Arguments about horizontal scrolling being natural like turning pages of a book only hold for portrait orientation. Landscape makes for a very long horizontal swipe that doesn’t always take.
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Vertical scrolling is more ergonomic and natural, and that is why it is almost universally prevalent in any software category.
Whether you look at thumb swipes on a phone, vs horizontal swipes, rolling a thumb wheel on a mouse, 2 finger swipes on a trackpad, or (vertical vs horizontal) scrolling with a mouse - In all cases, vertical scrolling requires less effort and is more in line with how our joints are designed.
There is also the inconsistency on desktop where vertical scrolls create horizontal paging. This is very disorienting.
Finally the UI doesn’t actually scroll. It “pages” horizontally. So you either see one page or the other, rather than a scroll which allows you to choose exactly what is visible on screen. This is arguably better when related content spans multiple pages, allowing you see all of it at once without needing a constant back and forth.
In a nutshell, this isn’t a question of preference between equals (chocolate vs vanilla). One is objectively superior to the other. The only justification for horizontal scrolling is some outdated allegiance to skeuomorphic design (CD books) that has also been universally proven to be poor design - Read the discussions on this topic during Apple’s shift away from skeuomorphism and towards better ergonomics and usability for context.
Just because some long time users have gotten used to something, doesn’t make it “good”, and doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to make it better.
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Well said. Horizontal scrolling, huge grid graphics with no option for vertical lists, etc. Seems to me that interfaces (not talking about Roon specifically) are dumbing down and becoming less efficient, with every iteration of “new design generation”.
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+1 for vertical scrolling. Horizontal just seems like being different for difference sake.
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I notice a change in behaviour in the iPad app lately.
It seems we are halfway between paging and scrolling now? Still in the horizontal direction, but nevertheless. (Both on iOS 12 and 13)
The horizontal scrolling has got to go. Hurts my hand, unless I’m on a keyboard and then I can use the directional arrows. Ridiculous as well that the pages surrounding the main library are vertical scrolling. Again, Roon needs to look at the software UI globally, and not just make lipstick changes ad hoc.
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Requested 5 years ago. Still pending…
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I can’t even scroll properly with the gestures on my laptop track pad because the slightest movements skips through about 3-4 pages. If I lower the sensitivity of the scrolling it would take me an age to scroll through normal vertical content.
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Yes, this is very annoying… Using arrow keys is tolerable, but the trackpad is very disorienting. Unfortunately that’s such a natural reflex action. Which ruins the Roon experience.
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Love Roon, but this is so annoying. Using a Logitech MX Master on Mac, slightly turning the mouse wheel moves me at least 5 pages further - and not even in a smooth way. And why would i want to scroll horizontally if i rotate the mouse wheel vertically - so unnatural. Is this really still on the roadmap after so many years?
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For Logitech MX specifically, you can set up a custom profile for Roon with Logitech’s own software ‘Logi Options’, disabling smooth scrolling. That will solve the scrolling issue.
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Thanks for the tip. This works! Still voting for a vertical scrolling option though.
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And why not allow smooth scrolling of the albums? Why only page-wise scrolling?
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Sure, I only mentioned it to alleviate the burden of not having vertical scrolling. I voted for this a couple years back already 
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No, not criticizing your posting at all. Thank you for alleviating this problem!
Agreed. This would be a super simple fix, without needing to redesign the entire screen and anointing existing users who are used to it.
It would certainly alleviate a lot of the current pain as each “scroll” action would only move 2-4 columns of albums - preserving the view context. This would be far better than the current 2-4 pages, with the accompanying jerkiness, followed by the Need to scroll backwards to get back to where you were.
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How does the New Releases For You page work for you? Is this what you are looking for or would you like it to perform differently?
I think this is pretty much exactly what i am looking for. It allows you to smoothly browse through the albums just like a long webpage. It is so much more natural to browse than the album overview.
That’s good to hear.
I suspect this is the direction Roon is heading (no insider knowledge though!). It just makes sense that you would launch new products/features with the future in mind while you figure out how you want to redesign the rest of the GUI.
Unfortunately the UI is the worst part of Roon - and also way below leading apps. I do hope they finally get this crucial step soon - speaking as a lifetime subscriber.
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