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More => Old Versions => Media Center 11 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: AdamDale3 on October 25, 2003, 09:19:52 am

Title: Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: AdamDale3 on October 25, 2003, 09:19:52 am: Hi

Just thought I'd ask if there was a way to make MC 9.1 play in a random order by ALBUM instead of track - and if not - could this feature be added?

I often can't decide what to listen to, or when I have friends round just want to hit PLAY and let MC decide what we listen to but I prefer to listen to my music by ALBUM, not track by track.

99% of my music is from albums (i.e. not CD Singles) and many are written to listen to the whole album (try listening to just 1 Pink Floyd track on it's own - it's not the same thing!)

Would be great to know if there's a way of setting this up in MC 9.1 and if not, is it a feature that could maybe be added in future?

Cheers

Adam
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: NoCodeUK on October 25, 2003, 09:52:27 am: You can do this using smartlists...

Basically you set up a smartlist to pick a random track but add ~a limiter which tells MC to play the whole album...Because it is a smartlist it will be a different album each time...If you need any help in setting this up I can give you somre moe details.

Adam
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: NoCodeUK on October 25, 2003, 09:55:09 am: Just done this tocheck and the samrtlist you want is :

[Media Type]=[Audio] ~n=1 ~a

This picks one randome track from the library and then populates this with the full album

Adam
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: LisaRCT on October 26, 2003, 09:16:41 am: Awesome, Thanx NoCode ;)

I never cease to be amazed by what ths program can do, and am continuously reminded that I am merely scratching the surface of it's capabilities.
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: marketability on October 26, 2003, 12:40:20 pm: mad_chemist... you are a star!! 8)
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: NoCodeUK on October 27, 2003, 08:08:26 am: Ill take it that the comment was relating to my smartlist and thank you accordingly :D

Adam
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: hit_ny on October 27, 2003, 08:15:04 am: many thanks for the tip nocodeUK
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: marketability on October 27, 2003, 09:53:13 am: NoCodeUK - YOU are a star!! ;)
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: hit_ny on October 27, 2003, 01:05:40 pm: im wondering how i can to random selection of albums.

only display (random) albums that have tracks rated 3 or greater ?

tried adding Not Rating < 3 to the end of the suggestion here....but the results are mixed at best.

Also how to show a random album that has at least 50% of tracks rated 3 or above ( but hide the lower rated tracks)
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: nabsltd on October 27, 2003, 02:03:47 pm: Quote from: NoCodeUK on October 25, 2003, 09:55:09 am
This picks one randome track from the library and then populates this with the full album
This is very cool, but it will weight the "random" album towards albums with a lot of tracks.

So, if you have box sets that you treat as a single album, you will tend to be much more likely to have these selected.
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: NoCodeUK on October 27, 2003, 02:18:43 pm: Well theoretically if it is random then every track should have an even chance of being picked and therefore every album but I see your point...Unfortunately there is no way of avoiding this as far as I know...

Adam
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: AdamDale3 on October 27, 2003, 06:41:03 pm: Hi

Thanks for your answers... and I'm with LisaRCT... except I don't think I've even managed to scratch the surface yet... maybe just scuffed it a bit! :)

The smartlist thing posted by NoCodeUK works great for one album (cheers!) but (not wishing to sound ungrateful)... I was hoping to create a playlist from all my albums so it plays each album but in a random order... basically, if friends turn up I want to just press one or two buttons and thats the music sorted for the rest of the nite while we chat etc... but in Album order, not a random collection of tracks as my music is more 'album' oriented.

Thanks again for your help... I look forward to the next installment :)

Adam
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: udeups on October 27, 2003, 10:55:27 pm: The iPod has this feature (the way AdamDale describes it) as one of its default shuffle options. Ie. shuffle can be a) off b) by song c) by album). Couldn't Media Center do this fairly easily as well. That way any smartlist, playlist, or group of songs could be played in order, randomly by song, or randomly by album (each album in order internally, but order of albums is shuffled). I'm not sure what the two icons (by song, by album) would look like in the playing bar at top. But, I'm sure something could be devised.
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: Omni on October 28, 2003, 12:35:13 am: Quote from: AdamDale3 on October 27, 2003, 06:41:03 pm
I was hoping to create a playlist from all my albums so it plays each album but in a random order... basically, if friends turn up I want to just press one or two buttons and thats the music sorted for the rest of the nite while we chat etc... but in Album order, not a random collection of tracks as my music is more 'album' oriented.

Maybe you guys are over-analyzing this or I'm over-simplifying it, but this will do the trick:

~a ~sort=[Random]

-or-

[Rating]=>=3 ~a ~sort=[Random]

(to make sure you exclude albums that don't have at least one track rated 3 or above in it)

The above produces randomly sorted full Albums on my system. If it doesn't on yours, it may have something to do with the view's sort settings or something... doubtful, just guessing.

Anyway, just create a new smartlist entitled "Random Full Albums" and copy the following into the search bar:

[Media Type]=[Audio] [Rating]=>=3 ~a ~sort=[Random]

Now when you friends come over, you can just right-click on the smartlist in the tree and choose "Play."

Omni
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: AdamDale3 on October 28, 2003, 08:49:30 am: That's the one! FANTASTIC! Thank you very much - that's exactly what I was after...

Thanks to everyone who helped... much appreciated... you've opened a whole new world of features of this app to me - I never knew you could do so much in the search bar! :)

Cheers

Adam
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: Phil Lee on October 28, 2003, 09:58:13 am: Quote from: NoCodeUK on October 27, 2003, 02:18:43 pm
Well theoretically if it is random then every track should have an even chance of being picked and therefore every album but I see your point...Unfortunately there is no way of avoiding this as far as I know...

Adam

If you change your smartlist slightly to:

[Media Type]=[Audio] ~n=1 [Track #]==1 ~a

it will not be biased towards albums with more tracks. This smartlist always picks track 1 then completes the album.
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: marketability on October 28, 2003, 03:33:49 pm: anyone have a clue as to why a smartlist...

[Media Type]=[Audio] ~n=1 [Track #]==1 ~a [File Type]=[ape],[wma]

lists MP3 files

Yours
Mr Tired of being so confused
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: Omni on October 28, 2003, 03:43:08 pm: Quote from: marketability on October 28, 2003, 03:33:49 pm
anyone have a clue as to why a smartlist...

[Media Type]=[Audio] ~n=1 [Track #]==1 ~a [File Type]=[ape],[wma]

lists MP3 files

Nope, not a clue.

For me, it seems to work: after hitting F5 about 50 times to refresh the results, I still haven't gotten any mp3 albums.

I have all the following: ape, mp3, mpc, wav, and wma. So far, only ape or wma albums have been listed.
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: graham131 on October 28, 2003, 03:43:08 pm: Quote from: marketability on October 28, 2003, 03:33:49 pm
anyone have a clue as to why a smartlist...

[Media Type]=[Audio] ~n=1 [Track #]==1 ~a [File Type]=[ape],[wma]

lists MP3 files

Yours
Mr Tired of being so confused

Peter,

I just tried this, it works perfectly for me, not picking up any MP3's

Graham
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: marketability on October 28, 2003, 03:58:10 pm: try it a few times and see if MP3s still are excluded

it definately brings up those albums I have in both ape and mp3 formats

I'm 9.1.289 by the way
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: graham131 on October 28, 2003, 04:07:02 pm: Is it possible to do it the other way round? ie exclude mp3 rather that picking ape and wma. Or do both?

Still working fine for me though, although i don't hold dupes anymore of ape and mp3 on the same album. I was using too much space.

Graham
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: marketability on October 28, 2003, 04:18:02 pm: tried both
i holds the mp3s for use on the ipod
Title: Re:Random BY ALBUM (not track) feature request
Post by: graham131 on October 28, 2003, 04:29:32 pm: i see, i have seperate disk / area that i use for ipod, and covert when i want to change, then use a separate MC library.