Many people over the years have asked about renaming files for offline use based on the Playlist name. I got tired of telling them NO. Recently, user stiv32 had a need for this (from our offline discussions) and also a similar request here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=88467.0
If it were required, I could certain capturely the sequence number (on a per-playlist basis), but my approach is to generally add features as they are requested or as I need them.
Sure, of course. I wasn't criticizing (or doubtful about the possibilities of doing so), I'd just been curious when I saw the previous thread... More of a
wonder what he's up to thing. I too have often wondered about that [Playlists] field and if it could be useful (or had more functionality hidden under the covers).
Your task makes perfect sense, of course. I've seen those threads too and thought about it.
One thing I suppose you could do to speed up that algorithm is use the existing [Playlists] field as an excluding filter. So...
You can't know, with the current kinda-dumb [Playlists] field, if a given file is in a
particular playlist because the user could have three different "Bob's Favorite Songs #14" lists buried in different Playlist Groups. But, if you are searching for a given set of files, you can tell from the field if the track isn't in a particular Playlist. If you're looking for \Utility\Bad Songs\Crappy List 12 (and 14 other potential matches) and the track doesn't have "Crappy List 12" in [Playlists] then you know it isn't in that list and you can skip it.
Of course, that only works if you have a pre-defined list of possible Playlists you want to use, so, it doesn't really apply to your file-renaming task, I guess. Still, an interesting possible use for even the current kinda-useless field.
I bet under the covers that field contains the Playlist IDs, and they just have it set up to display the MJPlaylistAutomation.Name property to the users (us).