by Anamon » Sun Jun 19, 2011 10:34 pm
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.
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.