Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[glynor]

Split from: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=96665.0

5) Smart playlists in iTunes have the option "live updating". Is there a similar feature in JRiver MC? Case in point:

In Itunes I have a playlist called "least recently played songs" (sorted by last played date and limited to 25 songs) with "live updating" checkbox ticked. So whenever a song is done playing it automatically gets substituted in said playlist by another song thus at every point next song to play is selected from the pool of 25 least recently played tracks. This way I can cycle through my entire music library.

MC does not live update Smartlists.  Any time you open and view them, they will refresh, and if you click the Refresh button (or hit F5) they'll refresh, but there is no way to have them do it continuously like that.

However, it wouldn't work anyway.  The way MC plays is via the Playing Now list.  This is essentially like a special "manual" Playlist, that always contains the contents of what is currently playing (on a particular zone).  Once you play the smartlist, the contents of the smartlist are no longer "connected" to the Playing Now list (unless you play it again).  MC isn't playing "the smartlist".  When you play the smartlist, MC replaces the current contents of the special Playing Now list with the current contents (frozen in time) of the Smartlist.  So, even if you do manually refresh the Smartlist, this won't update the Playing Now list unless you re-start the smartlist.  There are many benefits to the Playing Now approach that MC uses, though this is one of the trade-offs.

However...

You can sort your playlist by "Last Played".  Click the header until the oldest date appears and select the first song and play.  It will then play in that order and your list will update as it plays.  Never played tracks may appear at the bottom of the list separately.  If so, you can start from there on your "play" selection.

Yeah... From your description, the problem isn't really that you need the list to update, but that you have a limit of 25 tracks.  Why?  Maybe iTunes' performance is so terrible that you need to have those kinds of limits, but there's no reason to do it in MC.  You can eliminate the limit, and just sort the Smartlist so that Never Played tracks are on top, and then sorted the rest "chronologically" from least-recently-played to most-recently-played, and it'll just use the full Library in that order.

[newHAPPYuser2015]

Yeah... From your description, the problem isn't really that you need the list to update, but that you have a limit of 25 tracks.  Why?  Maybe iTunes' performance is so terrible that you need to have those kinds of limits, but there's no reason to do it in MC.  You can eliminate the limit, and just sort the Smartlist so that Never Played tracks are on top, and then sorted the rest "chronologically" from least-recently-played to most-recently-played, and it'll just use the full Library in that order.

Ok. I guess I'll remove the limit in MC and settle on doing a few more clicks when switching to and from this playlist than I did in iTunes. Not a biggie of course. The reason why I set the limit in iTunes is to save those few clicks. I generally listen to music with shuffle on so I put a limit on this playlist so that I don't have to reach for the shuffle button. Yeah, this way I don't get to listen to songs strictly in order from last recently played to most recently played, it introduces randomness (but that randomness operates only within the limits of relatively short list - 25 in this particular case). If I leave the shuffle on and remove the limit the playback could potentially jump from the least recently played song to a song I listened to 5min ago. So as I said I'll just have to turn the shuffle on/off in JRiver MC. Thanks, this question is resolved.

[glynor]

I wondered if it was due to wanting a Shuffle.

Let me think on it a bit.

[newHAPPYuser2015]

I wondered if it was due to wanting a Shuffle.

Let me think on it a bit.

I suppose automatic shuffle allows me to do what I want in regard to my "least recently played" smart playlist - double click a song and I don't have to worry about playback jumping to a song I played a minute ago. I only wish automatic shuffle actually shuffled regular playlists like it does smart playlists (see #8 in the 1st post; maybe I am doing something wrong?)

[glynor]

I suppose automatic shuffle allows me to do what I want in regard to my "least recently played" smart playlist - double click a song and I don't have to worry about playback jumping to a song I played a minute ago.

The way the shuffle mode works is when you enable it, it applies the shuffle to what is currently in Playing Now.  It works on anything added to Playing Now, but it won't ever shuffle the Playlist itself (that's good, playlist order is always preserved).  And songs will never repeat (unless they're in the Smartlist twice somehow) because Playing Now always plays in order.  Even when shuffle mode is enabled, Playing Now still plays in order, it just shuffles the Playing Now list itself when you enable the mode.

For Smartlists, it is typically more convenient to add the shuffle modifier to the Smartlist itself.

If you want, a Smartlist can reference a manual playlist and act further upon it.  So, you can point a Smartlist at a manual Playlist, and then shuffle it to have a shuffled version of your Manual list.

[newHAPPYuser2015]

For Smartlists, it is typically more convenient to add the shuffle modifier to the Smartlist itself

If I add the shuffle modifier what should I type in the description field(or whatever it is called)?

[glynor]

Just leave it blank.

If you put anything there, MC's Search Language parser will just remove it when you click OK.

Also, if you haven't read this, you should:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Smartlists

If you're super-nerdy, then also:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Search_Language

[6233638]

Saving the smart list to a Car Radio button might suit you.
That plays and reloads the playlist with a single click - I use this with my "Play a random album" smartlist.

[newHAPPYuser2015]

For Smartlists, it is typically more convenient to add the shuffle modifier to the Smartlist itself.

How is this method more convenient? Do you mean the ability to define what gets shuffled and what doesn't once and for all and not having to reach for the shuffle button ever again?

[glynor]

How is this method more convenient? Do you mean the ability to define what gets shuffled and what doesn't once and for all and not having to reach for the shuffle button ever again?

Yes.  And you can do other fancy things because you can combine sorts and shuffles.  Look at the example image in the Smartlists Wiki Article to get the idea.

You can Sort, then limit, then shuffle.  Or sort, limit, shuffle, then resort.  Things like that.

This question made me quest to find a way to make a "perfect" Least Recently Played smartlist, and I just got it.  Figured I'd explained how.  First, since you're new here, I need to explain one of the oddities of how MC sorts...

In general, with the default options, MC sorts empty strings for any given field last.  This is often exactly what you want, because it "hides" items with missing data down at the bottom of the list.  So, for example, if you sort a list a-z on the [Name] field, it'll show you tracks "alphabetized" as you'd probably expect ("ascii-sorted", with special characters at the top, then numbers, then a-z).  What you don't get is a whole pile of tracks with the [Name] field completely blank at the top, even if you have some of these in your Library.  Those tracks that have a completely empty [Name] field always sort to the bottom, effectively "hiding them away".

This is usually what you want, but it does sometimes get in the way of sorting numeric fields.  That's because MC usually counts the value of zero as equivalent to empty (and in certain circumstances, actually counts 1 as equivalent to empty, such as for [Disc #]).  You can see this behavior if you try to sort on the [Number Plays] field.  It will sort from 1-N if you sort a-z style, and from N-1 if you sort z-a style, but the files with zero plays will always be at the bottom of the list.  That's because a zero in an Integer field is treated as empty, and MC sorts empty strings last.

If this feature always drives you nuts, you can turn it off via Tools > Options > Tree & View > Sorting > Sort empty strings last.  But, keeping it turned on is usually "right" and matches user expectations.

So, with that in mind, if you want to make a "Least Recently Played" smartlist that behaves like this:
* Sorts Never before Played tracks to the top.
* After that sorts tracks that have been played, with those played longest ago at the top.
* And so on and so forth with those most-recently played at the very top.

It can be somewhat challenging.  But, it can be done with a little elbow grease.

[glynor]

I explained this method in a separate thread:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=96718.0

[newHAPPYuser2015]

The way the shuffle mode works is when you enable it, it applies the shuffle to what is currently in Playing Now.  It works on anything added to Playing Now, but it won't ever shuffle the Playlist itself (that's good, playlist order is always preserved).  And songs will never repeat (unless they're in the Smartlist twice somehow) because Playing Now always plays in order.  Even when shuffle mode is enabled, Playing Now still plays in order, it just shuffles the Playing Now list itself when you enable the mode.

Unless a smartlist that contains linked tracks is sorted by Last Played (z-a) http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=96703.0

So at least with shuffle on(not shuffle modifier) second track in a chain of linked tracks gets repeated only when a smartlist is sorted by Last Played (z-a). If shuffle modifier is used it happens by default.

[glynor]

Yes.  Because of the way Linked tracks work, this is correct.  You can think of Linked tracks basically like they have "jump points" at the end of the track (when you reach here, jump to this other track over here).  They are still each individual files (on disk and within MC).  The "jump" is magic that happens at playback time.

You could probably work around this with clever use of the Limit modifier.  I don't know off the top of my head what field can be used to determine of a track is linked or not, but you could maybe limit the list to only a single Linked Track from a particular album, if you are determined.  I don't know for sure, though.