Thanks Alex B; this is a great idea. However, I am having some difficulty implementing it.
To test the concept, I created a test play-list called TestPlayList, and put some songs in it. I could right click on TestPlayList, and choose "Edit Play-list in action window".
This showed all the songs in the play-list. Then I could select all songs in TestPlayList (ctrl-a) or highlight all songs, right click on any song and choose "tag" (or click tag in the left corner of the window); then edit the rating field.
I could verify in the library that all songs in TestPlayList had the new rating.
So then on to what I actually wanted to do, I created five play-lists in WMP and named them "1star", "2stas", "3start", etc. Each play-list contained tracks with the ratings suggested by the list name.
I imported the plays-lists and they showed up in "recently played" area. I was able to move them from there to where they showed up on the same level as normal play-lists(i.e. outside the "recently played" area).
The problem is that when I choose one of the new lists, say "1star", it does not show me all the songs that are in that play-list. I cannot therefore select all songs and changes their ratings. So MJ basically does not "know " the relationship of the songs in play-list "1star" to the files in the library. Further evidence of this is that if I select "1star" and choose "play" it actually opens WMP!
Could this be because MJ does not handle files with ".wpl" extension? I noticed that ".wpl" was not one of the extensions explicitly listed in the "file -> import playlist" dialog, so I had to choose "All files" in "Files of type" drop down.
In "Tools -> Options -> File Associations", I have "All types selected" checked on, so everything is selected. In the help contents, I could not find anything under ".wpl".
Bottom line is: this is a great idea, I just need to figure out how to get it to work ;-))
I searched the forum for ".wpl" and apparently no one has been able to do it, and also apparently the support for ".wpl" is, at least theoretically, only available in MC14 or whatever the latest MC version is (i.e. the paid version). If it works in MC, I would not mind paying for it..
Thanks,
jukeboxuser99