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[AlanDistro]

So when I have deluxe editions of albums, I have a custom tag field to denote which tracks are from the actual album, and which tracks are bonus/added tracks.

It looks like this:


I'd like to make a radio button that shuffles full albums, but I think the "expand" and "expand to full albums" modifiers are messing up my "Format is Album" rule. Here's what I have right now:


...but this still gives me the Format -> Bonus Tracks in my shuffle, which I do not want. I only want it to shuffle the Format -> Album tracks, but as full albums.

Any way to accomplish this?

[BigSpider]

Why are you expanding to full albums when your format rule will return the files you want to play? Expand to full album won't know about your format field and is designed to just take all of the files using the same album name.

[AlanDistro]

Why are you expanding to full albums when your format rule will return the files you want to play? Expand to full album won't know about your format field and is designed to just take all of the files using the same album name.

Because if I don't it shuffles individual songs?

I want to shuffle full albums. This is the only way I know how to do that, but readily admit it might not be the best way (if you have a recommendation on how better to accomplish that).

[BigSpider]

You could set up a customised view based upon Album thumbnails sorted by name - rename it Random Albums, click on the tab and select sort by>Random. Customise your new view by selecting Set rules for files to display and make a rule there which prevents the files you want to stop appearing in your album lists. Each time you open or refresh this view your albums will be presented as thumbnails in a new random order. You can highlight a selection of thumbnails and right click and select play - your albums are then sent to play as complete albums in ther randomised way you want. As in the attached snippet. Doing this with a smartlist seems to be nigh on impossible - but doubtless someone will prove me wrong.

[AlanDistro]

That'll work for now, thanks! If anyone knows how to get this working as a radio button that would be ideal, but until then I'll use this workaround.

[BigSpider]

Depending on the number of albums you have, you could use link files from the library options, but once the album files are linked they cannot be played as individual items - sending one linked file to player will automatically add all of the other linked files. If you are only ever going to play complete albums then that is a possibility. A smartlist with the rules Media type is audio; linkstart is not empty and a modifier like 100,1,[album] would give you 1 item from 100 random albums. When sent to the player you would get 100 albums with all of the linked tracks from each album. Each album group of files would have to be linked separately so it can be time consuming if there are a lot of albums, but it would mean that you can exclude files from the selection such as your extras. Being a smartlist you can of course use it as a radio button. I use linked files to group classical music files together so that I always get a complete symphony or piece of work. I also use a rule last played is not in last 3 weeks so I always get fresh material.