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[gottwavo]

I discovered how to use a play list group to play for example
- 30 minutes pop
- 30 minutes easy listening
- 30 minutes folk
- 30 minutes jazz
by adding the respective smartlists in one group, select the group and have it playing the tracks.
So far so great.
Only the sort order creates some trouble: I can sort by genre in alphabetical order. This however means I always play "easy listening" first, instead of "pop". Also changing the order to something else while still keeping the genres together seems to be impossible.

Is there a way to sort by the order of smart lists inside the playlist group? Or is there any other way of achieving the same?

(I hope I could make my issue clear)

[MrC]

Each list can be sorted, but once lists are combined, their own sort order is lost, and is controlled by the containing list.

Are your individual playlists actually playlists, or smartlists which select a random 30 minutes of a particular genre?

[gottwavo]

The individual playlists are smart lists.
The sorting inside each smartlist does not matter actually. What I want to achieve is to play the selected genres in a specified order,  which is easily changeable.
By that one could plan an evening of music starting with more lively pop in the beginning and ending with some quiet blues after midnight without selecting specific albums and or artists but leave the selection to a defined smartlist.

[MrC]

Ok, gotcha.  I have a technique you can use - it employs a genre sort order look-up table.

What you need to do is to assign a sort order to each Genre.  This can be done with an expression, which will return the sort order.  When you sort by this, your genres will appear in the order you want.

Create a new user field, perhaps call it Genre Sort.  Set the Type to Calculated data and enter the expression:

   Regex(|Pop:1|Jazz:3|Blues:2|, \|[genre]:/#(\d+)\|#/, 1)

Inside the Regex() function I've created a genre sort assignment string with Pop =  1, Jazz = 3, and Blues = 2.  Then this string is matched against the file's genre, and only the corresponding number is captured and output.   And this field can now be used as a sort string in you view's Set rules for file display, under Modifiers, select a Sort by and pick the Genre Sort field.

You can add more fields, by adding additional items - just be sure each one is surrounded by the pipe character.

And you can change the sort of the items however you want.

Note: if your genres have any of the following characters:

   . + * / \ [ ] { }

we'll need to modify the expression to accommodate those:

See attached.

[gottwavo]

Thanks MrC, Great help.

I have it working so far. Below is how it looks in my case.

How do you get the top part of the window, the information above the single tracks dispalyed? As you can see my view is different.

More important question: How can I quickly change the sort order of genres, assign a different number?

[MrC]

You're welcome.

Create a new View.  Under Show Categories in This Order, select Add and then add a Playlist Group, and select your group.  Add whatever other columns you want too.  You can see I added an expression column with the expression [Genre Sort] - [Genre].

I can't think of a quicker way to change the sorts.

Another way you could solve this problem is to use a numeric field for the sort order, we'll call this on Sort Order.  You will sort on this field instead.  In a panes view with a Genres pane, also show the Sort Order pane.  Then, you can select a Genre from one column (which selects only those genres) and then you can Pane Edit the Sort Order value in the other column to quickly change the number.   Do this for all the genres.  While this has an obvious user interface, I'd feel this to be too cumbersome.

[MrC]

Also, if the problem is that you don't want to go to the Options dialog to change the setting, you can use the first sort table mechanism, but instead of placing that sort string inside the expression, you could place it inside another string field, and have our expression above use it.  Then, you can change the field inside a view, but you'd have to do this by selecting all files (for the genre's you want updated).  For example:

This:

   Regex(|Pop:1|Jazz:3|Blues:2|, \|[genre]:/#(\d+)\|#/, 1)

becomes:

   Regex([my sort table], \|[genre]:/#(\d+)\|#/, 1)

where the string field [my sort table] is set to:

   |Pop:1|Jazz:3|Blues:2|

for all the files you want sorted.  This tagging can occur in the view either as a pane column or as a file list column.

[gottwavo]

I managed to create the new view. Thanks for the advice but I have been using the available views so far only. I will play a little to find the best way to quickly change the sort order of genres. Actually I found this is an interesting way of letting MC create a more flexible however controlled list of music to listen to. I may come back with some more questiones ...

[gottwavo]

... and it would be best if the initial order of tracks would be determined by the order of the smart lists inside a playlist group ... the you could quickly change it by moving the list up and down with a leading number or so ... but this does probably mean a software change.

[MrC]

... and it would be best if the initial order of tracks would be determined by the order of the smart lists inside a playlist group ...

I doubt this will happen (but I speak w/no authority).  That means the children subservient lists' sort should be used and the dominant container's sort ignored.  There would have to be a sort key like <child's sort order>, which is retained, but then this would be recursively deep if there were yet grandchildren, etc.

Lists are lists, as are lists containing lists, ad infinitum, and the final lists' sort keys are the only thing that matters.