Shuffle Playlist

[proteus]

MM5 5.1.0.2821

Shuffle playlist works correctly.
But only if shuffle is selected after the playlist is selected.

If shuffle is selected before the playlist, the list is played alphabetically by whatever.
Despite the shuffle button showing enabled.

Request: Read the state of the shuffle button on playlist load.

[Peke]

Hi,
If you want to add playlist Shuffled to Now playing while Shuffle is ON then use Right click on Playlist -> Play Shuffled -> ...

But you are right this new shuffle opened so many opportunities and leave us space to improve in Future versions.

[proteus]

So what does the "shuffle" button mean? The state (shuffled or not) it displays is sometimes meaningful and sometimes meaningless

I can do what you suggest.
But it means: ignore the two "play" buttons (bottom and center, and which already have different meanings of "play") and ignore the "shuffle" button.
Then go two levels deep in a menu in the left area to play shuffled.

Can you see that to a user that this is less than intuitive?

MMRemote5 is at least clear that shuffle is "shuffle now". But I think it is a design that is inconsistent with most other media players, but at the least the remote UI reflects the engine behavior, which is not the case for MM5.

[Peke]

Hi,
Yes New shuffle UI behavior is new to MM5.1 and will be improved in future builds. We opened Pandora box that lay down for 30+ years to make something better, improved and innovative. Unfortunately it needs tweaks and improvements as every new thing.

[Rob_S]

The current implementation of shuffle is not really a mode, it is an action to take on whatever is in now playing.

So in some way it does not make sense to shuffle what is being added automatically.

Thus, alternatively disable the shuffle button if playlist is empty possibly with error message "nothing to shuffle"

[Rob_S]

Just replying to and contradicting myself here, I see that the text bubble when you hover the shuffle button it says that it "will make the default play commands shuffle tracks"

If so, that makes it more like a "Mode" again, and implies that sending a new playlist to the now playing will shuffle it.

If this is intended, then this failure should be classed as a bug.

It should be a fairly easy tweak to make a set of tracks arriving in a blank playing list shuffle automatically, whether this be a playlist or any other selection sent there.

[Peke]

f this is intended, then this failure should be classed as a bug.

It should be a fairly easy tweak to make a set of tracks arriving in a blank playing list shuffle automatically, whether this be a playlist or any other selection sent there.

Yes you are right, it can be seen as a bug, but as I said whole feature is not fully finished. To be honest I was Strongly against it, even publicly here wrote that for me Shuffle became unusable for me. Problem is that after many, many, many hours of team talk we realized exactly what I said that we opened Pandora's box and on a verge of creating something new. Result is that not that I stopped complaining, but now advocate bigger picture and hope we will succeed. This all come from 30+ years of experience with music playback and use of shuffle.

Basically what I think is that if Shuffle is on Default should be PLAY SHUFFLED -> QUEUE MIXED?

[CrashMonkey]

Basically what I think is that if Shuffle is on Default should be PLAY SHUFFLED -> QUEUE MIXED?

So that would be at right top; Playing: A mixed(shuffled) Playlist all pre-queued.
And then have to option, to shuffle that pre-qeued playlist.(So it would actually be a double shuffle) That would bring back the visualisation of jumping between track songs back. (1 to 555, to 33, etc). Instead of playing the mixed shuffled pre-queued playlist in order 1, 2 , 3 etc. Now it is more like a shuffled playlist. If you have 10 songs on shuffle, and hit the end, en go back to the first song, then actually nothing is being shuffled, if you repeat that playlist over and over again.

If i get what you say, then i would prefer a double shuffle aswell.

[Rob_S]

To satisfy the original request is fairly simple

When adding (sending) a playlist (or a group of selected tracks) to empty now playing with shuffle on, it should get loaded and then shuffled, just as if the user had hit shuffle after loading the playlist. Subsequently, turning off shuffle should revert to original playlist order.

When adding a playlist to empty now playing with shuffle off, it should play in original playlist sort order.

Separately from the request, when adding (sending) a playlist (or a group of selected tracks) to an existing list in the now playing, I suggest they be shuffled onto the end of the current list. This may be harder to fulfill, given the requirement to unshuffle.

[proteus]

To satisfy the original request...

Yes, as the OP, I think this is exactly it.

Separately from the request

Good question, does adding to a playlist which is shuffled mean 1) appending (in a shuffled order), 2) random merging, or 3) appending followed by reshuffling the whole list 4) unshuffle existing list, append, shuffle all.
I'd say 4), but whatever keeps the internals (a the poster says for un-shuffle) as simple as possible while being consistent with the UI is the best answer.

The advantage of 4) is it also addresses the original issue too, the case where the original list is empty (possibly just deleted)

Edit: The shuffle state button should have three states: none, track, album (this changes none of the above). Then all those extra drop down menu 'play shuffled' items can be removed. If they are not removed then those menu items have to set the Shuffle button state, which would be confusing. IMHO much easier to implement and use if they are removed. As a general rule never set the same state from two places.