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[gottwavo]

I have requested the auto refresh for smartlists more than two years ago. It never made ist to the features included. Unfortunately. It would be a great tool to have a smart list, when the so many selected titles are played automatically refresh instead of me needing to click on Refresh. Same ist true for Play Doctor.
It can't be too hard to program ...

[rick.ca]

It can't be too hard to program ...

Perhaps not—if properly defined. What is the event that should trigger a refresh? A track change? When exactly? I suppose it would have to be before the next track starts, since it might change with the refresh. Is this even feasible, or would the recalculation of a complex smartlist delay other things that must happen during a track change? Will this cause problems considering not all smartlists are the type that require a refresh? What if the user is in the middle of doing something else that a refresh would disrupt—like an edit?

I know a smartlist using IsPlaying() requires a refresh, but that's been available for less than a year. What other type of smartlist requires a refresh?

[gottwavo]

A little more specification for this feature request: You have a smartlist. Let's say "One hour country music". You select it and start playing it. You listen. The hour is over. Silence. You want one more hour country music. You have to press the "refresh" button to listen again. (By the way the refresh button is not available in Theater View). Why could this not happen automatically as an option at least?
(Please do not reply: just create a two hour smartlist or 24 hours one ... This is not the same.)

[rick.ca]

OIC. You want smartlists to refresh on repeat. They will repeat if set to do so, but they'll just play the same list over again. Manually refreshing PN won't do anything either—the only way to "refresh" a smartlist is to restart it. So I suppose what you want is an option that would cause a smartlist to restart when repeating. Should that option be in Options, or accessible in PN? Theatre View should at least have a control for changing the repeat mode (as there presently is in Standard View).

While the developers ponder where to put this on the priority list, here's an alternative: Put your smartlist into a playlist group and copy it as many times you might want it to repeat. Then play the group.

[Niacin]

Doesn't he mean he wants the "refresh" to give him another hour of NEW country music in the list and not to repeat the existing one? You can simply use the repeat button to accomplish the repeat same list.

It's expecting a lot - one person wants a change, ergo the developers have to factor that in to the build. The OP clearly states he can't be bothered to get off his rear and click one button - and there are ways to circumvent that by using playlists as they stand.

[rick.ca]

Doesn't he mean he wants the "refresh" to give him another hour of NEW country music in the list and not to repeat the existing one?

Yes.

The OP clearly states he can't be bothered to get off his rear and click one button - and there are ways to circumvent that by using playlists as they stand.

What "one button" are you referring to? To restart a smarlist (i.e., so it generates a new list), you would have to return to Playlists, find the same smartlist, and start it again. And not all smartlists can be designed to play indefinitely. Having designed a smartlist that plays the perfect mix of country music for one hour, then regenerating the list may be the only viable way to get the same thing for multiple hours. This will not be so for a simple random list of country tracks, but will for one that does something like plays three tracks at a time from the the same artist. And the one-hour list would probably not allow duplicates, but there may not be enough country music in the collection to do the same thing for 8 hours.

It's expecting a lot - one person wants a change, ergo the developers have to factor that in to the build.

Obviously, doing anything to accommodate one user is counter productive. That's why it's helpful (I like to think) for such things to be discussed here. Not only might the original idea be refined so it's more likely to be of interest to others, it's also a way to see it might of interest to a sufficient number of users. This one doesn't interest me, but I have no idea if it might be of interest to others.

[Niacin]

Yes.

What "one button" are you referring to? To restart a smarlist (i.e., so it generates a new list), you would have to return to Playlists, find the same smartlist, and start it again.

Two clicks then - my point wasn't one of numbers of clicks involved or that of a "button" - despite me citing such - it was metaphorical.

[rick.ca]

A metaphor for what?  ?

[gottwavo]

Thanks for starting to discuss this here. One observation about feature requests (and also problems one has): You are never alone in the world!

The feature request seems to be understood correctly: On the top of the smartlist there is one button which is called "Refresh". All it does, when the smart list selection comes to it's end, is a new selection of new tracks according to the settings in the smarlist. Then you press "Play" again and you have one more hours of fun music. Or just a new Album or whatever. And all I am asking for is: Let computers do the stupid work for me. Somewhere in the option for a smartlist, when you create it, there should be a switch "auto refresh (me) and play (me) again".

Could this be done?

[rick.ca]

Could this be done?

Anything is possible, but I don't think it would be as easy as you're assuming it would be. There's no connection between a smartlist and what's playing. The smartlist generates a list, and the list is played (that's what you see in PN). Smartlists are also just searches that are used for a number of different things—some of which would be illogical to repeat.

There would have to be separate mechanism that monitors the progress of PN and "restarts" the smartlist when it would otherwise stop. It should probably be invoked only as it's own play mode (i.e., "Play (repeat)"), and not be applied when added to PN or called by another smartlist.

And there are still questions: How persistent should that be? If you added a few tracks while the list was playing, you'd probably still want the smartlist to be restarted. But what if you did something more substantial, like play a full album or a playlist—or another repeating smartlist? Should it continue after a stop? Would it be necessary to clear PN to end the monitoring? (I suppose so—this would be no different than Play Doctor is now.)

[gottwavo]

I count on the developers to best implement this or not if it is not possible since too many (unknown to me) reasons are againt such a feature.
It would just contribute to even more fun using MC.