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[mwillems]

I'm trying to create a Panel view that only shows my daughter's playlists, and I can't seem to figure out how (but I suspect I've just missed a setting somewhere). 

I can do this in Theater View: when setting up Theater View menu options, if you add the "playlists" item, you can then configure it to show all playlists, a playlist group, or one specific playlist. So I made a playlist group and put her playlists in it, and that works great.  I can even nest it nicely under a roller with her name on it along with her shows so all her stuff is in one spot (she's young so it helps if she can just go to her name rather than drilling down through other views).

But in the parallel menu config for remotes (Panel, gizmo, etc.), when I add a playlists menu item it says there are no configuration options available.  The playlists menu item also seems to refuse to nest under any other items (it needs to be a top level menu item apparently)? 

Is there some way to configure Panel to show a playlist group (or any kind of subset of playlists)?  As a secondary issue, is there some way to display playlists "under" another menu item in Panel (i.e. can I put audio playlists under the general audio category, for example).

[RoderickGI]

The most important thing to know about creating Panel, Gizmo, JRemote, etc. Views is that you must close MC and restart it in order to see any changes to the View on the target device.

Even then, MC will cache the contents and level naming of the Views, and it can take a while, and a bit of clicking around, to see the changes come through.

You can't use the "Playlists" menu type because, as you found, it isn't configurable and can't be nested. You can, however, create a top-level item and give it your daughter's name, then add levels below that as required. Use the [Playlists] pseudo field to add your daughter's Playlists to the top-level item, or more correctly limit the contents of the top-level item and all level below to only your daughter's Playlists, using the "Set rules for file display" rule "Playlists... is any..." then select all her Playlists. That means there is a bit of maintenance involved, but there isn't any function to set a rule of say "Playlists... contain... Cindy", as an example. That is because the [Playlists] pseudo field function actually is interpreted as "playlistid==724062238,=11407219". i.e. It allows you to select specific Playlists.

I set up a top-level item called Cindy and limited it to some sample Playlists I use for testing, "One Track", "One Album", "Two Tracks, "Two Albums", "Three Tracks", and "Three Albums". Then I set up Library Items below that called "One's", "Two's", and "Three's". Inside each group I selected the matching Playlists using the [Playlists] pseudo field again. That works, but it shows all Tracks within the Library Items lumped together, rather than showing the individual Playlists to drill down further into.

I could have selected a Playlist Group as a Category in a Library Item... or should be able to. But perhaps as you found, that doesn't seem to be working. That appears to be broken.
You can also select a Playlist Group using the "Playlists... is any..." rule, but that also lumps all the files together in the one group, rather than showing the Playlists within the Group.
So basically it looks like with the current functionality you need to set up a Library Item for each Playlist, if you wish to keep them separate.


Anyway, does that give you a start? Restart MC after any View change. Refresh, refresh, refresh. There are lots

The functionality is pretty thin for Playlists management in Views though. It could be better. Even the Theatre View functionality would be an improvement, but that could be better as well. Just being able to set a rule of "Playlists contains Cindy" would be an improvement everywhere.

[wer]

Perish the thought that I would ever disagree with my buddy Rod, but I don't think anything is broken.

I think you can pretty easily accomplish what you need...

The "Playlists" item is indeed unconfigurable, and it always shows you the root of all playlists, so it's not what you want.

However, at the top level, or nested wherever you want, you can add a "Library Item" and configure its type as "Playlist Group".  Then you can select whichever Playlist Group (including the root!) you'd like it to show. So create a playlist group for your daughter, put her lists in it, and Bob's your uncle.

I tested this just now for you, and it works fine.

As Rod partially pointed out, you do need to totally close both MC and Media Server and then restart for the changes to activate.  Closing MC without closing Media Server is not enough.  You might also have to force-quit and restart JRemote.

But it works.

-Will

[RoderickGI]

You are allowed to disagree with me Will ! 

I tested what you are suggesting and it didn't work. I could add the Playlist Group, but no content was shown in the View. Maybe my data wasn't good. I'll have another look.

[wer]

That's interesting... Do I need to point you to the wiki article for how to configure JRemote views, Rod?   

Seriously, this functionality actually was something that was broken in the past.  But Matt quietly fixed it sometime during MC26.  It's been working for a while.  I tested on the last version of 26. I suppose it's possible it could have been broken again in 27.

[mwillems]

Wer's method worked for me here: adding a library item and choosing the playlist group radio button worked (after a server restart and clearing the browser cache on the client machine connecting to Panel). 

Thanks very much to you both for taking the time to answer.  I figured I was missing something obvious, and I was!

[wer]

No problem.  Squirrels and penguins need to help each other. Glad to hear it's working for you. 

Rod, maybe if you turn your computer upside down so that it's correctly oriented with respect to the ecliptic plane, it will work for you too...

[RoderickGI]

Not broken in MC27. Just user error.

I can use all the help I can get Will. I couldn't remember if there was a Wiki on this functionality, so I had a look. Nope. Nothing obvious from a search. Sigh.

I had deleted the stuff I built earlier, so couldn't just check it again. I rebuilt the View and they worked this time. It could have been user error, as I had "Set rules for file display" set at both the Root Library Item, and Library Item underneath it. Maybe I selected the individual Playlists at one level and the correct "Group\Playlists" at the other level. As they are not the same, all data was filtered out. My bad.

EDIT: I had a backup with the earlier stuff in it, and basically it was the user error above, although not quite that simple. I had tested using Playlist Group under just a top-level Category with a Library Item under it, and that doesn't work. i.e.
Category > Library Item > Category
doesn't work.

But it does work with:
Top-level Root Library Item > Library Item > Category > Playlist Group > Playlists
displays as
Cindy > Cindy's Music > Cindy's Playlists
or
Top-level Library Item > Category > Playlist Group > Playlists
displays as
Cindy > Cindy's Playlists

Something like that. The result depends on whether there are multiple items on each level of the View definition.



I do still see one anomaly in that when I edit a Category within a Library Item that is defined as a "Playlist group", the incorrect Group is selected. i.e. The category correctly shows "Cindy" as the selected Playlist Group, but when I edit the category the "Car Radio" is preselected. If I then click OK the "Car Radio" group is saved in the Category.

Good to hear it is working for you now mwillems.

[stevemac]

The most important thing to know about creating Panel, Gizmo, JRemote, etc. Views is that you must close MC and restart it in order to see any changes to the View on the target device.

Yep - totally agree.  About 10 days ago was totally frustrated that I could not get some new items to show in JRemote.  The last thing I thought of was to restart the server instance of MC.

Thanks for sharing.  Had not thought about rolling up playlists - good idea

[mwillems]

One tip I can offer to folks trying to "prototype" new views is to use Panel rather than JRemote or Gizmo for testing.  In my experience getting JRemote or Gizmo to "release" their previously cached views can be hard even after restarting the server.  With Panel it's as easy as flushing the browser cache (or opening a different browser).

[wer]

It's easy to get JRemote on IOS to refresh the views from Media Server.

Just force-quit the app from the OS.  When it next launches it will reconnect and refresh.

However, as I mentioned, you must have already restarted MC and Media Server.  So the process looks like:

1. Close both MC and Media Server
2. Restart MC
3. Force-quit JRemote on IOS
4. Restart JRemote

It does not matter if step 3 is done first or third.

This is cumbersome, but it's the way it is.

[mwillems]

I'm on android, and force quitting Gizmo or Jremote2 doesn't always clear the cached views unfortunately.  After a server restart, I've tried force-quitting and restarting the apps two or three times, and sometimes they still won't refresh until some amount of time passes.  Panel always updates more or less right away, especially if you clear your browser cache.  Sounds like things are a little easier on IOS!

[RoderickGI]

Yep. I test in Panel. Just closing the tab and restarting Panel, with maybe a few refreshes of the page, was enough. Without closing the tab I could get unexpected results, which seemed to be a mix of the old Views and new, producing some navigation quirks.

[DJLegba]

I'm on android, and force quitting Gizmo or Jremote2 doesn't always clear the cached views unfortunately.  After a server restart, I've tried force-quitting and restarting the apps two or three times, and sometimes they still won't refresh until some amount of time passes.  Panel always updates more or less right away, especially if you clear your browser cache.  Sounds like things are a little easier on IOS!

Clearing the JRemote[2] cache in the Android apps setting has worked for me.