Roon 1.8 Discussion

[firedog]

1 hour ago, One and a half said:

The slowness of search cleared up a few hours after conversion to 1.8. Now the next day, search is back to 'normal for Roon' speed.

Yes, it's fine now.

I actually like the new version.

But the changing of the way focus/bookmarks work - without explaining it - was a real screw up. And the workaround (Roon tags/tag groups) is very clunky. They need to change/improve this. It was a negative game changer for me till another user showed how to get around it.

And personally I do find the new home page "too much of a good thing". I like the metadata in Roon, but I'm still mostly interested in it's function as a playback device and player that lets me setup listening lists as I like. I'd love the ability to hide a lot of that home page info, so I don't have to look at it unless I choose.

 

BTW, for those who lament the "Discover" link/command being removed from the navigation, the workaround: scroll down the homepage to Discover. Bring up the Discover page and Bookmark it. Then each time you click on the Bookmark for Discover, it will refresh.

 

[DuckToller]

 

The Roon guys didn't disappoint me ... Core & PC updated to Roon 1.8 (build756) just now

[ecwl]

I have to admit I really like the new version mostly because the iPad 11” now has a vertical option. And with vertical scrolling of the albums, it makes sense. Also I never liked how many times i have to keep swiping horizontally to get to my albums. Continuous scrolling makes a lot more sense to me. Maybe there was the option in Roon 1.7 but I never noticed it. Just like I just found out there is dark mode in Roon 1.8.

 

I frequently listen to music while reading off my iPad. So it’s is somewhat annoying to be reading a magazine or a book in portrait mode and then having to turn the iPad to landscape mode just to use Roon and then flip the iPad again.

[jhwalker]

The purple.

It's an abomination.

 

Make it stop.

 

Please.

[bibo01]

I have Roon client on a Win PC and Roon core is offline (it's going to stay like that for the moment). How can I update only the client? Everytime I start it is asking to locate the Core and I cannot go further. 

[AudioDoctor]

12 minutes ago, bibo01 said:

I have Roon client on a Win PC and Roon core is offline (it's going to stay like that for the moment). How can I update only the client? Everytime I start it is asking to locate the Core and I cannot go further. 

 

Essentially, you can't. If you update the client and not the core, the client will not be able to communicate with the core. Alternately, if you update the core and not the client, the same thing will happen. You have to update both of them. However, once you connect the core to the client, there is a setting to update automatically or not, and you can choose which to update, and which not to update. Although, as I said, if you do only one of them you wont be able to use Roon.

[bibo01]

Just now, AudioDoctor said:

 

Essentially, you can't. If you update the client and not the core, the client will not be able to communicate with the core. Alternately, if you update the core and not the client, the same thing will happen. You have to update both of them.

OK, thanks. I will postpone everything.

[Outlaw]

1 hour ago, jhwalker said:

The purple.

It's an abomination.

 

Make it stop.

 

Please.

Purple reminds me of Barney

[charlesphoto]

Well, I now I have a nice baby blue across the board instead of purple and orange thanks to some intrepid users over on the Roon forum who figured out how to change some code. Will need to change it again each update, but it's a start and a lot more pleasant... Looking into other color schemes. 

[firedog]

The Roon guys have already put out a fix for some of the issues and have replied to posts on their forum that they are going to put in some more fixes for users concerns in the next bugfix/update.

Yeah, they made some mistakes. But at least they are willing to admit some of them and are trying to put out some quick fixes.

[firedog]

2 hours ago, charlesphoto said:

Well, I now I have a nice baby blue across the board instead of purple and orange thanks to some intrepid users over on the Roon forum who figured out how to change some code. Will need to change it again each update, but it's a start and a lot more pleasant... Looking into other color schemes. 

Is this only on MAC, or also Windows? Link to the explanation at the Roon site?

[jhwalker]

7 hours ago, charlesphoto said:

Well, I now I have a nice baby blue across the board instead of purple and orange thanks to some intrepid users over on the Roon forum who figured out how to change some code. Will need to change it again each update, but it's a start and a lot more pleasant... Looking into other color schemes. 

 

I haven't seen that post, but have been looking for it!

 

It seems it would be pretty simple to implement a color-picker control to change 1) Background color; 2) Accent color; 3) Return to default

[charlesphoto]

5 minutes ago, jhwalker said:

 

I haven't seen that post, but have been looking for it!

 

It seems it would be pretty simple to implement a color-picker control to change 1) Background color; 2) Accent color; 3) Return to default

 

It's gone. I have a feeling the Roon team probably not to keen on users going in and changing code. Good thing is we know it can be easily done. Hopefully they'll soon give users some choice in themes. 

[charlesphoto]

5 hours ago, firedog said:

Is this only on MAC, or also Windows? Link to the explanation at the Roon site?

 

Thread is gone. Can be done Windows or Mac though (using Terminal in Mac). 

[The Computer Audiophile]

11 minutes ago, charlesphoto said:

Thread is gone.

One nice thing about an independent forum is that these threads don't disappear :~)

 

Hopefully someone will post how to do it here.

[ecwl]

I’m still surprised by how much people didn’t like the Roon 1.8 update.

Yes, I can see how for some people who are used to horizontal scrolling, vertical scrolling is annoying. 

And color preferences are so personal, it feels weird not to have a little bit more control over the color scheme.

And definitely the way the credits are setup is so different from Roon 1.7, while I prefer the current setup where I can click on each individual and link to their work, I do wish there is an option just to show the credits in list format.

 

But for me, the improvements in classical music sorting and filing for Roon 1.8 simply outweighs all the supposed negatives. I think for the longest time, I’ve only used Roon as a music player, as if it’s JRiver or pretty much any other software out there to play my own music, except of course, I can also use Roon to listen to Tidal. I never understood the catalog/library feature which people rave about being able to go from one artist to another because of their association in the music. This is because those features are not as well implemented for classical music as compared to for non-classical music. But Roon 1.8 completely changed all of that. I found myself looking at all the different versions of Beethoven Symphony No. 5 on Tidal with much greater ease, and finding the same conductor’s performances with as much ease as most of you have been doing with your favorite artist for non-classical music.

 

To me, some of Roon 1.8 issues are purely UI related and we all have our preferences so it probably is not super hard for Roon to create an old UI option for users who prefer Roon 1.7 UI, e.g. horizontal scrolling. Other issues are more related to UI display issues like colours of the boxes and being an Apple/iOS user, I actually think that sometimes there can be too many options for too many people, which makes the codes harder to maintain over time. But slightly more options are obviously welcome.

 

I think all upgrades have teething problems but I suspect once the dust settles, people will grow to like Roon 1.8 (or maybe 1.8.2)

[charlesphoto]

29 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

One nice thing about an independent forum is that these threads don't disappear :~)

 

Hopefully someone will post how to do it here.

On a Mac go to the Roon app and right click to show package contents. In the Themes folder open the colors file (dark or light mode or both). This is the part you should compare to change (I'm pasting my changes but don't have the original file to compare to). On a Mac, when you open the file you'll be in TerminaI so just change away (at your own risk). I wish I knew the codes for other colors - in fact just a mid gray would be nice. Anything but purple and orange! 

 

atom-blue                         #6ba2d9
atom-blue-hover                   #6badd9
atom-blue-pressed                 #6badd9
atom-blue-insensitive             #40%6B6ED9

atom-blue-mapping                 #578fb5
atom-onebox-blue                  #508bb3

atom-orange                       #6ba2d9
atom-orange-hover                 #6badd9
atom-orange-insensitive           #6badd9
atom-orange-mapping               #C9544B
 

[charlesphoto]

For me, the absolute worst part of the new design is the unreadability of paragraph text. Renders the whole discovery thing moot if one can't easily read a line or two of text without feeling dizzy and wanting to fall over. 

[tapatrick]

9 minutes ago, charlesphoto said:

I wish I knew the codes for other colors - in fact just a mid gray would be nice. Anything but purple and orange! 

 

atom-blue                         #6ba2d9
atom-blue-hover                   #6badd9
atom-blue-pressed                 #6badd9
atom-blue-insensitive             #40%6B6ED9

atom-blue-mapping                 #578fb5
atom-onebox-blue                  #508bb3

atom-orange                       #6ba2d9
atom-orange-hover                 #6badd9
atom-orange-insensitive           #6badd9
atom-orange-mapping               #C9544B
 

These are Hex colours. See here for more choice

https://www.color-hex.com/color-names.html

[charlesphoto]

They changed the thread title and put it under tinkering. Kore complete instructions there.

 

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/customizing-the-roon-theme/142548/53

[charlesphoto]

Here's a mid-gray theme. So much better imo and readable. Just need to work out a few things like the name hyperlinks.

 

 

[charlesphoto]

A bit more tweaking and pretty much have it where I want it. Not much to do about the blank spaces though (this is on my 27" NEC).

[firedog]

Here's mine. Changed out the purple for blue, and made the main background a bit lighter.

Now I'm going to do the same with the Roon light theme, except make the background a bit less bright. It hurts my eyes.

 

[Pro Jules]

Can these tweaks be easily shared? 

[firedog]

2 hours ago, Pro Jules said:

Can these tweaks be easily shared? 

Yes. On windows it's just changing text in a file in the Roon program called "colors". I believe it's similar on a MAC. 

The link to the Roon community thread is above where it's discussed and explained - with examples.

This is also a post there explaining it.

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/customizing-the-roon-theme/142548/63