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More => Old Versions => Media Center 11 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: tabalooga on February 17, 2005, 03:36:36 am

Title: Random album smartlist
Post by: tabalooga on February 17, 2005, 03:36:36 am
Hi everybody,

I want to create a smartlist that randomly selects one full album. So far I couldn't figure out how to accomplish that.

Can anybody help?

TIA!

T.
Title: Re: Random album smartlist
Post by: Alex B on February 17, 2005, 05:27:42 am
Code: [Select]
~sort=[Random] ~a ~limit=1,-1,[Album],[Album Artist (auto)]
EDIT
It wasn't perfect. This is better:
Code: [Select]
-[Album]=[] -[Artist]=[] -[Album Type]=[Multiple artists (incomplete)],[Single artist (incomplete)] ~sort=[Random] ~a ~limit=1,-1,[Album Artist (Auto)] ~limit=1,-1,[Album]
EDIT 2
I found that the auto album artist is not always correct for some reason. This one checks the folder instead of the "Album Artist (auto)" field:
Code: [Select]
-[Album]=[] -[Artist]=[] -[Album Type]=[Multiple artists (incomplete)],[Single artist (incomplete)] ~sort=[Random] ~a ~limit=1,-1,[Filename (path)] ~limit=1,-1,[Album]
You can limit it to audio files if you like to. I have also images with the "Album" tag.
Title: Re: Random album smartlist
Post by: britade on February 18, 2005, 03:32:46 am
Excellent!  Thanks Tabalooga (and Alex B for suggesting it).  This is exactly what I was looking for as well.

Regards,

Adrian.
Title: Re: Random album smartlist
Post by: NoCodeUK on February 18, 2005, 04:44:54 am
[Media Type]=[Audio] ~n=1 ~a

This is my Random Album smartlist.  Bit shorter and seems to work okay.  Basically just chooses one random audio file then populates its whole album...

Adam
Title: Re: Random album smartlist
Post by: Alex B on February 18, 2005, 05:23:48 am
[Media Type]=[Audio] ~n=1 ~a

This is my Random Album smartlist. Bit shorter and seems to work okay. Basically just chooses one random audio file then populates its whole album...

Adam

Clever and interesting. Seems like I am learning more about MC all the time. I didn't know that a search can first exclude and then add some of the excluded. I thought that a later search expression can filter only what was left after the previous.

I shortened it a bit more for getting the album images too:

~n=1 ~a

Some things in life are simple.


EDIT

It doesn't work always, partly because my library is not perfectly tagged (yet?).
Those things I added excluded some imperfections and special cases.
Title: Re: Random album smartlist
Post by: NoCodeUK on February 18, 2005, 06:21:53 am
It is doing what you thought. The ~a command is a special case.  It forces any search parameters to always display their whole album.  It isn't actually adding any files back in.

Adam
Title: Re: Random album smartlist
Post by: Alex B on February 18, 2005, 06:37:14 am
Thanks for the clarification.
Title: Re: Random album smartlist
Post by: bmustang on February 18, 2005, 09:26:15 am
Here my problem: When I send Smartlist in the PlayNow zone with the scheduler (Line Command: /Play TREEPATH=Playlists \ ListN), my Smartlist which was sorted as I wanted is sorted again in PlayNow on field SEQ and that mixes my music in a random way. I see that Smartlist does not have field SEQ unlike Playlist which once sent in PlayNow preserves the sorting of Playlist. Also, field SEQ in PlayNow cannot be removed... why?? It does not preserve by defect another field sorted "like Artist"... why?? It seems that to solve the problem of Smartlists! one would need that field SEQ is posted by defect, like Playlist. the Use of Smartlist is very interesting for me, then thank you to propose to me is a solution or to envisage an update of MC 11.
Title: Re: Random album smartlist
Post by: tabalooga on February 19, 2005, 06:01:45 am
Wooooohooo!!!

Exactly what I was looking for! Thanks a lot Alex!

Cheers, T.
Title: Re: Random album smartlist
Post by: Couch on February 28, 2005, 08:05:44 am
Hmm. OK - So I see that this selects 1 album at random - How about Sorting multiple Albums at random.

To Clarify - Play tyhe Albums themselves sequentially by track. But the order in which the albums are selected is Random...
Title: Re: Random album smartlist
Post by: adamsp70 on February 28, 2005, 08:57:27 am
[media type]=[audio] ~sort=[Random] ~n=8 ~a ~sort=[Album]

This will select 8 random albums and play all the tracks in the right order. Change n=8 to a different number for a different number of random albums!
Title: Re: Random album smartlist
Post by: RobOK on February 28, 2005, 10:09:43 am
WOW!  That is v. cool !!