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[Gatobrit]

Hi - I'm using MJ 8.0.293 and I've got to admit that the shuffle feature is a real pain in the *ss. Let me explain what I mean. I create a Playing Now with a few songs that I want to hear as #1, #2, #3 rtc.   Then, I want to add a playlist / smartlist on the end of the playing now but I want it shuffled before it's added (for example, my "100 Rockers" playlist).

What happens is that the playlist contents appear to be added to Playing Now and the the whole of Playing Now is shuffled thereby losing my carefully arranged song order I wanted to hear at the beginning of Playing Now.

So. I don't think MJ should shuffle Playing Now unless I right click on it and select Reshuffle. If I add something to Playing Now and shuffle is on then shuffle the songs being added and then add them on the end (or as next to play or whatever I choose) of Playing Now.

Also, clicking on shuffle on / off in the playing window shouldn't (IMHO) generate a reshuffle directly. It should direct what happens to the next bunch of songs added to Playing Now.

Basically, the shuffle feature needs to be give a 'lude of some kind.

I realize that this is probably a MJ 9.0 request but I thought I'd float the problem and see what others think.

[Harry The Hipster]

Agreed. If you're adding to an existing "Playing Now" list, all that should be shuffled are the new additions (and possibly files remaining from the original list that haven't yet played).

Fate of civilization as we know it doesn't rise and fall on this issue, but a good one to queue up for 9x.

HTH

[Matt]

On the first points, agreed.

Also, clicking on shuffle on / off in the playing window shouldn't (IMHO) generate a reshuffle directly. It should direct what happens to the next bunch of songs added to Playing Now.

Can't agree with this though, because MJ's "ordered shuffle" really throws people for a loop unless turning shuffle on actually does something.

Anyway, we'll hammer through this for the next version....

Thanks guys.

-Matt

[Gatobrit]

Matt - re the last point above. I agree shuffle has caused some confusion in previous versions, so why not rename the button in the player window? It currently says "Shuffle ON/OFF" - what it should say is "Suffle Now"?

Anyway, I'm going to shuffle off for a cup of tea...

[claudio]

Hi Gatobrit

why don't you make a smartlist with the ~n ? So if you want to select 100 random from your "100 Rocker" playlist you create "Random 100" with ~n=100 and add the playlistid== keyword to point to your original 100.

Each time you click on this Random playlist it picks 100 random song that you can then add to Playing Now

Claudio

[Gatobrit]

Claudio - yeah, I have that and using it to create a Playing Now of 100 random songs works really well.

The problem is that if the 100 songs are added to the existing Playing Now, the whole Playing Now is shuffled including what was in the there before I added the 100 songs. When I do this I get to hear all the songs in the Playing Now that I've already heard.

[claudio]

what I meant is that when your have the ~n selector you can turn shuffle off, since the shuffling come from the smartlist generation..

Anyway I understand what you are asking for... I guess it's not a problem for me. The only thing that I find annoying with shuffle, is that you have to start playing to re-shuffle with ^R (and that's why I use ~n most of the time)

Claudio

[Gatobrit]

Claudio - ah I see, but then you get the songs in order by artist name (at least I do).

[claudio]

That is just how the randomly selected trackes gets displayed and it depends on the sorting criteria. When you are in the playlist screen, right click on on of the columns title (e.g. Artist). You will get a menu that allow you to tailor the sorting criteria to your needs

Claudio

[Matt]

Hopefully smartlists will be able to custom tailor their sorting in the next version of MJ...

[Gatobrit]

Ooooh! Where to I pay $25??!?!?!??

[Callithumpian]

I'm with Gatobrit all the way here.
There should be a way to add (and simultaneously shuffle) a selection of tracks to "Playing Now" without reshuffling the order of "Playing Now".

MJ's current attitude seems to indicate that the it does not condsider that the user has thought about the order of "Playing Now".
A critical point here, I believe, is that "Playing Now" is quite often carefully and deliberately ordered - often with considerable investment of time.
Hence that order should never be tampered with except by an explicit user directive.

I often have a album playing (in it correct order), but while browsing my library I see some tracks that I think, "And after this album play I'd like to play those, randomly."
As it stands there is no simple way to do that.
To achieve that I have to add them to "Temp" playlist, go to that playlist, shuffle it, then "Add to PLaying Now"

[kakugan]

I totally agree with John.  The shuffle is overaggressive.  It should not reshuffle the playing now list.  This has not been properly thought out.  

Mark