Roon 1.8

About the part I quoted:

  • 15" laptop in 16:10 4K. Running Roon maximized (but not full screen). (I also use a 10" tablet and occasionally a phone, but ignoring these for now)
  • There is quite some unused space in some views (which could be used better e.g. to show recording dates as discussed above), but in general it seems an improvement e.g. in the handling of artist photos that are not in a wide format (which in 1.7 ended up as tiny pictures in the center of the artist page heading)
  • I have never seen ā€œsubtle backround colours tuned to album covers or artist photos replaced by a choice of only pure black or white.ā€ or I donā€™t know what you mean

Generally iPad (mix of Portrait/landscape) / phone app for me @Hmack
I do use desktop when im working on my PC (Windows 10) but thats probably only 10% of my time, unfortunately my work laptop doesnt show up as an audio output or else I would use that too :frowning:

I mainly use an iPad as this is what we have in our sitting room. Itā€™s fine on that although I would prefer the white background to be toned down a tad, like the Naim Grey theme on this forum. Iā€™ve tried a Samsung Galaxy Book today which is a Windows tablet and the experience on that is excellent.

I do use a desktop in our home office and it gets a lot of use working from home as thereā€™s a Muso QB in that room which opens out into our conservatory where thereā€™s another Roon enabled system. On this computer if you maximize I would agree with @Hmack itā€™s way too bright and spaced out. This is on a 28" 4K monitor.

On this computer I do tend to run most things windowed and not full screen. Then it seems OK to me.

The new release is growing on me. Iā€™ve raised a support item for an issue Iā€™ve spotted in the discography where it seems to favour QoBuz over local material which doesnā€™t seem right. I do hope that they take some of the feedback onboard with regards to certain design elements and items which have been moved/removed. Iā€™d like to see the ā€˜orā€™ functionality in focus reinstated too.

Iā€™m sure it will come good in the end. I do find the focus wonderful in classical though. Being able to focus on Chopin and then select say preludes as form makes things so easy to find that Iā€™m forgiving some of the other slight annoyances.

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During the day I use a 27" screen when Iā€™m using a Mac (Screen Shots attached). In the evening I use a mix of iPad and iPhone. The iPad I use to browse and select and sort and the iPhone to stop, start and skip etc.

I find the design to be good although I agree with you on the circular Artist Photos. I prefer the squares that are used in the Albums. I like the larger icons for the albums, the text looks attractive etc.

The only issues I have so far are a few functional muck ups with Tags and that I have to restart the server each day so it will show my M Scaler. If you detach the MScaler from power (Power Bank) the Roon server struggles to show it. It knows itā€™s set up but you canā€™t select it as a source even after itā€™s been powered back up. Not a big problem, just a minor annoyance.

@anon23154165, how do you configure your page as shown to have the Roon banner down left hand side, I just have my Albums ?

I havenā€™t altered anything in settings as far as Iā€™m aware. Iā€™ll take a look in settings but I thought this was the norm.

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Either click the hamburger menu in the top left (3 horizontal lines) to show it:

or to show it permanently: Settings > General > Browsing preferences > Always show the sidebar (when space permits)
(which might enabled by a new default in 1.8, I forgot)

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@glasnaim Okā€¦ do you mean the paler gray bar right on the left. In settings you have an option (under General) to "Always show sidebar (when space permits). That toggles it on and off.

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Thanks, @anon23154165 and @Suedkiez, I have that option checked but using on a MacBook so screen must be too small to accommodate.
Weird thing is this option is not available on my iPad/iPad mini so I thought it would be doable on the MacBook.

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I have the option on the 15" 16:10 laptop and it works there (if Roon is maximized) and also donā€™t have it on the 10" Android tablet - although I would say that there is arguably enough space at least in landscape mode, so why not let me if I want to enable it

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Iā€™m wondering if the idea behind the circular icons for artists is to allow for a clear distinction between them and albums? Us humans work well with visual cues and I can see the difference being useful like here.

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Possibleā€¦ but it would be better if the Artist image was square and that a round mask is applied to the relevant section, layout when needed.

Works well in the example youā€™ve provided though!

Itā€™s a good point, but they need to improve it. In 1.7 when looking at an artist, the artist bio etc was centered, often overlapping with the face. So where annoying I replaced the photo with another one with the artist off center. And now I see a black hole in the circle. And of course such off-center images are often used by default as well, as with the Otis Redding I posted yesterday. But it is more annoying for artists where I have just spent a lot of time in recent weeks to change the photos manually

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The problem I have with circular images is that they were clearly taken from photos composed on a normal camera, so they are portrait or landscape images that have been cropped automatically by a computer. I can see lots of examples of artists who have been scalped, had their ear cut off, or even been decapitated, and there are bands with members partially or entirely missing.
Also, visually I just donā€™t like it. Itā€™s a bit like horizontal scrolling, I canā€™t quite put my finger on the reason, but it doesnā€™t seem right.

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Very true. If theyā€™re to use circles all the time, they need to select images that work correctly as a circle. If they need squares as well, then maybe a separate crop for them. Otherwise there is always the danger that the main subject is right on the edge of the circle.

That would be the ideal, it all depends on whether they want the extra coding, storage I guess.

I use phone mainly, then pc. I do prefer the new style itā€™s quicker, and easier to find what I want on both platforms and the new discovery options are great.

It has some bad choices and inconsistencies that I hope get resolved but overall happy with it.

Here are a few examples:

Now you may not like then at all, or even hate them on a small screen, but to my eyes they look really good and much less jarring on the eye than an all black or all white background screen.

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I donā€™t seem to have that anywhere. Windows version (on Linux but should not matter).

However, if I remember correctly I had it in 1.7 on the artist page when the image was small (not wide) and hence tiny. Then, the fact of the tiny image was more of a problem. As this is now more sensibly solved in 1.8, I donā€™t seem to have it there, either.

Is that ā€œSubtle Backgroundsā€ a setting? CAnā€™t see it

Not that I am aware of.

I have flicked through my settings, and canā€™t see anything that would relate. I have the following settings, although Iā€™m not sure how these could change the background:

Dark theme - on
Allow for more covers and photos - on
Show format information on albums
Show version information on albums
I have 'memory for photos/artwork set to 512 Mb

Canā€™t see any of these impacting the ā€˜subtleā€™ background.

Of course, remember that my screenshots come from Roon 1.7 - Roon 1.8 doesnā€™t have this feature. Version 1.8 has a fully black (or white) background.

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