#1: Any suggestions for a playlist generator to pair up with Media Center for Mac? I'm moving over from radio automation software RadioBoss and Station Playlist, each of which have nice stand-alone playlist generators, but they're Windows only. Can anyone point me toward a playlist generator for Mac?
Media Center!
Media Center has smart lists. Smart lists have the Mix operator which allow you to define parameters for what kind of mix you want, based on metadata. Like 50% rock, 50% blues, as a simplistic example. These tools are good, but aren't super duper user friendly with easy buttons and drop downs to make common things happen. They are more like general tools that you can tailor to do exactly what you want. Note that smartlists using Mix or Shuffle aren't static. Each time you refresh the list, it will be different. Which might be a good thing! You can always copy the current contents of a smartlist to a static (regular) playlist if you want to save that exact one.
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Smartlists#2: Let's imagine that I have a playlist going and get a request for a certain song. A simplistic mind (read: me) would think I could drag and drop the requested track into the current playlist just below the current song, and then (of course) that song would play next, and the playlist would cheerfully and cooperatively continue afterward. It doesn't happen this way in real life, but I'm betting, based on past experience, that there's a simple fix for what I can't figure out how to do.
You're missing something fundamental, but as soon as you "get it", you'll be able to do this easily and a lot more too. The concept you are missing is the play queue. In MC, the play queue is called Playing Now. You can get to it from the tree on the left side. Playing Now is the list of currently playing tracks. The tracks that were just played, the currently playing track, and the tracks that are going to be played next, in order.
When you play a playlist, it is copied to Playing Now. Any changes you make to a playlist after it's been added to Playing Now, are not reflected in Playing Now. Because Playing Now is the play queue and you can do anything you want to the play queue. The lists just get copied over when you tell them.
So in your scenario, you add MyGoodPlaylist to Playing Now, and play a few songs. Someone asks for a song and you decide to play it next. Just go find the song in the library, then right click and select "add to playing now". That will put the song at the BOTTOM of playing now, making it the last song to play. You can then go into playing now and drag that song where ever you want it to be. You can re-order any of playing now at any time.
But if you just want the song to play *next*, there's an easier way. Again, right click on the song and select More Play Options > Add (as next to play) . There are a BUNCH of choices on that menu for many common (and not so common) operations.
You'll also notice that after you use the right click menu to select something, that selection now appears at the top of the right click menu! So if you want to do the same thing for several songs, it comes right to the top of the right click menu, making it easy to do a task quickly.
I actually use that technique when I'm building playlists. I don't drag and drop anything. I use the right click "send to > Playlist > playlistname" selection. Then, that playlist name comes to the top of the right click menu and I can add more files easily with one click instead of 3. But that's off topic.
Play around with Playing Now. It's very logical and once you're used to it, it's VERY powerful! The ability to move any song, including the currently playing song, let's you really tailor your current play queue however you want. You can even sort Playing Now (temporarily) to see things like what genres (or albums) you have in Playing Now. You can also delete whole sections right from there if you think a certain album, or artist, or genre just isn't working in your current Playing Now.
If you have questions, please ask, and we'll try to help.
Good luck.
Brian.
Author
Topic: Playlists: the creation and modification thereof. (Read 2482 times)