What is the essential difference between a Bookmark and a Smart Playlist?

Early Access
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I can’t discern any, other than the promise that the SPLs will show up in ARC?

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Bookmarks could be any page in Roon, with all settings on that page preserved. Smart Playlists are (under the hood) tracks or album browsers with a specific focus criteria saved. And yes, as you’ve noted, you can access SPLs from ARC.

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So to be clear, it’s nevertheless just like a bookmark that uses a focus only on albums or on tracks (nothing else) and works with ARC? There’s nothing that it does additionally?

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Importantly, for me, will smart playlists be automatic (i.e. enabled by default in the Production release) and can they be disabled?

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You create them or you don’t just like any other playlist

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That’s reassuring, thanks :+1:t4:

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Can smart playlists be synced back up with streaming service? That would be a nice advantage.

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Happy to hear that SPL/Focus is coming to ARC :slight_smile:

Though from what i read it seems like an SPL is created by using Focus and then also limited to the available logic of Focus. Correct ?
Or is the Focus feature-set being extended to include “not Loved” , number of plays , AND/OR logic ( Ref. Plex and Apple Music)

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After doing some reading here it seems like the main take away for SPL is that it brings Bookmarks to ARC. Ref. title on this tread.

Most of my listening in Roon is from Bookmarks. Many of them has between 3-5000 tracks. I will gladly change these to SPL’s to be able to play them in ARC , though i do not want all 3k + tracks in ARC since it will slow down ARC and i do not have the disk space for it either. Nor do i want my Roon Server to slow down to be able to handle my bookmarks now to be turned into SPL’s .

Request/Question:
For SPL is it possible for the user to limit the number of tracks in each SPL ?

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Currently not, but it seems like a reasonable request for those SPLs where the chosen parameters would create playlists that are too large.

When creating the SPL, it would be useful to have an option like “Limit to X songs” where X is a box that the user can choose to fill in if they deem it appropriate (and can also be modified later).

Obviously in these cases it will be up to Roon to decide which tracks to include and which not, but since the SPL is the result of filters entered by the user, a simple shuffle logic could be an reasonable solution

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You just need a criteria after limit to X tracks. I used smart playlists to create top 10, 50, 100 song playlists in iTunes for years, just specify a criteria I.e plays greater than 1, then the genre is xxxxx, then have your limit to xx songs box followed by a criteria i.e play count and it would create my playlists. Very useful. The lack of smart playlists in Roon was always a negative for me and one of the reasons I have used alternatives.

Nice to see Roon progressing the app since the acquisition. Now if they just allowed you to reduce font sizes and graphic sizes below the default it could well become my preferred playback software………

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Were you aware the Roon has always had them, in the form of Bookmarks? That is one of the reasons I started this thread. There really is no difference other than that Smart Playlists are available in ARC, while Bookmarks are not. Well, and that Bookmarks can do even more, as noted in What is the essential difference between a Bookmark and a Smart Playlist? - #2 by michael

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I was not aware of this functionality. Thanks for the tip. Next time I decide to try Roon out will take a look. Thanks.

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Two differences are that they are visible in ARC and they can be browsed as playlists (put into folders, tagged, etc). While bookmarks are accessed from one long list drop down menu.

I was hoping smart playlist would introduce more complex operators (AND OR Nested Operators).

I understand they are not?
G