This must have come up before, but I couldn’t find a specific post, so apologies if this is a duplicate.
I’m a Roon user for over ten years, I think. I know the team is laser focused on sound quality and hardware integration, but the UI has been neglected. I feel it has not changed much since I first started using it.
Navigation is a pain, be it on a computer, tablet or phone. Not even custom shortcuts to get to stuff buried in menus.
It is usable, but joyless. The overall look and feel needs some TLC.
I’m not really expecting it to be delightful, but a refresh would be very welcome for those of us who are not obsessing about signal path or FIR filters.
Can you provide navigation improvements you’d like to see or examples of user interfaces that you find joyful to use? I ask to encourage community participation - something that can be voted on and discussed (get Roon’s attention), and not be buried over time with “me too” clicks of the like/heart icon.
You’re right, I’ve been thinking about this post for a looong time, and having used Roon a lot in the past few days with these old frustrations I guess it was more of a rant.
The streaming services apps are not exactly a joy, but they are pretty, easy to navigate, colorful. There are people way more qualified than me to suggest how to prettify the app, or at least make it less drab and bureaucratic.
But in terms of usability I can point out a few things that bug me:
. No custom keyboard shortcuts. This would make life so much easier;
. No real backtrack (not sure the technical term). If you are in doing something Settings - Audio, leave that page e go back to Settings it will open in General, the top of the list;
. You click on the lower part of the screen to see lyrics/artwork etc. But to go back to Now Playing you have to hit exactly a tiny downward arrow;
. There’s a shortcut to go straight to Muse, but to get to all the other functions under the speaker on the lower right you have to click on that tiny icon;
. And the Device Setup dialog box could be better organized;
These are just off the top of my head, and I’m by no means an expert in UI. But in software that you use so much it makes you crazy.
I’m fantasizing about a Liquid Glass refresh of Roon, but considering no music app can get that right except Apple themselves, I’m not holding my breath.
The way Roon works from UX does what I need it to do, but the interface elements look long in the tooth compared to native iOS and macOS apps on 26/27 these days. As the team has stated, there are years of tech debt to clean up. We still don’t have proper 120 hz scrolling despite minor improvements in 2.71
The streaming services apps are not exactly a joy, but they are pretty, easy to navigate, colorful.
Despite Roon’s layout limitations (no Liquid Glass), it does provide customization via CSS selectors. What are your thoughts about the types of modifications that can be made to color and background?
Word of warning that customizing the theme requires keeping it up to date as new versions of Roon are published as some users have noted that it can cause Roon client startup issues.
No custom keyboard shortcuts. This would make life so much easier
You want editable keyboard shortcuts, for the current set?
No real backtrack (not sure the technical term). If you are in doing something Settings - Audio, leave that page go back to Settings it will open in General, the top of the list
Does the screencap below show what you’re wanting?
You click on the lower part of the screen to see lyrics/artwork etc. But to go back to Now Playing you have to hit exactly a tiny downward arrow
Does the screencap below show what you’re wanting?
There’s a shortcut to go straight to Muse, but to get to all the other functions under the speaker on the lower right you have to click on that tiny icon
You like that there’s a keyboard shortcut that takes you the MUSE screen…
But you don’t like how the controls for power, sleep timer, roon display, muse, zone transfer, and device setup only show a modal popup. You want keyboard shortcuts that take you to separate screens just like there is for MUSE DSP?
Nice demonstration. All UI’s have a learning curve and you demonstrate you are at the top of that.
Personally I find ROON intuitive and responsive and actually easier to navigate than native Apple apps … so each to their own. Perhaps the big change would be in allowing greater individualization (though that’s not the Apple way) which in itself will lead to greater support challenges.
Thanks for sharing such elegant screen captures - and some good music choices too!
@sete I hope the screecaps don’t shut down the discussion, because your points are valid and worth pursuing. What I’m showing may not be what you’re experiencing - they’re how I interpreted your bullet points. My goal in sharing the visuals was to clarify what we’re talking about to understand the need/want.
There will always be insufferable whining when a UI is changed. Many people do not like change, especially as they get older (a feature of the audiophile demographic). However the whining tends to decrease with time and a majority tend to end up liking the change after a period of months have elapsed …
Agree with the OP in that the Roon UI needs an update, my own perceptions on this…
The font selection tends to be at odds with modern OS’s and looks dated (Looks similar to Times New Roman to me… that went out with the ark)
The album view whilst having wonderfull content is marred by excessive graphic and font sizes. When I click on an album it is normally because I want to select a track/tracks to play. Unfortunately the large title graphics/sizes means I have to scroll down to see all tracks in an album most commonly (EP’s excepted)
Track view looks like it is an Excel table. Also font size, graphic size is again large and dated. This means you are limited in the number of data columns that can be viewed and the number of tracks vertically hence more scrolling (eg. at default font size I can see 11 tracks vertically, in a competitors product I can see 16 on a Macbook Pro at 2056 x 1329 resolution.)
Same as 3, but play queue is worse due to a row and a bit being taken up by the Roon Radio toggle which extends across the main window, for one small sliding toggle, could just be an option in the playbar gaining more tracks viewable in the play queue.
OK so I click on Local Albums, Tracks, Artists in the sidebar so I know where I have navigated to, why have “My Albums…My Tracks…etc” in massive font occupying more main window real estate (this one is stupid).
I could list more but in general way to much scrolling in Roon compared to competitors products. The data presented is unmatched, Roon is about your library… limiting how much you can see of it through wasted screen real-estate is a shame.
As with anything UI based it comes down to a personal preference however I don’t see too many modern apps mirroring Roon’s UI selections and strategy. They tend to try and mirror UI guidelines presented by the OS manufacturer…
Happy Roon user here, but I agree with your observations.
In Album view it would be nice to be able to completely hide the album review ( if there is one), it would also be nice to simultaneously hide the star rating and the check marks, that would free up some real estate on the page.
On the home page the big clunky boxes with Albums, Tracks etc. could just be removed,
Also, would appreciate being able to see both now playing along with the play queue on the same page (this view is available in Tidal for example).
Quick access to Muse would also be helpful, maybe a button at the bottom of the page ( there’s a lot of blank space down there).
For the record, I’m an old guy, but I like change (it’s good brain exercise!)
I’m really happy that Roon recently fixed the light title bar in dark mode in Roon 2.71 Build 1675
Overall I really like Roon, so much so, that I bought the lifetime license to help support future development. I do think there is room for improvement like more control over showing/hiding elements and customizing keyboard shortcuts would be great.
Perhaps it’d be nice to offer different themes … so, those who like the current style can stick to it? Or have community contributed themes we could use from something like a “Roon App Store.”
I’ve actually been using Ai to help build my own music player using Shadcn (Vue port) and taking inspiration from some of the big dogs. It’s coming out great. Working on the Playlist feature and queuing this weekend.
My vote would be a “Command Palette” that allows the User to customize. That’s a game changer for me, but I totally understand that it’s probably not for everyone.
Anyway, there are great open source libraries that help solve common UI challenges that maybe we can learn from as well.
I think they should look at how Qobuz works, for instance you can “heart” an album directly without opening, which becomes much faster. And the playback screen in an album is MUCH nicer and sleeker looking.
I prefer no software changes, especially visuals, unless needed to fix a problem or adding a useful feature. Many times if feels like programmers are just trying to justify their jobs.
multiple albums at once - also without opening them…