I’m not fond of the present window that opens on selecting Focus and suggest it be reformatted into a window that opens without needing scrolling to see all options.
I’m a bit puzzled about some of those focus options and wonder how many are really wanted in the first window.
To me Performer (why not Artist?), Composer (Surnames only please) and maybe Format are the more useful choices and it would be nice to see Tags in there too.
Once one of these has been selected I suggest a check box: Finished Selection? - YES/NO appear.
YES -> take you to that first focus selection
No -> gives the option of another focus restriction etc etc
The above would be intuitive and allow quick focus on any particular artist, composer etc group. Unless I’m missing something the current procedure is clumsy and not user friendly.
Are you speaking about Focus when chosen from the Album section. Please clarify as the Focus screen is different depending on the originating section. So Album focus is different than Composition Focus, etc.
Yes, from the Album screen first up. But I see the possible confusion you allude to.
Trying to do what I had done with my first post here does throw up different albums if the starting point is different and starts with e.g. composers (a messy first place to begin).
I agree that in my usage I’m usually using one of the Focus criteria buttons on the right. So on most of my Control devices, I need to first scroll right, because the display resolution is too small to display the Focus panel in its entirety.
Perhaps the Focus panel could have some rearrangement; either swap over the five buttons on the right with the three buttons on the left, or increase the height of the panel, and lay out the five buttons across the bottom of the panel horizontally…
I’m not sure why you need a check box as you suggest. After a selection, clicking outside the panel has the same effect, does it not?
I think Performers is used as a selection criteria because it is a superset of Artist - there are performers listed in the track credits, and these may be different people from the primary artist.
Composer surnames may be more usual for classical composers, but I think it’s right to list the full names in the selection panel. You can always quickly narrow it down by using the filter box, and just typing in the surname there.
One thing that I do miss is an “X” in the filter box to clear the current content when I want to make multiple selections.
Just noting that even with clessical, “surname only” can be a problem. Bach and Mozart are obvious examples. I agree that the Focus UI could stand some work.
That is simply overcome by listing surname first, followed by Christian names or initials. Bach, J.C., Bach, CPE etc. Please let us adopt the KISS approach and not require the use of filters or unnecessary steps to achieve what one wants.
My suggestion about a check box was to simply enable a clearer focus and to apply multiple criterias.
First focus might first focus on the composer, say Beethoven, second focus might narrow that down to his chamber works, the third might even go further and seek his quartets. OR The first focus might be on the artist Barenboim, the next on the tag piano and the third on Beethoven and so on.
So, having Artists, Composers (yes surnames first please), Tags, … easily available from a focus window and the ability to intuitively add extra focus is what I’m after. Maybe the check box is not the best idea but there needs to be some way of either showing all focus factors have been selected and one wants the resulting albums listed OR that one wants a sharper focus and want to narrow down the albums to be listed.
Bottom line is that no structure will please everyone but the beauty of ROON is that we are able to make requests for improvement that are listened to nso that it can be fine tuned and be more useful and more user friendly as a result. It is a giant step forward on Sooloos in most respects, (and it was the previous leader for years), but there is still some way to go.
And I cannot resist to again appeal for a random search to be one for tracks, not compositions. And currently it does not always work for compositions anyway as ROON can collate a number of tracks as being part of the one composition when they are not. A random search of tracks would move play on from album to album which is what I want if I select random. Otherwise I’ll use focus to find a composition I want.