Track playback 'issues'

Three things are bugging me at the moment…

  1. If I select a single track in an album it only plays that track, then plays something from a different album. Can an option be added to play the next track in the album - in other words, if I select track 2 can it continue with 3, then 4, then 5 etc.

  2. When an album ends the software proceeds to play another track from a different album. Not sure why it does this, but can it be switched off - so that when an album ends the player stops until I select the next piece of music I want to listen to.

  3. When I select an album to play can the player start playing the album rather than ask me in a translucent overlay if I want to play the album. I’ve already said I want to play it, so why do I need to confirm that?

Thanks, and apologies if there are relevant settings I’m missing.

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No apologies needed @OneHandWaving!

Our product is built around the queue, which makes it easy to select a few albums to play in a row without having to create a playlist.

Anything you play is added to the queue, so if you click individual tracks, only that track is queued. To play a whole album, you just need to click “Play Album” and then all the tracks will be added to the queue.

If there are tracks on album you never want queued (like an intro, or a skit, or a really bad song), you can use our Ban feature – just click the heart twice and the song will be banned.

If you only want to play some songs on an album, you can also right-click (or press and hold on touch) to select the songs you want to play.

A lot of this is focused on playing full albums, so definitely let us know if you feel this isn’t meeting your needs.

This is our Radio feature, which kicks in any time the Queue runs out.

If you want to turn this feature off, just click the black background at the bottom of the app to see the queue. You can turn Radio off there.

We’ve heard similar feedback here and we’re thinking about it.

The main reason for the confirm is that you might want to listen to the new album straight away, or you might want to play it next, or add it to the end of the queue. I personally tend to listen to whole albums, so I’m generally adding content to the queue more often that just playing things straight away.

Everyone listens differently, and we’re absolutely open to feedback for future releases. For now, I’d encourage you to live with what we call our “pawmasher” buttons – it’s a pretty big change for new users, but a few have come back a week or two later to let us know how much they end up loving them. And if you don’t love them, let us know that too!

Thanks for the feedback and sorry for writing so much :smile:

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Thanks, that will do what I want, but it feels a bit ‘clunky’.

Thanks, that’s perfect, and thanks again for taking the time to respond.

Took a couple days, but the pawmasher buttons are definitely appreciated. Like the option to determine exactly where in the queue the track should go. Kept me from accidentally interrupting playback with a track I just wanted to look up information about. Thanks for this!

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Right now when you’re scrolling through your albums and you click on one you get tabs that say “Play Album”, “Focus on Similar”, etc. When you click on Play Album Roon takes you to another screen that asks if you want to play the album, put in your que, add next, etc. Why not have those tabs on the first screen and eliminate the second screen? I’d like to see this operation streamlined by removing he second screen and adding those option to the first screen.

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Hey @digitalzed - moved this topic here since our thinking was covered a bit above. Nothing is set in stone, and we’re keeping an eye on feedback here.

Our products have always been built around the queue, so when you press play anywhere in the app we ask you if you want to replace the current queue, or add the new content next or to the end of the queue.

A couple people have told us that after using our “pawmasher” buttons for a few days they’re converted, but try it out and let us know what you think. For what it’s worth, it’s the same number of taps as a double-click :wink:

Thanks @mike. Perhaps it depends on your listening style. I’m old fashioned in that I tend to play digital files as if they were albums listening to one at a time. I’ve been using Roon now since it launched and I personally still find it off putting that I get taken to another screen. I’d still like to see those options on one screen, even if it’s the same amount of clicks. It’s not a deal killer by any stretch and I very well may be in the minority and if so I’ll gladly deal with it because it’s a small request overall.

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Thoughts on the pawmasher: iPeng (control app for Squeezebox) uses the following symbols for different additions to the queue (like the pawmasher):

But it also has the concept of a playback mode and has an icon in its status bar to let you know what mode you are in, so in the following mode, you are going to whack your queue and play what you have selected straightaway:

And in this mode, you are going to insert your selection after the currently playing track:

Etc.

Does it make sense to support all of the different pawmasher “modes”, with the default mode to bring up the pawmasher screen itself?

BTW, you click on the “mode” icon to change it.

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I support @VirusKiller’s suggestion of having a separate ‘mode’ for instant play. The paw masher has really put me off the trial I’m afraid. I understand the benefit of it but it’s not my primary way of listening as am often actively sifting through tracks / building playlists / managing library.

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@mike It may be two clicks but its two clicks where I don’t have to move the mouse, and in full screen mode that movement may not be insignificant. I almost never listen to whole albums when I am actively listening. I am always browsing and choosing to add one or two songs per album; find something interesting and want that next, or find something interesting and immediately want to play it and scrap what was playing. The whole point of Roon, IMHO, helps this style of music playing much more than whole albums at a time.

Having to move your mouse up and down, and up and down as you add 10, 20, or 30 different tracks and want to change them on the fly while the queue is going, gets old really fast.

I’ve read the posts about the pawmasher but I’m still unconvinced as to its utility. I want to see a contextual right click on each individual song that gives me a Play Now, Play Next, ADD to End of Queue.

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I fully agree! The long mouse movements to get to different menus and buttons is one thing where I think the Roon team really should consider an improvement! The ergonomics are terrible when you are using a computer or a laptop with a fairly large screen, but on a touchscreen buttons can be placed anywhere without this problem.

Some applications can have exactly the same user interface on a small phone, a tablet, a big touchscreen and on a mouse controlled computer, but in many cases a touch interface should be very different from a mouse/track pad driven interface.

Tablets and smart phones are amazing tools for dedicated apps where the normal computer can’t compete in ease of use, but when it comes to other applications the tablets can’t compete with the normal computer.

Touch: + buttons anywhere (logic, aesthetics), - typing (ergonomics), text (readability on smaller devices)
Computer: + typing (fast, easy), keyboard short cuts, - buttons far apart, changing focus between keyboard and buttons

The tablets and phones are clearly the better ones for quickly checking weather, act as a remote… but when writing documents or spreadsheets I think most prefer a computer with a big screen, a physical keyboard and a mouse.

See also the discussion about different modes:

and the following posts:


[quote=“Rugby, post:10, topic:1046”]
I’ve read the posts about the pawmasher but I’m still unconvinced as to its utility. I want to see a contextual right click on each individual song that gives me a Play Now, Play Next, ADD to End of Queue.[/quote]

  • Play remaining songs from here (instead of in the queue)

My two cents:

  • I like the concept of the queue and I’m looking forward to climbing the learning curve so that I can take advantage of this feature. However, the services that I have historically used (iTunes, Spotify, and now Tidal) operate in a similar and more traditional way - they allow you to play a song with one click from the main screen, and they rely on the building of playlists based on either individual songs, albums, or whatever else. More “advanced” features such as right-clicking for context and additional functions are, from my perspective, secondary to the concepts of “play this song now with one click,” and playlists. I confess that I feel a pang of deep frustration every time I click a song expecting it to start playing in Roon, only to have to confirm again with another click. Again, I think the queue is interesting and worth investigating, but expecting users coming from many other platforms to adjust to it right away may be a lot to ask. As a Roon fan I have a vested interest along with everyone else that Roon be a platform that: is incredibly powerful, includes forward-thinking features (e.g., the queue), AND easy to use so that user adoption and quick growth are encouraged.
  • I similarly appreciate that the queue works well for those who listen to full albums at a time. This is rarely my approach - even my full album listening is usually in the context of a playlist of multiple full albums played in order, and more often than that I’m listening to playlists constructed simply of individual songs from many different albums. Additionally, as a new user what I’m most interested in is performing many searches for artists, albums, songs, etc., playing whatever I find for a moment or two, and then moving on to the next search. I know that once I get used to the software I’ll do this less, but as a new user trying to get an understanding of the paradigms of the software, I’m searching all the time, and not being able to play the songs I find with one-click is especially frustrating and weird compared to the programs I’m used to.
  • In support of the queue as a primary function of the system, it may be helpful to more prominently display it by default. The only way I’ve found it so far (I could certainly be missing something or have inadvertently turned something off) it to click the button in the lower left that brings the queue up on the right side of the screen. If I remember correctly (I can’t run Roon now because I’m not at home - something else I don’t understand that I’ll address below!) that button looks like a music-sheet symbol and is located to the right of the play, back, forward buttons. To me it’s non-obvious that that button will bring up the queue, and I had no reason to click it until I decided to click it simply to see what it would do. I wonder if most users would do this? I know there’s the little tutorial pulses when you first start using the system, but unfortunately as I start using the system I tend to forget whatever that was trying to teach me. I think if the queue is going to be so deeply important it should be built into the right portion of the screen and “on” all the time, (or I’m sure there’s some better way to show it more often that you could come up with).
  • And since we’re here, I don’t get the licensing model. My “library” is in the cloud - it’s largely made up of Tidal and a small group of CD’s that I’ve made lossless copies of and stored both on my external drives at home where my stereo is, and made available via cloud services such as Dropbox. I use computers primarily at home and at work. At home, Roon is both managing the library on my server (Mac Mini) and acting as a remote from my laptop. That works fine. But the other place I play a lot of music is at work. I am happy to financially support Roon at $119/year, but I’m not willing to double that price to access the same library I have at home, especially when I can just launch Tidal and play everything anyway. If my music follows me everywhere, shouldn’t my music management system follow me as well? I think there is some urgency to resolving this issue, as Tidal will (I’m guessing but why wouldn’t they?) soon do what Spotify does, which is allow any install of the software to control any other, so that I can operate in with a headless server at home in order to create the highest-possible quality streaming audio, and control it from any other computer, tablet, or phone. I think Spotify is a better user experience than Tidal, but the sound quality of Tidal has won me over. Once Tidal has the same feature set as Spotify, I will have less use for Roon, especially if I’m only allowed to use it in one location. I still think Roon is better (especially because it creates a bit-perfect control mechanism for my PS Audio DAC, and I hope for the interface, once I get used to it) and has a lot to offer and I plan to continue using it as long as it links to Tidal, but I hope you will re-think the licensing so that I can use it wherever I go.

Phew! That was long. I appreciate you listening.
Thanks
Ben

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