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Author Topic: Help with creating a "Smart" Playlist  (Read 1235 times)

Osho

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Help with creating a "Smart" Playlist
« on: September 17, 2007, 11:27:05 am »

Hi,

I want to create a playlist (for synching up with my iPod Classic as soon as it is supported :) ) that will have all albums from certain Genres (say "favorite Genres") and a few hand selected albums from the remaining Genres. I would want this playlist to automatically include any new albums that I later add to the "favorite Genres".

Any idea about how can I create such a playlist?

thanks,
Osho
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Deivit

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Re: Help with creating a "Smart" Playlist
« Reply #1 on: September 17, 2007, 11:40:33 am »

I have a very similar aproach and have solved it setting up two different smartlists that I put under a Playlist Group named "Ipod Classic" (in your example). One smartlist would have the 100% of your favorite genres whilst the other one would have a limited number of files pertaining to the other genres, thay you could limit in size or number of items at your will. Then in the synchro options for your Ipod Classic just tick the Playlist group "Ipod Classic".

Marko wil probably give you a solution using one only playlist, though  :)
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Osho

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Re: Help with creating a "Smart" Playlist
« Reply #2 on: September 17, 2007, 11:41:47 am »

I have a very similar aproach and have solved it setting up two different smartlists that I put under a Playlist Group named "Ipod Classic" (in your example). One smartlist would have the 100% of your favorite genres whilst the other one would have a limited number of files pertaining to the other genres, thay you could limit in size or number of items at your will. Then in the synchro options for your Ipod Classic just tick the Playlist group "Ipod Classic".

Marko wil probably give you a solution using one only playlist, though  :)

Good idea. I think this will work for me. I still welcome ideas from Marko though :).

Osho
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marko

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Re: Help with creating a "Smart" Playlist
« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2007, 01:38:13 am »

morning folks... I see that iPod Classic support is upon us already...

So, the "favourite genres" bit is easy, and just goes:

[media type]=audio g=[this favourite genre],[that favourite genre],[and another favourite genre]
This will catch any track as soon as it's tagged with a "favourite genre"

I'm not sure about the "few hand selected albums" though. A smartlist is really nothing more than a "saved search" so you can't just select a bunch of tracks and add them to a smartlist. You would need to create a rule to add to the smartlist that would catch those files and those files only, and then tag the chosen files so that they match the rule and are then included in the list, and untag them so they don't match the rule to remove them from the list.

To do this, you might want to set up a custom library field and a view scheme based around it. You could then use tagging mode (F4) to quickly tag/untag files to add/remove them from your smartlist. Let's say that if your custom field is empty, you don't want the track on the iPod, so you can put anything you want in your new field and it will cause it to be sync'd. The new smartlist rule would then be:
[media type]=audio g=[this favourite genre],[that favourite genre],[and another favourite genre] -[my custom field]=[]

Like Deivit, I have a playlist group called "iPod" and have set up an "iPod Manager" view scheme that has this playlist group as its first pane. I use can use this with tagging mode enabled to force tracks or photos into certain smartlists by tagging them so that they match a rule, and I can also add or remove tracks from regular "static" playlists by simply selecting tracks and then either tick in the tagging mode checkbox or clear the tagging mode checkbox to add or remove the track from the playlist. It's such a simple way to manage playlists, probably a lot simpler than this explanation makes it sound, but that's just because I'm not really what you'd call a "wordsmith" ;)

Alternatively, you could just keep the simple "favourite genres" smartlist for syncing by playlist, and add the hand picked albums to the sync list by drag and drop onto the "Sync" action window?

-marko.
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