Playlists on Squeezebox Touch with USB hard drive?

[poodle]

Let me set the scene, please: I've gotten an external hard-drive with its own power source (WD My Book Essential), and it works beautifully with my SB Touch. I restart the SBT, plug the drive into the SBT and the power source, and the SBT finds it happily and knows where all the songs are. (This wasn't the case with the USB drive with no external power source--I couldn't get that to work reliably at all.)

Could someone please tell me or direct me to information about how to create a playlist with this set-up? Do I need to do it on the computer first, creating a playlist on the USB drive? Or is there an equally easy way to create the playlist on the fly with everything pluggged in and running on the SBT?

In the meantime, I'm just using Random Play options.

Thanks!

[aubuti]

Not necessarily intuitive, and not as easy as a lot of computer-based playlist methods, but here goes. You can do it with either the Touch's touchscreen, or with the included infrared remote.

1) Using the Touch's infrared remote
a) navigate to a track or album you want to add to the playlist
b) press the "+" button on the remote
c) a context menu comes up, from which you can choose "Add to End", "Play Next", "Replace Next Track", etc. Choose one of those.
d) repeat steps (a) through (c) until you have the playlist you want
e) save the playlist by bringing up the current playlist (to be honest, I don't know how to do this with the IR remote, as I rarely use it), then scroll down to the bottom and select "Save playlist". You will be prompted to give a name for the playlist.

2) Using the Touch's touchscreen
same as above, except
b) to get the context menu you touch and hold the selection for about 2 seconds.
and
e) it is easy to get to the current playlist by using the icon on the upper right part of the screen. It toggles the screen between "Now Playing" view and "Playlist View"

If you have another controller (SB Duet Controller, iPhone, Android device, iPod Touch, etc) then there are similar ways to do it with any of those.

[kidstypike]

e) save the playlist by bringing up the current playlist (to be honest, I don't know how to do this with the IR remote, as I rarely use it), then scroll down to the bottom and select "Save playlist". You will be prompted to give a name for the playlist.

From the "Now Playing" screen > right arrow will get you to the current playlist.

[aubuti]

From the "Now Playing" screen > right arrow will get you to the current playlist.

Thanks. I'll try to remember that. It's amazing how little I use my IR remotes any more.

[poodle]

I am having no luck with playlists. Could someone please help or direct me to more help? Here are the problems: Sometimes I can create a playlist on the Touch using the remote, and sometimes I can't. I'll use the plus button to add an album to the playlist, go back to the playlist (labeled "empty") and press the plus button. Nothing happens. I try to play the playlist. No songs will play. I can't find another playlist through the menus. The remote won't let me rename the playlist or see what's in it.

Can I use the web interface to create, view, add and delete songs in playlists?

My dream: I would like to have the functionality I had with a 5-disc CD changer, that is, to be able to pick a set of CDs (saved as FLAC files now on a USB drive that has its own power source) and play songs out of order, letting the Touch switch song to song, from CD to CD. I can use Random mix with genre, but that doesn't give me the level of control I want. Color me frustrated and baffled that this is not more transparent, but also very willing and eager to learn from people who have mastered this function. It seems so basic and yet so far out of reach.

Thank you!

[kidstypike]

I am having no luck with playlists. Could someone please help or direct me to more help? Here are the problems: Sometimes I can create a playlist on the Touch using the remote, and sometimes I can't. I'll use the plus button to add an album to the playlist, go back to the playlist (labeled "empty") and press the plus button. Nothing happens. I try to play the playlist. No songs will play. I can't find another playlist through the menus. The remote won't let me rename the playlist or see what's in it.

Can I use the web interface to create, view, add and delete songs in playlists?

My dream: I would like to have the functionality I had with a 5-disc CD changer, that is, to be able to pick a set of CDs (saved as FLAC files now on a USB drive that has its own power source) and play songs out of order, letting the Touch switch song to song, from CD to CD. I can use Random mix with genre, but that doesn't give me the level of control I want. Color me frustrated and baffled that this is not more transparent, but also very willing and eager to learn from people who have mastered this function. It seems so basic and yet so far out of reach.

Thank you!

Using the web UI, add your set of CD's to the playlist in the right panel, by clicking on the + symbol on the cover art.
Click the shuffle button, top right.
Click the save icon, bottom right.
Give the playlist a name.

To find your playlist on the Touch > My Music > Playlists.

Sorry, as Mynb has stated below, you can't use the web ui when using Touch's inbuilt server. (I was going off the post title).

[aubuti]

My dream: I would like to have the functionality I had with a 5-disc CD changer, that is, to be able to pick a set of CDs (saved as FLAC files now on a USB drive that has its own power source) and play songs out of order, letting the Touch switch song to song, from CD to CD. I can use Random mix with genre, but that doesn't give me the level of control I want. Color me frustrated and baffled that this is not more transparent, but also very willing and eager to learn from people who have mastered this function. It seems so basic and yet so far out of reach.

As kidstypike described, this functionality is dead easy with the SB. And better yet, you don't have to limit yourself to 5 CDs.... :-)

[Mnyb]

The server "onboard" touch does not have any web-UI has , the full server has that.

[kidstypike]

This is dead easy to do, difficult to describe.

Try this using the Touch screen:

Find an album and start it playing
From the "Now Playing" screen, touch the "Playlist" icon top right.
Scroll to the bottom of the playlist and touch "Save playlist"
Type a name on the keyboard that pops up, and touch "Done" bottom right of keyboard
Go to My Music > Playlists, and your recently named playlist should be there.

It really is simple!

To make a playlist of a few albums, browse to the first album, touch and hold till you get a popup, and touch "add to end".
Repeat this for all the albums you want on your playlist.
From the "Now Playing" screen, touch the "Playlist" icon top right.
Scroll to the bottom of the playlist and touch "Save playlist"
Type a name on the keyboard that pops up, and touch "Done" bottom right of keyboard
Go to My Music > Playlists, and your recently named playlist should be there.

Don't forget to press the shuffle button if you want the playlist shuffled.

[aubuti]

The server "onboard" touch does not have any web-UI has , the full server has that.

Sorry, I had forgotten in my earlier reply that the OP is using the Touch's built-in server. So using the web-ui is a non-starter.

Even so, it works just fine using the IR remote or the touchscreen. I'd say the IR remote is the easier of the two, because you don't have to worry about not touching-and-holding the screen long enough to bring up the context menu. Instead, with the IR remote just push the + button. After you press the + button you should get a choice of "Add to End", "Play Next", "Play". It sounds as if you're not choosing any of these, which is one way of ending up with an "empty" playlist. Take a careful look again at the step-by-steps in posts #2 and #9.