Simpler views needed

Roon Software Discussion
1

I’ll start with one that is frustrating me:
On a multi-disc album, I have to click “disc 2” to see that disc’s tracks. Bad! I should be able to see all the tracks on an album in one list view, separated by discs.

Another:
I would like an artist view without those photo/thumbnails, which just makes scrolling take way too long. Just give me the artist list (by preferences) and let me imagine what they look like while I am doing my business, which is finding the music I want to play.

The track view blessedly gives me a nice simple list to scroll through, but please let me supress the names of the tracks, or the albums, so I could scroll that way just for artist name, then click to expand. Or just compress tracks, and let me scroll through artist and album titles, then let me expand the track list for an album

And, a big one.
I want to play a whole album but starting with track two. If I play track two, that’s all that is played, it doesn’t continue to to play the whole album. I should not have to play album, then skip first track.

Thanks… I am really loving Roon, but some of the user interface is not well suited to someone who has a truly massive library and who has spent the entire digital era massaging his metadata.

2

Right click on track 2 and select play from here.

3

Cool, Nick…thanks for knocking that one off my list! I appreciate the tip.

4

I’d like to see a slight modification to your first request.

I agree that Roon should (like every other music player I’ve ever used) list all the tracks in a multi-disc album in one list view, separated by discs…

But - I also like the idea of having Disc 1, Disc2, …Disc n permanently shown across the top of the list. Let those act as hot links to jump quickly into the vertical list.

That way, when I want to get to Disc 18 of my Delius collection, I don’t spend an eternity scrolling down.

1 Like
5

Or press and hold on a tablet….

6

Sure, I have no problem with that!

7

Also… at the top of each page (Artist, Album or Track), there should be a clickable alpha index. So if I know I want to go straight to The Kinks, I can click or pull-down K, and go straight to the K’s.

I know Roon rightfully professes to hate UPnP, but Roon’s scrolling really isn’t any better at this point.

There have to be ways to drill down in an index faster than scrolling there.

8

If you have a keyboard, then typing the first letter of the name will jump into the list. If you quickly type more letters in a name then it focuses even more precisely

9

also, if you hate a track on an album, ban it by pressing the heart twice. then play album wont play it.

10

you can turn on the alpha index (which is on by default on tablets), from the settings page.

also, you can hit ‘/’, which brings up the focus panel and puts you directly into the filter field, at which point you can just type and it’ll real-time-filter your results. slightly different to @Geoff_Coupe’s suggestion of just typing which jumps-to in the current list.

11

Hmm. I’m beginning to think that a list of keyboard shortcuts would be helpful (if it doesn’t already exist and I just haven’t found it…).

1 Like
12

There is a clickable list of shortcuts at top-right corner of the Settings popup.

14

Great stuff!

I have been designing web interfaces for discographic content for 20 years and I have the same experience of being asked about stuff that’s already there, but not immediately apparent! RTFM!

Thanks, Danny. Roon (I’m on my second day, so be gentle with me) is not only seeming to solve all of my problems running my idiosyncratic home setup but is the only music player I have not trashed after a day. I think I’ll be able to stick with it!

Next one: is there a place where I can globally prefer my file’s metadata over Roon’s, or do I have to do that on a per-album basis? (ie the choices I can get by clicking the edit-pencil at bottom right corner of an album’s page, but for my entire library)

16

“RTFM” - erm, there isn’t one, and that’s part of the problem, I feel. The FAQ is woefully zen-like at the moment - at least for this bear of very little brain…

17

Oh yes - so there is - and then you have to memorise it, because it’s on a pop-up window that you have to dismiss before you can go back to wherever it was where the keyboard shortcut would actually work… Sigh.

18

We know and are doing something about it… the Knowledge Base is getting fleshed out and the “User Guide” will be there soon.

Select all your albums or tracks, (control-a or cmd-a) and edit, then go to the metadata prefs tab and select what you want.

19

But is there a place where I can set those preferences and have them apply to files that are yet-to-be-added to my folder? It seems as if I have to change the files only after they have been read by Roon.

20

No, there isn’t.

21

I think that is a significant omission.

also, are the Comments and Grouping fields from iTunes being imported and are they accessible via search/filtering?

22

I know there is a work item in for the grouping field from iTunes. Comments is not imported. There is a plan for a notes feature, but unsure exactly how that would work as it hasn’t been designed yet.