The template is irrelevant in this case.
There is a criteria in Albums - Focus called “Main release”, i can not seem to grasp what this means?
Around 13.500 albums in my library are tagged with this type, and some 400 are not.
I don’t get why an EP is NOT a main release as an example:
I am assuming that the “Main relase” attribute is linked to full length albums, but fail to see it’s worth?
Please educate me!
A main release is one that is not marked as Single, EP, Soundtrack, or Other. So yes, will typically be a full-length album
(and I like the cover)
But we already know that Roon is “album-centric” so it’s a bit of a pleonasm, isn’t it?
And if not, why not use the nomenclature “Album”, which would make more sense and correlate better with discogs as an example?
My point is, that Album Types could use some maintenance.
Singles and EP’s might be significant releases for an artist but their tags suggest this has got something to do with quantity, not quality.
A Soundtrack has got nothing to do with it’s play time length and does NOT infer that its not a “main” relase?
So why isn’t Type including Compilation or Collection? These are, with the same reasoning, not a Main release either.
Roon has constant inconsistency in focus filter naming and grouping. Off late it’s getting worse with Qobuz being used as a format yet MQA is not? Makes zero sense. Compilations have been moved to other and not under album type. Who keeps moving this stuff is it intended it’s never documented or is it sloppy programming that’s getting missed. Feels like the scroll bars that have gone missing. The ui just feels inconsistent Roon 1.8 was supposed to sort this out. In reality it’s made it more apparent.
I am not saying that length is the only criteria, just that some releases are not considered “main” based on various criteria, the length obviously just being one of them. In the soundtrack case it makes sense to me, if an artist happens to write one soundtrack I wouldn’t want this mixed with their regular albums. Of course there are other artists who do only soundtracks, so it’s not unambiguous.
Similarly with EPs, I agree with you that I certainly consider some EPs of my favorite artists to belong to their main works.
In summary, however, as always there are no hard rules and nobody is going to agree on everything, so some defaults have to be chosen and luckily they can be changed.
As for the compilations you mentioned, there is a separate setting for that which also moves them out of the main releases into a compilation section. As you know, there is another discussion regarding the compilation vs anthology vs collection complications
Hey, we agree on this! 
I thank you for your thoughts, they can help me be clearer.
And basically i’m requesting a clean up of types, formats and sources, like Si is suggesting.
I agree, “main release” is a vague, ambiguous and confusing term to use in a music categorisation system. This links in to other longstanding feature requests, but Roon needs to be able to differentiate albums, singles & EPs, bootlegs, collections/anthologies and what is confusingly currently termed “compilations”.
I also agree that “main” is ambiguous and a more explicit categorization would maybe help
There are by the way lots and lots of existing feature suggestions and discussions about this and related things, e.g. with a simple search for compilation
I think this would also include “remaster” vs “original” release.
I just found the post from Mike that may help?
Where is this setting ? I only ever see albums under compilation if they are various artists compilation albums they appear on them, if it’s a compilation of their own work it’s under main albums like regular albums. I have not seen an option to change this, then again not been looking so maybe it’s in plain sight, can’t see it on my phone remote which is my primary controller.
I meant the one down in the album editor:
However, I mistakenly thought that setting the album type to Other and the Compilation to Yes moves it out of the main section into Compilations, but you are right: This is BS. Other + Compilation does move it out of the main section, but into Singles & EPs and not into Compilations. Indeed it seems that moving it into compilations needs various artists. The fact that Other moves it into Singles & EPs is odd because the album type menu already offers Single and EP as types. Maybe a bug?
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