Once you have this as you like it, create a Bookmark -
You can choose MQA in Focus.
It’s “Top Tracks” of an Artist’s content in your own Library - not of the total oeuvre of the artist. It’s an issue that has been acknowledged by Roon Labs, and apparently is on the list for improvement.
Not saying LR is perfect, or even the model that should be looked at. But imagine if every time you wanted to go from Library view to Develop, instead of either choosing with one click the Develop module along the top (or even better just D on the keyboard) you had to go to a separate menu, choose develop, then back to the menu and choose Library to go back to Library view. It would make for some long sessions, just those two extra steps. Cutting out the menu is key imo.
I tend to live in a browser for most sessions or follow the links for serendipity. Roon also has keyboard shortcuts for navigation if that’s what you like. Everybody has their own way of using Roon, and the design clearly suits some more than others.
In my case I had done a lot of research prior to my trial. According to that it was what I was looking for. I only needed the trial to determine that it did indeed work as I had seen. I had one minor glitch, that cost me a day or two till I figured out it wasn’t Roon causing the glitch. {sarcasm} So yeah, a laugh riot. {/sarcasm}
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Already said in other similar topics…UI is crap, there’s no excuse for a 120$ software not to improve it and only respond to topics they’re interested in here on the forum.
Asked assistance 6 months ago…team is still looking into it.
Hope some other software will come out and I’ll switch immediately too.
We’re in 2020 …did one of the Roon designer, if there’s one, look at the App store to see design trends of current app?
Roon is just iTunes with more options. iTunes was introduced in 2000!
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Also imagine the ability to set a target collection like LR (though in Roon ‘collection’ would be playlist) and then add to it with a keyboard command (like B in LR). I rarely use any of the tagging, bookmarking, playlist options in Roon because (to me) they’re so unintuitive and time consuming. Or the ability to quickly filter your library by ratings as in LR and set a rating by keyboard.
When one thinks about, any music program is really about managing files as if they were images (minus the developing aspect). They’re just image files that represent and output music vs outputting to print or screen. Lots that can be garnered imo from looking at other non-music DAM’s.
I don’t know what ‘live in a browser’ means. Yes, Roon has some keyboard shortcuts, but I can manage play, pause etc without a keyboard. It’s the intensive management items there are no keyboard commands for (except for bookmarks).
I spend most of my time in the album browser - probably because it’s analogous to the days when I had an LP collection followed by a CD collection. Occasionally I will visit the Artist or the Composer browser. I very rarely use the Genre or the Track browsers. That’s what I meant.
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Count me as someone who sees room for improvement. Of the major music engines, it’s far and away my least favorite and most clumsy. The issues have already been mentioned above, but I’d like to stress how frustrating it is that we must type the exact name of an artist/song/album before it populates in the search field. All other apps have managed to allow us to type “Allan” and it will also reveal the more common “Alan.” Englebert Humperdinck (yes I had to look it up) must get zero plays via Roon.
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Ah, yes, sorry. I too mostly reside in the album browser, though I like the Overview concept but just wish I could do everything else from there. I would like to use the genre browser more, but again, it’s just a lot of wasted space. I don’t want nor need a picture of some random artist to illustrate the genre for me so that I have to actually scroll when there’s only 23 top genres listed (and one of those is Gqom - what the heck is that??!!)
Can I take it then that you don’t use or subscribe to Roon, or do you use Roon for reasons other than the UI?
By the way, my following comments are not aimed at you, or anyone else who posts constructive criticism, but at some others who post regularly here.
I really find it strange that people who obviously do not like Roon, could not possibly have liked Roon when they trialled the product, and almost certainly will never be satisfied with Roon, can still take time to log into the Roon Community forum and post nothing but destructive post after destructive post about the product.
I have used JRiver, mConnect, Lumin and quite a few other music streaming applications and found them all to be disappointing and lacking in different ways. I even purchased a license for mConnect, but discarded the product pretty quickly because I found it extremely frustrating to use. I dislike Mac operating systems and their UIs with a vengeance, preferring to use Windows 10 PCs for my computer related activity.
Should I join the community forums for the providers of these products and post multiple destructive comments about their products. Absolutely not! These products each have a user base who presumably use and enjoy their products. They probably have very different ideas of what constitutes a ‘good’ UI than do I, and that is absolutely fine.
If you do not like the product, have no intention of using it and have nothing constructive to say about it then please find a product that you do like and let the silent majority of happy Roon users enjoy Roon for what it is and for what we would like it to be in the future.
Genuinely constructive criticism welcome, but don’t assume that everyone else agrees with your particular opinions and priorities.
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Or your own.
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But of course!
I certainly don’t assume that everyone agrees with my view of Mac operating systems and UIs.
But if your opinion is that Roon is “by far the least satisfying and most clumsy of the Music engines” or that “the Roon UI is crap”, why on earth would you chose to purchase the product.
As I mentioned before, I believe that the majority of users who subscribe to Roon do so because they like the product, and feel much the same way about the product as do I. I see no statistical evidence to be persuaded otherwise.
Some of the posts in this thread cannot possibly be said to be offering constructive criticism of any sort, and seem to be designed to deliberately provoke.
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The strangest thing to me is why devs and some Roon users get so offended when someone is saying the UI/UX is bad.
Over the years to so many said they feel the same (especially first time users) - so that should be a clear sign this area needs attention.
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Kind of why I like the Roon UI - I’ve been using MC since before iPods and have a great deal of affection/respect for it’s power - I still use it manage metadata and folder/files
for me that’s were Roon steps in - I see its role (for me) as presenting my music alongside metadata and Tidal music and delivering it easily and at high quality to my endpoints
I can put up with its occasional quirks given the iTunes/MC/Plex UI catastrophes
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You can like/love something and have criticisms of it too. Ask any couple.
I also think if the UI was easier to use and more intuitive, they might get a lot more subscribers after trial. I trialled 1.2 and said nah. Then later I trialled 1.5 and it was much better, but I had also just started streaming so it made a lot more sense to be able to combine local files with service ones. From the get go there were things I disliked about the UI, but the main thrust of Roon - music discovery - I loved. So now would just like to see things keep improving so it sticks around for awhile and is more powerful in its main purpose.
I agree. The recently played and recently added views have changed my life. I am completely blown away by such unexpected and downright clever innovation, there is clearly sheer genius and innovation brilliance brimming over in the team.
I especially like being confronted with this time and time again:
and being presented with recently played albums that were not played, but had metadata updated.
Innovation and quality in action. As soon as a decent competitor product emerges (and one will) I too will abandon Roon without so much as a second thought.
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I completely agree, and I have no quarrel to pick with those who post constructive criticism about aspects of the Roon UI that that they do not like. In particular for example, I sympathise with those who struggle to curate their large classical music libraries.
My argument is exclusively with those whose posts appear to be nothing but deliberately destructive.
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