Roon 1.8 Discussion

[k6davis]

On 2/10/2021 at 6:08 AM, ssh said:

Why is shuffle only shuffling 5,000 tracks?

 

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/why-is-shuffle-only-shuffling-5-000-tracks/141103

 

On 2/10/2021 at 6:39 AM, firedog said:

to each his own. I'd like to have the option to have it pick only a random 20 or 50 or 100 tracks. That's all I need at any one time, and thousands of tracks just means the actions of the program are slower.

 

What people are saying in the Roon forum is that if you have, say, 10,000 tracks, shuffle will sort them alphabetically (by artist, I presume) and only play music from the first 5,000. So you'd never hear music from the second half of your library. Which is not the desired effect for this function at all.

 

Sounds like a bug that I'm sure they'll fix.

[k6davis]

I hate it. I couldn't really stand to even look at it or use it after a while. I used a clone I made of my hard drive to revert back to 1.7 and I couldn't be happier.

 

It's genuinely fascinating how people can look at the same thing and feel so differently about it. Doesn't make anybody right or wrong, of course.

 

Roon 1.8 has been controversial. Based on a poll in the Roon forum, over 30% of the users agree with me. Not a majority, but not an insignificant number either. The people who like it or feel neutral about it don't understand the vitriol of those of us who don't. Somebody asked, "What are they even complaining about?" So I happily informed him. 

 

This is what I wrote. My post was enthusiastically received (28 hearts and a few complimentary replies) by those with like-minds and even referred to the Roon CEO. That felt nice, to be honest, though I'm not sure anything will come of that. We'll see.

 

Sorry for the length, but I had a few notes:

 

Quote

 

Here is a partial list of things the “complainers” liked about 1.7 that are broken in, missing from or made harder to use in 1.8. I’m referring to the desktop experience, as it appears that the app has now been optimized for phones and tablets.

• The waveform is too small to be used as waveform. It’s just a progress bar now.
• The sidebar with album recommendations and the artist discography is gone. You have to scroll or go to a different page to find that information.
• The album title font is both strange and needlessly gigantic. The first song on the album is at the bottom of the page. This focus on massive headers is literal form over function.
• The song titles, which you actually need to read, are too small. In fact, most of the buttons and text are smaller, but there’s a huge amount of empty space everywhere.
• The current song title and artist information on the bottom left of the playback bar often has to be truncated because it shares space with the too small waveform.
• Album covers are too big, showing too few albums on the screen, once you scroll past the huge headers.
• Tagging is much more difficult to use.
• Shuffle is limited to 5,000 tracks, which means it’s broken.
• Focus uses “AND” for criteria instead of “OR”, which it should not do and did not do before, so bookmarks are broken. Focusing on “Jazz” and “Blues” eliminates all albums that are not marked as both.
• Album star ratings have been removed from where they were most helpful.
• The indication of whether a song has been added to a playlist has been removed.
• Albums are shown based on “popularity” criteria, which has rarely has anything to do with the quality of their content.
• The dark mode is too dark and the light mode is too light. Small white text on a fully black background is headache inducing. Especially when it’s interrupted by flashes of Electric Purple.
• The “queue” button has been moved too close to the transport controls.
• The album title (and other text) exhibits weird line breaks. Pat Metheny’s album called “Day Trip” puts “Day” on one line and “Trip” on another. For what reason, I’ll never know.
• The distinction between albums you own and albums from streaming services has been made less clear.
• Half of the home screen says “Hi Keith” and prominently features a huge graphical display of time usage stats. I don’t know who that’s important to.
• Dates for albums: We used to get date recorded, date released and date added. That was great, given how many reissues and remasters there are. Now we just get one ambiguous date.
• On multi-disc albums, you used to have individual links for each disc. Now they’re in a menu. So more clicks.
• There’s a startling lack of symmetry and congruence to the visual design. It’s nice to have a mostly fixed place for things to be. A good analogy would be a dashboard in a car. Roon 1.8 it’s just messy. Depending on the metadata received, the arrangement of items on the album screen changes radically. There are square images, big round images, small round images, huge round circles with artists initials in them. Orange backgrounds. Blue backgrounds. And did I mention the purple?

 

 

[k6davis]

1 hour ago, charlesphoto said:

The overall design is a mess. Kind of like the first time somebody decided to design something in Word or Pagemaker and are like - wow, I can make this big, and this a different font and this a different font and move things all around - without thinking of why do those and what do those changes bring to the big picture. I've worked with some great designers and frankly would be embarrassed to show them this design.

 

I couldn't agree more. The white huge font (for things I don't need to read) combined with the white tiny font (for things I do need to read) on the (literally) black background along with smaller icons, waveform and the vast amount of empty space... I just can't. It hurts my mind. And that's just the look of it, let alone the changes to the way things work. 

 

It's like they asked me to tell them everything I liked about Roon and then said, "Great! Okay. We're gonna move or remove all of that. And then change the way nearly everything works, in ways that no one was asking for!"

 

I've already seen posts from the Roon team to the effect of: "Most people like it". Even worse (for me), that seems to actually be true. What's certain is that the Roon team likes it, or they wouldn't have done in the first place. 

 

Such is life. Things don't always go your way. But what I really learned from this is to be very careful when it comes to "software as a service". You pay for it, but you don't own it. They can do anything they want to with it at any time. I bought lifetime, and tomorrow, they could decide to make it have an orange strobe-light background and remove all of the "play" buttons and there wouldn't be a damned thing I could do about it.

[k6davis]

54 minutes ago, DancingSea said:

That said, I wonder how 1.8 detractors would view 1.8 if they had never experienced 1.7?

This is a key point. Depending on your control device, the use cases are wildly different. For example, users who only use Tidal/Qobuz have never seen a Roon waveform before. So the fact that it's small now has zero impact on them. People who use it on a phone have never seen the sidebar before. So its absence means absolutely nothing to them. 

 

It used to be that the desktop app was primary and the mobile apps were secondary, but it appears that Roon has gone mobile first. Fonts are smaller, images are bigger, everything requires scrolling now and there are wide open empty spaces everywhere when you have a large, landscape screen.

 

They should have optimized small portrait screens vs large wide landscape screens, but they did not.

[k6davis]

3 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

It’s really not bugs. Rather features

I agree with this. They had some issues out of the gate, but things seem to be working fine. And things that are obvious bugs (shuffle, etc) will get fixed.

 

4 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

Unless there something special you’re after, I don’t think the upgrade would harm your music experience. Rather the opposite.

I don't agree with this. But that's a matter of taste and opinion. Some of us find the new UI to be very unpleasant to use compared to 1.7, but we are not the majority. You may love it. I'm using 1.7 until it stops working or 1.8 moves more in my direction, which I don't think it will.

[k6davis]

29 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

Can you show me a picture of this so I’m 100% sure what we’re talking about. 
 

This one ?

 

 

Why not add a request for VU meters 😀
or vst plug-ins 

 

It looked like this in 1.7. The waveform stretched across the entire screen which looked cool and made it far easier to use. They also put the currently playing artist and title above the the waveform. That way there was room for long titles without them being truncated. 

 

The way things are now, both elements are compromised, IMO.

 

[k6davis]

 

41 minutes ago, firedog said:

I didn't like the colors and fonts. Changed what bugged me most. It's a simple hack that doesn't take long. Do it and you will be much happier.

 

8 hours ago, firedog said:

Here's the light theme. I again changed the purple for blue, and made the background a few shades less bright.

 

 

What you've done here is 1000% more appealing than the stock version. 

Can you also change the font sizes?

 

Even in your very nice enhancement: 

• The album title is needlessly big, and needlessly split on to two lines
• The upper right hand corner of the screen is a vast expanse of nothing
• You can't see even the first song without scrolling
• The font size for the song titles (if you could see them) is so small it's unpleasant for me to read, though it may be easier with a color scheme like this
• You can't see any album recommendations without scrolling 
• The waveform is small
• The artist name on the bottom left is ridiculously small
• Here, the Length/Rating/Format/Images are in a column off to the right, but I swear I've also seen them displayed in a row... Maybe that was a different view.

This has to be the most "first world problem" ever, and you're very kind to try to offer suggestions. But these things apparently bother me much more than they do most people. The thing about Roon 1.8 is that there's an accumulation of things that I don't like and don't see the benefit of that adds up to me strongly disliking it. And all of them were better in 1.7, IMO. 

 

I'm back on 1.7 and I'm very happy with that, for as long as it lasts. I'll keep an eye on changes they make to 1.8 and I will keep in mind that I can change the unpleasant colors and fonts, if a few other things I don't like move in my direction.

 

Thank you kindly for your post.

[k6davis]

Yeah, but they couldn't put the review beside the title, because most album titles are longer than "Day Trip". 

 

And the artist name in the second image is truncated. 

 

I really appreciate you guys, but I've made my feelings known on this. I don't want to hog the thread, being repetitive. I have 1.7 and I'm good. If that stops working, I'll have decisions to make.

 

[k6davis]

1 hour ago, firedog said:

I guess it's possible that some of the design changes/space issues may have something to do with the fact that they made it possible to use the program in portrait mode also, which constrained them in what they could do. 

 

I think this is definitely the case. They should have just done that for the the mobile versions without  making so many alterations to the desktop versions. I really miss seeing Recommended Albums at the top of the page. 

 

1 hour ago, firedog said:

My impression is that the new version is faster, and I'm willing to accept that some of the "under the hood" stuff works better now.

 

I suspect that's true.

 

1 hour ago, R1200CL said:

 

In the above picture you posted, on the bottom left, the artist name is truncated/cut off due to lack of space. "Pat Metheny, Christian McBride, Antoni...". Plus the font is tiny. It's nice to be able read that, especially when you've moved the main page to an album that's not playing.

 

1 hour ago, R1200CL said:

So why you like the waveform so long ? Is it important?

 

Yeah, a lot of people don't care about this but I really liked the way it looked. At a glance, I could tell if an album was mixed loudly or softly. Depending on the song, I could see where dynamics changed in the song, which was nice, especially for music I wasn't familiar with. Plus, when I'm testing different settings out in HQP or some other part of my system, the waveform made it easier to put the cursor at the exact spot where I wanted it. 

 

And visually, I'm really into function and symmetry. And this app really lacks that.

 

Again, people in this world have real problems, I know. I was just very pleased with it before they changed so many things, with their "take it or leave it" stance.

[k6davis]

  

9 hours ago, Foggie said:

Not sure I quite follow this, are the roon devs suppose to ask if you like the font over here or over there, is it the right size, what color etc..?  How is re-coding, re-developing an application that's pretty complex, a take it or leave it scenario?  Genuine question.

 

I'm reading all the comments here and at roons site and thinking, there is no way the devs could possibly implement the million different opinions, comments, use cases and the like.  They have to fit in "x" amount of time to develop, test and release it.  That pretty much applies to any app I would guess. 

 

It's take it or leave it because Roon is software as a service. I paid for it, but I don't own the software and can only use it on their terms. Given that, it's especially unfortunate and highly unusual that the company is so comfortable making major and unnecessary changes to their product, to things that were working well and that people were largely pleased with. If the next iOS or Android was this different from the current version, in such arbitrary ways, and users were forced to upgrade to it, there would be an uproar. But of course, that scenario is unimaginable. Apple and Google are much more deliberate and methodical and people actually own their phones.

 

Sure, Roon 1.8 works, but it doesn't work the same way, at all, if you were a deep user. They benefited some use cases (mobile users, classical listeners) and diminished others (desktop users, people who liked the highly functional, symmetrical and logical layout in 1.7 they bought paid for).

 

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I go on about this but it's clearly not the end of the world. I have 1.7 back, for now, and I'm all good. But I've learned to be much more careful with software as a service going forward.

 

  

6 hours ago, firedog said:

I'm not at all confident they will change some of the UI/cosmetic issues. I think they decide what they like and are insistent that all users have the same user environment. 

 

Yep.

[k6davis]

20 minutes ago, Foggie said:

Understood, I get it.  I don't see this application different from any other in the sense of ongoing development, change etc..  I recall a lot of criticism on the dated 1.7 interface, needs improvement on aesthetics.......  So in the process of a new version, with new functionality, they changed the layout + aesthetics.  Hard to tell if these changes are a hit, fail or somewhere in between, but certainly brings out ahem....discussions!

 

I guess I'm not as emotionally attached to this application, but can understand how changes to certain workflows, especially if broken, could be upsetting.

 

Although I don't see where users are "forced to upgrade".  Unless their back-end enviro causes 1.7 to function no more.  The automatic software update setting, which is enabled by default, is IMHO, the dumbest setting - for any application.  I disable it first thing.

 

I'm pretty confident things will get worked out after this major rev's "first pass" so to speak.

 

 

You make good points and are far more reasonable than I on Roon, because I was emotionally attached to it. Sounds silly as I type it, but it is the portal through which I accessed music, which is hugely important to me.

 

Users are not allowed to downgrade, get nags if they don't upgrade and while Roon isn't threatening to kill 1.7 outright, any back-end changes they make will not have it in mind. So it will likely gradually stop working. There's certainly no assurance that I can continue to use it.

 

The only thing I disagree with you on is Roon's development style not being "different than any other app". When an app has matured and is well regarded, I expect upgrades to consist of bug fixes and gradual refinement. Completely removing the sidebar is an example of a major change in how the app works. And for what benefit? Roon places little value on creating the best design possible and then gently refining it. Change is inevitable and often good, but so is a degree of consistency. 

[k6davis]

23 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

Maybe this is a dumb question, but what do these checkmarks mean?

 

They are supposed to represent the best songs on the album  I never was sure who's was deciding that.