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[c1c9k72]

In my smartlists, I'd love to be able to do some simple arithmetic on the number of plays and the number of skips for a given song.  The popularity of a song can always go up, as the number of plays increases, but I'd like to be able to set up a field [Popularity] where it takes the number of plays and subtracts from that the number of skips.  Or a percentage of the skips where for every four skips, you "lose" a play.

[Popularity]=([Number of plays]-([Skips]/4))

Is this possible?  If not, is the manipulation of numerical fields planned?  And would anyone else be interested in such a thing?

[gappie]

i would be interested in calculated data. you can choose to calculate data in user defined library fields, but there is not much you can calculate there.

[marko]

We can't do maths at the moment, and though the question does get raised every now and again, there's not a lot of noise around the subject, so I don't imagine it'll come any time soon. Also, I'm not convinced about how reliable your formula would be in any case when you take into account that when you go back to the previous track, or stop a track, and the currently playing track is less than 50% played, the skip count goes up by one.

i would be interested in calculated data. you can choose to calculate data in user defined library fields, but there is not much you can calculate there.

That all rather depends on your definition of 'calculated'

-marko.

[zirum]

I am rooting for a way to calculate. I find it inspiring to maybe someday be able to come up with a expression even marko get's his eyes up for 

Even having "law of computing" #4 in mind, it shouldn't be to hard to integrate...
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~magi/personal/humour/Computer_Audience/The%20Laws%20of%20Computing.html

[c1c9k72]

We can't do maths at the moment, and though the question does get raised every now and again, there's not a lot of noise around the subject, so I don't imagine it'll come any time soon. Also, I'm not convinced about how reliable your formula would be in any case when you take into account that when you go back to the previous track, or stop a track, and the currently playing track is less than 50% played, the skip count goes up by one.
That all rather depends on your definition of 'calculated'

-marko.

That was just an initial thought on the formula.  I'd probably alter it if it was lowering the "popularity" of songs I really liked.  Decreasing the value of a skip by increasing the constant.  The iPod I use is even more finicky, in fact, and I'm pretty sure if you jump ahead to the next track with 0:01 left, it'll count it as a skip.  But, I'd still like something that gives me some sort of gauge of the song's current popularity, aside from ratings, play count and skip count.  Maybe some sort of formula using all the three.  Maybe using the rating as the denominator, making it harder for a higher rated song to suffer from "skip degradation."

But, if we can't do math, it's kind of moot.

[JimH]

Even having "law of computing" #4 in mind, it shouldn't be to hard to integrate...
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~magi/personal/humour/Computer_Audience/The%20Laws%20of%20Computing.html

Very funny.

[gappie]

That all rather depends on your definition of 'calculated'

-marko.

that is true. so to get something like [number plays]-[skip count] i could make something like

if(isequal([number plays],20,2),if(isequal([skip count],0,2),20,if(isequal([skip count],1,2),19)) etc etc etc. 

[marko]

LMAO   you could indeed, but you'd have to want it real bad!!

[c1c9k72]

Hi again,

Sorry for resurrecting the old topic, but I was curious if, since MC 12 doesn't seem to be able to handle arithmetic operations internally at the moment, would it be possible to write a plug-in that would basically do the job instead?  That could take the information found in the [Rating],[Number Plays] and [Skips] fields and does the math on them automatically, depositing the result into a new field?

I'm hopeless when it comes to plug-in creation, so I leave the question to you all who know more than I.

[Tanoshimi]

Since it appears this is something very few people want, and it won't be incorporated in the actual build, I have a Plugin in development that will actually perform Math on fields.  It's called Computed Fields, and simply put, you define a formula for the field you want to have calculated.  For example:

[Popularity]=[Number Plays]-([Skip Count]/4)

This will work with as many equations as you like, allows you to run an initial computation on all the files in a given Scheme or Playlist, then automatically computes the field when the file loses focus (i.e. on stop, next, or previous).

The interface is extremely simple at this time.  A textbox that allows you to type in the formulas you wish to use, a drop down box allowing you to select the scheme/list you wish to batch it against, and a button telling it to Compute All.  There's some basic error checking (whether or not a formula is formatted properly, missing '[', etc), and the current version color codes the formula ([Fields], Operators, Constants)  It's very fast, doing 1 Formula on 6,029 songs in less than 5 seconds. 

If anyone is interested in this, or has ideas/recommendations, feel free to contact me individually.