Simple flag to allow track to be marked 'To Skip' playback in Queue

Support option to flag/mark a title as ‘To Skip Playback’ when listed in Queue so playback does not occur. Currently, there is no simple mechanism to just temporarily skip a track in queue without deleting it or using Next Song function. The latter being a transient action requiring user to repeat during each playlist playback. The former removing the song entirely which means I have to manage (note) this action outside the playlist if I want to in any way retain a reference to this title for some other purpose other than deleting. For example, I often simply would like to be able to mark a title as “Skip Playback” so that I can either review contents later to find a better version (clean vs. explicit, higher fidelity version, etc.) or simply want to temporarily not include in playlist but reserve for hearing at a later time. Using tags to mark these titles is a convoluted workaround with too many additional steps.

To handle management of “To Skip Playback” marked titles, simply add a “Unmark/Unskip” marked titles under top-level queue sub-menu.

A picture is worth a 1k words:

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I don’t see how would that differ to “Remove from Queue”…

Waht about the “heart”? Klick twice!!!

Maybe a better way to describe the functionality is as “enable and disable” playback. I don’t want to remove the title from the playlist, but I do want to take it out of rotation, at least temporarily. I generally do this with titles with explicit lyrics. Also with titles where I’m interested in finding a different performer/performance. It just seems to be one additional action to allow flexibility in managing your queue/playlist.

But it stays in the playlist. The track just won’t play until it’s reactivated.
to do this you had to klick once more.

You know I was looking for similar functionality last night. I bought some albums my 9 yr old and I both enjoy. There are some songs I don’t believe are suitable for her, so I had to remove them from my Nucleus SSD. I have the full albums in my other storage locations (I buy a lot of music so I have several backups).

It would be nice to have a way to eliminate songs from playing. Skip them no matter the queue source, album, playlist, or whatever the clever guys at Roon come up with.

As @Rudiger_Birkemeyer already pointed out, click on the heart – twice. To ensure that a file doesn’t get picked up by Roon Radio one can (have to?) use the ROONRADIOBAN file tag. Alternatie: Just hide the track(s).

@BlackJack - Ok, I see what you’re referring to now. Previous attempts yielded only the sub-menu. It does appear there is a hidden feature - 3 state toggle button - in the “click on the heart twice” suggestion. Based on the description this should do what I want. However, my attempts to click on the “heart icon” in the Queue view only display a sub-menu (Play from Here | Remove).

In fact, I only see the functionality of the 3 state toggle present when in the Library view - not the Queue view. This is a workaround, but does require quite a number of steps - so not too convenient/straight-forward.

On Mac v1.7.528, it may be that the Queue view has a bug where the Heart icon can’t be clicked to change state. I’ll try on a few other remote clients (iPad, iPhone, Laptop) to see if it’s the same behavior.

The ROONRADIOBAN tag does it apply to songs explicitly added to your queue? The description refers to songs selected via Radio.

“Just hide the track(s)” suggestion is not applicable as the link references visibility of an album not individual tracks.

I just marked a title in the Library as “banned” (Click on Heart icon twice). It did not prevent the title from playing in the Queue.

I did discover that under the title sub-menu, the Edit option has “Hide Track” and “Unhide Track” actions. This is the functionality I’m looking for. Now, with that solved, on to figuring out to find all “hidden” tracks to unhide them if needed.

Discovering more Roon app behavior.

In the Queue view, some tracks have an Edit sub-menu while others do not. However, once added to the Library, an Edit sub-menu is available to “Hide/Unhide Track” and the Heart icon is enabled to mark as Non-favorite, Favorite, or Banned. Though, it still seems applying “hide” or “banned” to a track does not affect the Queue view for that given title.

Still confused. All I want is to skip a track without having to delete it.

So first things first. My post was in reply to @huang who searched for a solution to prevent his 9 years old from listening to some content.
Hidden tracks are - uhm - hidden and therefore cant be added to the queue and banned tracks|albums|artist, while still visible, will only be added to the queue when explicitly selected but do not get added through implicit selections. So none of this will work for content that is already in the queue.


The queue in Roon is a (to) play queue. It is an ordered list of content to play on a given zone. Played content doesn’t just get removed from the list as in many other players. One can still review it in the queue above the currently playing content – but this is not the history. There is a queue per zone. The current queue of a given zone will be replaced if you transfer another zone to this given zone. Also grouping/ungrouping of zones may change the content of a queue. AFAIK there is also a 5000 tracks limit per queue.

Go to Settings|General and set Show hidden tracks and albums to Yes.

See above (So none …).

Move the track above the upcoming line. Grab it by the 3 lines at the right side to do so.

When you want to mark content, use tags. This is also possible from the queue screen.

Note: The (skipped) content in the queue is still referring to the explicit or low quality version. You have to add the clean or higher quality version to the queue to be able to listen to it.

See above (Move …) or use + Add To A Playlist and then delete the track from the queue.

Note: A queue is not permanent. Content may be deleted/change for various reasons at any time.

PS: From own experience I learned that if one enjoys discovering new content then content marked for review later will most likely never be listened to – because there’s always more new content to discover or I rather enjoy listening to new or old but known good content again if I’m tired from hunting for new enjoyable content. This is not limited to music only.

@BlackJack

Thx for the detailed responses. You’ve helped me to understand Roon Remote’s idiosyncratic behaviors.

Suffice it to say, IMO the UX needs to be cleaned up in this area. IDK, I may be misunderstanding (or misusing) the Queue. But, it is my understanding this is an interactive view to control playback. If so, end-user should be able to apply relevant playback controls. The Queue already has actions (play, pause, next, etc.). Adding a “skip track” action is consistent with those actions and all the modes described - grouping/ungrounding, zone transfer, etc.

Maybe, as you point out, this functionality is more applicable in a Playlist context, as the Queue is just an ordered sequence of tracks to play. If so, I think basic idea applies in either mode with relevant considerations for each context.

Re: tags. I used “mark” with my proposed “Skip Track” action. This is misleading. Rather than “mark”, think toggle or enable/disable. Tags are not really applicable to the desired functionality.

Re: Move track above upcoming lines. Same effect as Play Next. Also, “moved” tracks in this way do not remain “skipped” between full Queue playback. So, the next time I play that playlist I have to repeat the actions. Interestingly, it can’t be done on the currently playing track.

The suggestion to add a Skip track action is pretty straight forward. It is the equivalent of an “auto-next” button. The advantage is that no application context is changed. The track remains positionally the same. The Queue view remains consistent. The end-user is not required to change to a different application view.

This whole exercise has resulted in me taking a deep dive into the UI. While, Roon Remote does many things well, as with any evolving software, there are areas to improve. I would be willing to participate in a UI focus group if available. :wink:

Thanks, I have since added the titles back to my library and hidden them… If I wished to hear them I suppose I would have to unhide them.

Go to Settings|General and set Show hidden tracks and albums to Yes to be able to listen to them. Switch back to No when finished listening so your 9 years old is protected.

Thanks for the help!

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