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More => Old Versions => JRiver Media Center 27 for Windows => Topic started by: DrKNo on May 08, 2021, 01:42:49 am

Title: [Search Language] Randomly generated list that always ends with the same item?
Post by: DrKNo on May 08, 2021, 01:42:49 am
Title says it all: I'd like to create a randomly generated smartlist of 10 items that always ends with the same item. I'd need a method to concatenate two lists, but I don't know how to do it. Any ideas?
Title: Re: [Search Language] Randomly generated list that always ends with the same item?
Post by: zybex on May 08, 2021, 03:57:17 am
I'm not sure that's possible, but it's an interesting request.

@JRiver: maybe this is a good idea for a new Playlist Modifier rule: MERGE with another playlist.
Title: Re: [Search Language] Randomly generated list that always ends with the same item?
Post by: JimH on May 08, 2021, 06:03:18 am
I'm not sure that's possible, but it's an interesting request.

@JRiver: maybe this is a good idea for a new Playlist Modifier rule: MERGE with another playlist.
Cloudplay can make playlists of playlists.  I'm not sure whether a user can do that, but it's a useful concept.  It lets you make a radio station.  In Cloudplay, we can tell it to shuffle playlists or not, and shuffle within each playlist, or not.

Matt and I have talked about building a personal radio station by using Cloudplay playlists you like.
Title: Re: [Search Language] Randomly generated list that always ends with the same item?
Post by: zybex on May 08, 2021, 06:35:14 am
Quote
Cloudplay can make playlists of playlists.  I'm not sure whether a user can do that, but it's a useful concept.
You can already do that in MC - just create a smartlist with rule "playlist - is any - [select all playlists you want]".

What you can't do is select a list of songs (using any criteria/filter), shuffle them, limit to 10, and then add a few more from another playlist at the end. That's what a new Merge modifier would also allow you to do.

Come to think of it, what DrKno requests can currently be done with 3 playlists:
- playlist 1: filter, shuffle, limit to 10
- playlist 2: list of song(s) you want to play after those 10
- playlist 3: playlist + is any + [playlist1, playlist2]

With that Merge modifier, playlist3 would not be needed, is all.
Title: Re: [Search Language] Randomly generated list that always ends with the same item?
Post by: EnglishTiger on May 08, 2021, 07:07:29 am
I managed to do it - but in a very dirty/unacceptable way.
I decided the track I wanted to appear last was "Donna by 10cc" so I added that rack to a playlist called "Last Track"
I then built a smartlist to get 9 random tracks, but not "Donna by 10cc".
Next I built a smartlist which used both playlists as it's Source and tried various ways of getting Donna by 10cc to be the last by sorting on a field that only Donna by 10cc had a value in. That didn't work Donna usually ended up as the 1st entry regardless of the sort order.
But when I took the dirty/unacceptable route - by changing the track name form "Donna" to "zz Donna" and sorting on Name it always ended up being the last track in the list.

I agree with zybex the ability to merge playlists, possibly with the ability to tell it how to Merge them would be extremely useful.
Title: Re: [Search Language] Randomly generated list that always ends with the same item?
Post by: zybex on May 11, 2021, 04:06:31 am
I see that MC already has a "Combine..." context menu option when right-clicking on a playlist - this is exactly was is needed.
@JRiver: Can this be added as a Smartlist Modifier too? It's a nice feature.

Another way would be to add an option to the ~mix modifier to disable shuffling. Like ~mix -10,90%,{filter1},10%,{filter2} => the -10 meaning 10 files, don't shuffle - the result would be that files matching {filter2} would be at the end.