVinberg · January 19, 2020, 11:39pm

Where did the previous state come from?

xxx · January 19, 2020, 11:46pm

The previous state is whatever the state of the Shuffle indicator, on the Queue screen, is before a particular queue is started. That should be saved when a new queue is started and restored when the queue has ended.

In this manner, when Shuffle is turned ON or even OFF for a particular queue, that doesn’t persist for any queues after that. The Shuffle indicate reverts to what it was, either ON or OFF, prior to it having been set for the ‘current’ queue.