Status = is accessible as AutoPlaylist criteria, works same in both MM's.

hey everyone, just read this while continuing to compare MM3 and MM4, in preparation for migration.

I did not know that filters could be so easily applied (right-click on node) until now... awesome!

I also hadn't tried auto-playlists until now, but found it's a good way to do what I want (inc. making a last.fm playlist from a BIG library, then using an auto-playlist to filter only available tracks... is this the way to do it? tips welcome!

If I want to see only available tracks in a playlist, what is the best/easiest way to do this in MM3 + MM4?

Many thanks

I suppose that just as Search can search the current Filelist, the Entire Library, or the current Collection, there should be a means of applying AutoPlaylists to the current Filelist, the Entire Library, or the current Collection.

For now, would it be possible to use the column browser to achieve this objective? e.g.
Collections: Full albums, Limited editions, Artists Seen live
Column browser: Quality

-Rusty

You can create Collections the same way Filters were created, there's no need to use AutoPlaylists instead. The only difference between MM3 and MM4 is that in MM3 only one Filter was visible and in MM4 you can have multiple Collections visible. If you choose to hide Collections you have a few extra steps as you need to disable/enable them under Tools > Options > Media Tree instead of a simple right click to select a different Filter.

nynaevelan, Thank you very much!!! Exactly my point!!!

nohitter151 wrote:

Anamon wrote:No, what I described is in fact impossible to do with auto-playlists, because they are collection-independent. I think I simply got a bit confused with the terminology of media types/collections/filters. I am also no longer 100% sure how I did this in MM3, or if I maybe hacked something together there.

Any filter in MM3 could be implemented as an autoplaylist in MM4.

That is only correct insofar as you have the same power of expressing your filtering conditions, but not the way you browse them. Auto-playlists are always, well, playlists, and as such flat. Correct is: any filter in MM3 could be implemented as a collection in MM4, because you can have sub-nodes in the tree for collections. This was in fact what my confusion was based on.

kiwichick wrote:In MM3 you could right-click the Library node, then the filters were listed in a sub-menu from there. So you could right-click filter on, right-click filter off.

It would be nice to actually have this feature back, it would make switching collections much more user friendly, especially for those collections which are not visible in the tree.

Nyn

In MM3 you could right-click the Library node, then the filters were listed in a sub-menu from there. So you could right-click filter on, right-click filter off.

I see what you all mean about using filters as auto-playlists and that is true. But I always felt it was easier to right-click on/off the library node than changing back and forward to the playlist node.

All good, I guess I'll just change the way I use my filters/collections/auto=playlists. Luckily, you can actually teach an old dog new tricks and I'm sure I'll get used to the new method.

Anamon wrote:No, what I described is in fact impossible to do with auto-playlists, because they are collection-independent. I think I simply got a bit confused with the terminology of media types/collections/filters. I am also no longer 100% sure how I did this in MM3, or if I maybe hacked something together there.

Any filter in MM3 could be implemented as an autoplaylist in MM4.

Lowlander wrote:You can create Collections in MM4 the same way Filters were created in MM3 so it seems it's a case of remembering how you initially setup things in MM3.

Exactly right. The collections = filters is what I assumed, considering how the dialogues are laid out. The problem seems to be that it is a very long time since I created my original MM3 setup, and that I don't have it anymore, so I'm probably confusing a lot of MM3 and MM4 stuff. My best guess is that what I called "collections" in my previous post was in fact not native MM3 after all, but done in Magic Nodes. The only thing I remember for sure is that I had filters for "Full albums only" etc. and I could apply this to what in my mind was a pre-filtered collection.

So in the end, the original question of the thread has been answered, and my issue is more of a feature request: being able to apply multiple filters to the library at the same time, which of course is less straight-forward now that filters have become collections. However, I have already re-implemented my system with MagicNodes, so I'm happy.

MM3 Filters are MM 4 Collections
MM3 Auto-Playlists are MM 4 Auto-Playlists

The way things are setup hasn't changed either, ie. a Collection can be setup the same way a Filter was setup. The only difference is that in MM3 you only had the Library node and that a Filter could filter the Library node. In MM 4 the Library node no longer exists and is replaced by Collection nodes. This means you can have several Collection nodes (several Filtered MM3 Library nodes) visible at the same time.

You can create Collections in MM4 the same way Filters were created in MM3 so it seems it's a case of remembering how you initially setup things in MM3.

nynaevelan wrote:I guess therein lies my confusion, how do you create either a filter or an autoplaylist with native MM that will select whether an album is full or not? I always thought to get this info I would have to use magic nodes. How are you accomplishing this part?? Can you explain what steps you used in MM3 to produce your two filters?? I assume to get the collections you have them labeled somewhere whether they are cds or vinyl??

Nyn

That's correct, these were filters based on how I tagged my files. I have a special value for the Quality field which designates rips I made myself, and a custom source field that designates the source format. So I had my Vinyl collection as Quality=Original rip and Source=Vinyl, etc.
Incomplete albums I manually tagged by adding an '[Incomplete]' to the album comments, and the filter looked for that tag. This can be done automatically and more cleanly using MagicNodes of course, but in MM4 these suffer from the same limitations as auto-playlists in that they cannot be made to dynamically depend on the active collection, which is already a filtering of the library.

I guess therein lies my confusion, how do you create either a filter or an autoplaylist with native MM that will select whether an album is full or not? I always thought to get this info I would have to use magic nodes. How are you accomplishing this part?? Can you explain what steps you used in MM3 to produce your two filters?? I assume to get the collections you have them labeled somewhere whether they are cds or vinyl??

Nyn

No, what I described is in fact impossible to do with auto-playlists, because they are collection-independent. I think I simply got a bit confused with the terminology of media types/collections/filters. I am also no longer 100% sure how I did this in MM3, or if I maybe hacked something together there.

I think my first example is still the simplest to understand: with the old system I had 2 collections (vinyl, CD) and 1 filter condition ("full albums only"). If I wanted full vinyl albums only, I switched to the vinyl collection and activated the filter. If I wanted full CD albums only, I switched to the CD collection and activated the filter. With the new system, I have to create 2 very complicated auto-playlists for this: one which copies all the filter conditions for vinyl albums and all the filter conditions for "full albums only", and another which copies all the filter conditions for CD albums and all the filter conditions for "full albums only" once more. That is a lot of bad redundancy, and hence both additional work and potential for inconsistency. It's not that extreme in this toy example, but consider adding a new filter condition (4 auto-playlists), and another (6 auto-playlists), then a new collection (9 auto-playlists), and then a fourth collection (12 auto-playlists). And if you want to change just 1 filter condition, you have to adapt 4 auto-playlists.

MM3:
Collections: CD, Vinyl
Filters: Full albums only, Limited editions, Artist seen live

MM4:
Collections: (no longer of any help if I want to apply additional filters)
Auto-playlists: Full CD albums only, Full vinyl albums only, Limited CD albums, Limited vinyl albums, CDs from artists seen live, Vinyls from artists seen live

As I said, it's quite possible that I missed or misunderstood something, so if anyone knows how I can achieve the same thing without adding every filtering condition an exponential number of times, I'd be happy to hear it.

Anamon wrote:
Please someone tell me that there is a simpler alternative I overlooked

It sounds to me like you were in fact using filters as how autoplaylists were meant to be used. I don't quite see why autoplaylists won't work in this situation? If it's a matter of taking up too much space in the media tree, do you realize that you can nest playlists?