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[mwheelerk]

I did try to search this in the wiki but didn't have any luck.

I understand Shuffle On, Shuffle Off, Reshuffle etc but what does Shuffle Automatic do?

[marko]

Turn it on.

If you play a full album of tracks, they play in track number order.
If you play a mix of albums, they all get shuffled.

[mwheelerk]

Turn it on.

If you play a full album of tracks, they play in track number order.
If you play a mix of albums, they all get shuffled.

Cool. I'm always flipping back and forth between on and off. Single album selection Off and Playlists On. That's the way I always listen so that will be a nice feature/convenience for me.

[blgentry]

Here's a post from a thread discussing that topic:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=40941.msg279377#msg279377

...and now here comes Brian's Prepared Speech #12 about JRiver Media Center, titled, Why Shuffle Modes All Suck and What To Do Instead:

Shuffle modes in all players, MC included, make no sense.  When shuffle is on, what happens when I double click a track?  Will it play just that track, or all the tracks from the Album.  Or all the tracks from the Artist?  The Genre?  How do I know what will be selected for playback?  Everything will be shuffled, but that's all I know.

Playing Now solves this confusion by making everything visible and simple.  Want to hear 3 albums shuffled?  Keep Shuffle turned off.  Add your albums to Playing Now; they'll be in track order "non shuffled".  Press control-R or select Player > Shuffle > Reshuffle.  Now they're in a random order.  ...and you knew exact what tracks would be played, and now you can see exactly what order they are in.  If you want to alter that order, you can easily do so.  Just drag songs around.  Or delete some songs from Playing Now entirely.

Let's say you've done this and you've played 10 songs.  Now you want to add another album to the mix.  Add the album to Playing Now.  It will be at the bottom.  Select Reshuffle Remaining.  Now it will only shuffle the songs from the current song down.  The ones you already heard don't get shuffled back in.  Which is exactly what you want most of the time.

What if you get a crazy idea that you really want to hear 2 or 3 songs right now, but you still want to continue listening to your mix?  Easy.  Just add your songs with Add (as next to play).  Now your 2 or 3 songs are next in the Playing Now queue.  ...and these songs you just added are in the order you added them in, because shuffle mode is turned off.  Once you've heard those few songs you just added, the queue will continue, just exactly as it was before you got that craving for some particular song or songs.

Playing Now makes shuffle modes obsolete for *me*.  It makes shuffle understandable, highly controllable, and FUN!

Thus ends prepared speech #12.

Brian.

[mwheelerk]

My needs are pretty simple.  Single album, shuffle No.  Playlist, shuffle Yes.  The only other instance I can think of possibly making a different decision if I have selected the entire catalog from one artist.  Generally I will shuffle that and if it is not a playlist how will Shuffle Automatic handle it?

[glynor]

The rule is really quite simple:

When you play something with a mixture of artists and albums, it'll shuffle.  Think picking "Classic Rock" from Theater View or the panes.  In this case, there's no good reason to always start with Abba. (even though Abba starts with A)

If you play a single artist, album, or start at a specific file (like a double-click in a list), it won't shuffle.

The end.

[mwheelerk]

Sounds good fellas have a good day