How do you want to create/manage playlists ?

[erland]

Since the playlist management in SBS/LMS is a bit limited and most people seems to use external software to manage their playlist it feels like there is a need for something better in SBS/LMS.

So, some questions to people that use saved playlists and would like to be easier.
Try to think about how you like it to work instead of how it works today.

1. What kind of device would you like to use when creating the playlists ?
- A computer
- A tablet
- A smart phone
- A Logitech Controller, Radio or Touch display
- A IR remote
- Something else

2. How do you decide what should be part of a playlist ?
- By selecting the individual tracks you want to include
- By selecting the albums you want to include
- By selecting the artists you want to include
- By automatically selecting 100 tracks that matches some search criteria (genre, ratings, ...)
- Something else

3. How do you decide which order the tracks should have in the playlist ?
- Random ordered tracks
- Random ordered albums
- Drag and drop albums to put them into the right order
- Drag and drop tracks to put them into the right order
- Something else

4. What's the most frustrating limitation with SBS/LMS playlist management today ?
- That it doesn't support relative paths in playlist files which are scanned
- That it's too hard to reorder tracks in existing playlists
- That it's too hard to create completely new playlists
- Something else

5. What kind of device would you like to use when modifying existing playlists ?
- A computer
- A tablet
- A smart phone
- A Logitech Controller, Radio or Touch display
- A IR remote
- Something else

6. What kind of modifications do you usually do on already existing playlists ?
- Reorder tracks in the playlist
- Remove tracks, albums or artists from the playlist
- Add new tracks, albums or artists to the playlist
- Something else

Is there anything else than the above you feel is important to take into consideration if anyone would like to improve the playlist management ?

[Henry66]

1. What kind of device would you like to use when creating the playlists ?
- A computer
- A tablet
- A smart phone
- A Logitech Controller, Radio or Touch display
- A IR remote
- Something else

I currently use a computer, or more specifically, MediaMonkey or Foobar2000 on the computer. I have tried using my smart phone, but found it too limiting. I can't imagine that a controller or remote would suit me for this.

2. How do you decide what should be part of a playlist ?
- By selecting the individual tracks you want to include
- By selecting the albums you want to include
- By selecting the artists you want to include
- By automatically selecting 100 tracks that matches some search criteria (genre, ratings, ...)
- Something else

It varies.
Individual tracks when I know what I want to listen to.
Albums, typically when I have acquired new CDs/downloads and want to listen to them.
Automatically, mostly by rating, sometimes by date last listened.
Can't remember ever creating lists by artist.

3. How do you decide which order the tracks should have in the playlist ?
- Random ordered tracks
- Random ordered albums
- Drag and drop albums to put them into the right order
- Drag and drop tracks to put them into the right order
- Something else

When I have specific tracks/albums to listen to I drag&drop.
For tracks automatically selected by search, I still use MediaMonkey or Foobar2000 to do the search. I have not got past the learning curve of doing it via Squeeze plugins.

4. What's the most frustrating limitation with SBS/LMS playlist management today ?
- That it doesn't support relative paths in playlist files which are scanned
- That it's too hard to reorder tracks in existing playlists
- That it's too hard to create completely new playlists
- Something else

All of them, I guess. Mostly the last two.

5. What kind of device would you like to use when modifying existing playlists ?
- A computer
- A tablet
- A smart phone
- A Logitech Controller, Radio or Touch display
- A IR remote
- Something else

Phones and controllers are too small to effectively show the lists. I don't have a tablet yet, but I am hoping that would work for me one day.

6. What kind of modifications do you usually do on already existing playlists ?
- Reorder tracks in the playlist
- Remove tracks, albums or artists from the playlist
- Add new tracks, albums or artists to the playlist
- Something else

I have found myself creating the list in some app and then loading it in MIP where I use the "shuffle" feature to make similar tracks end up next to each other. This helps to create a list that does not jump wildly between styles/moods.

Is there anything else than the above you feel is important to take into consideration if anyone would like to improve the playlist management ?

When I have a list of "random" tracks, I would like the ability to insert a second or two of silence between tracks.
Not really playlist related, but I would like to have the album art, artist/album/song info, and track progress shown on my big-screen TV between my speakers, so that I can sit back, relax and listen, without always peering at tiny phone or SB Touch screens to see the info.

[Mnyb]

Actually all of the ideas expressed in point 1-6 .

And a music ip smart playlists creator, you set up some criteria , a seed track and some other parameters and tell it to pull up 100 tracks and make a playlist and it should be fast ( < 1 second ).

[erland]

Actually all of the ideas expressed in point 1-6 .

Well, you can't get everything :-)
If you had to prioritize and select one or two items per point, what would it be ?

[MrSinatra]

Erland,

this is awesome. for years i haven't used playlists b/c no one makes an app that makes playlists the way i want. the closest thing for me is "smartviews" in winamp, but thats not perfect or suited really for specific purposes or occassions. smartviews are more of a library manager.

as a former radio dj, i have long fantasized over what a perfect playlist app would be.

Since the playlist management in SBS/LMS is a bit limited and most people seems to use external software to manage their playlist it feels like there is a need for something better in SBS/LMS.

So, some questions to people that use saved playlists and would like to be easier.
Try to think about how you like it to work instead of how it works today.

1. What kind of device would you like to use when creating the playlists ?
- A computer
- A tablet
- A smart phone
- A Logitech Controller, Radio or Touch display
- A IR remote
- Something else

i'd use a computer.

2. How do you decide what should be part of a playlist ?
- By selecting the individual tracks you want to include
- By selecting the albums you want to include
- By selecting the artists you want to include
- By automatically selecting 100 tracks that matches some search criteria (genre, ratings, ...)
- Something else

i think the app would need to scan the music to catalog it for manipulation. this assumes a user already has good tags.

smartviews let me use criteria. what i would want is basically a graph paper like grid, kinda like a spread sheet. on the left would be album artists, then indented just a tad would be album names, then indented just a tad more would be track titles. so like this:

Beatles
_Help
__Ticket to ride
__Yesterday
_Abbey Road
__Here comes the Sun
Cars
_Candy O
__Dangerous Type

and so on...

then, on the right would be a series of columns, with empty checkboxes. one column per named playlist. so if u have 11 columns, u have 11 playlists. then, if u put a check in the songtitle row for that column, the playlist is automatically rewritten to include it, and vice versa. if you put it on the album row, all the titles on the album are included. and on the albumartists row, all the titles on all albums are included. also, a "special" column should exist that if you checked the row in that column, it adds that to ALL playlists.

in addition, on a per column basis, i should then be able to specify whatever criteria. so i could say "any new music in this file path or subfolder should automatically be checked" or "any new music with this genre should automatically be checked" etc.

each column would have its own unique color and the playlist names would be listed in a fixed row at the top (like in excel, so u can see em even when scrolling) where they bend kind of, like at an angle, think 2 o'clock, to read.

3. How do you decide which order the tracks should have in the playlist ?
- Random ordered tracks
- Random ordered albums
- Drag and drop albums to put them into the right order
- Drag and drop tracks to put them into the right order
- Something else

this is not important to me as i would simply load and then randomize my playlists. however, if people wanted to play things in a strict order, then an option in this playlist creating app would be to not overwrite the order the playlist is in. that way, i could use this proposed app to create and select the songs, load them into winamp in AA, album, track # order, rearrange them in winamp, save in winamp, and then the proposed app would respect that ordering, but still allow to add or remove items.

4. What's the most frustrating limitation with SBS/LMS playlist management today ?
- That it doesn't support relative paths in playlist files which are scanned
- That it's too hard to reorder tracks in existing playlists
- That it's too hard to create completely new playlists
- Something else

i almost always use the SBS random mix functions. anything else with server is a joke.

5. What kind of device would you like to use when modifying existing playlists ?
- A computer
- A tablet
- A smart phone
- A Logitech Controller, Radio or Touch display
- A IR remote
- Something else

same computer.

6. What kind of modifications do you usually do on already existing playlists ?
- Reorder tracks in the playlist
- Remove tracks, albums or artists from the playlist
- Add new tracks, albums or artists to the playlist
- Something else

Is there anything else than the above you feel is important to take into consideration if anyone would like to improve the playlist management ?

to me, its all about adding or deleting tracks from a playlist, and or automating a playlist. i can envision columns where a playlist is made based on last access date, or rating, or combos of criterias, like smartviews, but its just automatically done.

a user should be able to dictate if playlists use absolute, or relative paths. and differing extensions, like m3u, m3u8, pls, etc...

my guess is u are trying to do something inside server, like a plugin. i would suggest your efforts would be a lot more useful if done OUTSIDE of server, and besides, server could just read the apps output dir. meanwhile, users of other apps could benefit!

[erland]

my guess is u are trying to do something inside server, like a plugin. i would suggest your efforts would be a lot more useful if done OUTSIDE of server, and besides, server could just read the apps output dir. meanwhile, users of other apps could benefit!

Aren't there already other external applications that handles this well already ?

The reason I started this thread was to investigate what would be needed to make something that works good for Squeezebox.
I don't really use static playlists myself much, so I need information from people that actually use them to better understand the needs. Personally I mostly use smart playlists (through SQL Playlist/Dynamic Playlist) as I like to focus on listening to music rather than spending the time maintaining playlists, but I could see scenarios, like parties or special events, where the exact tracks and order of them could be important and due to this static playlists would be needed.

Still, I'm skeptical if it's possible to implement it as a plugin as I think it requires a rich user interface to really work and I'm not sure the SBS/LMS web interface is suitable for this kind of usage.

[MrSinatra]

Aren't there already other external applications that handles this well already ?

i have not seen anything close to what i describe.

The reason I started this thread was to investigate what would be needed to make something that works good for Squeezebox.
I don't really use static playlists myself much, so I need information from people that actually use them to better understand the needs. Personally I mostly use smart playlists (through SQL Playlist/Dynamic Playlist) as I like to focus on listening to music rather than spending the time maintaining playlists, but I could see scenarios, like parties or special events, where the exact tracks and order of them could be important and due to this static playlists would be needed.

Still, I'm skeptical if it's possible to implement it as a plugin as I think it requires a rich user interface to really work and I'm not sure the SBS/LMS web interface is suitable for this kind of usage.

i think the server UI sucks for just about anything. but my point was that if you are going to do something, do something that could work for any app, not just server. thats far more useful. to me playlists are mainly about what is or is not in them. order is a secondary concern, since any decent app can randomize a playlist. if a static order needs to be maintained, a proposed app should respect that, but leave that setting of the order to other apps to do, just respect it when done.

[erland]

To anyone that currently uses static playlists:
1. How many static playlists do you have for your library ?
2. Is a static playlist typically something you make, use for a single event/party and deletes afterwards ?
3. Is a static playlist typically something you make once and never change afterwards ?
4. Can you give some examples of static playlists which you currently have and use continuously ? (name + when you use them)

[erland]

i think the server UI sucks for just about anything. but my point was that if you are going to do something, do something that could work for any app, not just server. thats far more useful.

Wouldn't it just be a matter of using the m3u file which a SBS/LMS plugin/app produces ?
Or am I missing something ?

[MrSinatra]

Wouldn't it just be a matter of using the m3u file which a SBS/LMS plugin/app produces ?
Or am I missing something ?

i don't think what i proposed could be done in server, nor do i think people who don't use server want to install it just to use such an app.

sometimes folks here need to remember, most people don't own squeeze anything. i think an app like this does not need to be tied to server.