[REQ] Auto-playlist criteria to match in playlist children

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tletnes
Posts: 8
Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2018 6:21 pm

[REQ] Auto-playlist criteria to match in playlist children

Post by tletnes »

I use playlists to organize audiobooks into series. To facilitate this I have a single "Books with Series" Playlist that is the parent of an ever increasing list of sub-playlists representing book series. I have another list "Books without Series" with all books that are not part of a series.

I have another auto-playlist "Books to sort" that searches for all audiobooks in my library and filters out those that are not in "Books without Series" and are also not in any of the sub-lists in "Books with Series".

The problem is that I have to repeatedly update my query every time I add a new series.

It would be useful if the there was a version of the "Playlist (is/is not) (list of playlists)" criteria that also matched in any child playlists recursively.
Lowlander
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Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:53 pm
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Re: Auto-playlist criteria to match in playlist children

Post by Lowlander »

This is not possible, you may want to look into Collections instead.
tletnes
Posts: 8
Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2018 6:21 pm

Re: Auto-playlist criteria to match in playlist children

Post by tletnes »

As a software developer of 25+ years experience I find the claim that this is not possible to be suspicious. I don't see an obvious way to use Collections make things simpler than the hack I am using now.
Lowlander
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Re: Auto-playlist criteria to match in playlist children

Post by Lowlander »

Collections have Albums as sub-nodes. So if files match the Collection Criteria, they'll be included automatically (no need to create a Playlist per Audiobook in the first place), and Albums would substitute the Audiobook specific Playlists.

If you still want Playlists you can use Collection as a Filter.
tletnes
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Re: Auto-playlist criteria to match in playlist children

Post by tletnes »

I cannot use "Album" instead of series, because Album is already used for the Book Title.
Lowlander
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Re: Auto-playlist criteria to match in playlist children

Post by Lowlander »

You can use Series as well in the Media Tree.
rusty
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Location: Montreal, Canada

Re: Auto-playlist criteria to match in playlist children

Post by rusty »

'Series' is equivalent to 'Albums' (it's just a different label), so it probably wouldn't help.

I wonder, though, whether a better alternative would be to improve the utility of the 'Grouping' field. e.g.
- For audiobooks, add 'Grouping' to the main Properties tab
- Add support for a grouping node
- Add support for Groupings in the Browser view

This would have the added benefit that Series data would be saved to tags.

Just a thought...

-Rusty
Andre_H
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Re: Auto-playlist criteria to match in playlist children

Post by Andre_H »

- my 24/7 media server | MMW 2024.0.0.3038 (non-portable, shared DB & files, only essential addons) | Windows 2016
- my desktop app | MMW 2024.0.0.3038 (portable, shared DB & files) | Windows 11
- my mobile app | MMA Pro 2.0.0.1175 on several Android 10, 11, 12 devices | WiFi Sync

- MP3Tag | MP3Diags | MP3DirectCut | IrfanView
tletnes
Posts: 8
Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2018 6:21 pm

Re: Auto-playlist criteria to match in playlist children

Post by tletnes »

@Andre_H thanks for the pointer. I have tired that plugin, and I think it does as much as anything can. Unfortunately it requires the parent playlist to be an Auto-playlist, which means it does not show up in the "Send To" context menu, which is the best way I have right now to add books to a series. It isn't impossible, just not ideal.

I've tried to request a feature like @rusty described, but was told (similar to this one) that it was impossible.

What I would really love is some way to set up multiple hierarchical ordered trees/lists to describe structured information like:

Code: Select all

Collection/Volume/Disc/Work/Track
for media (this structure is based on trying to organize some classical composer collections

or

Code: Select all

Series/Volume/Book/Section/Chapter/Track
Ideally at each level we could order the sublevels/items, and items could have multiple entries.

In Metadata these could be stored like:

Code: Select all

<list>[position]/<list>[position]/.../<list>[position]
<list>[position]/<list>[position]/.../<list>[position]
<list>[position]/<list>[position]/.../<list>[position]
With each track holding its own info.
rusty
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Location: Montreal, Canada

Re: Auto-playlist criteria to match in playlist children

Post by rusty »

tletnes wrote: Mon Jul 22, 2024 4:02 pmI've tried to request a feature like @rusty described, but was told (similar to this one) that it was impossible.
iiuc, Lowlander wasn't saying that implementing such a feature is impossible, but rather that what you were asking isn't _currently_ possible in MM.

I added the 'heart' in the header to remind us to look into this after the 5.1.x release.

-Rusty
Andre_H
Posts: 435
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2021 2:04 pm
Location: Germany

Re: [REQ] Auto-playlist criteria to match in playlist children

Post by Andre_H »

- my 24/7 media server | MMW 2024.0.0.3038 (non-portable, shared DB & files, only essential addons) | Windows 2016
- my desktop app | MMW 2024.0.0.3038 (portable, shared DB & files) | Windows 11
- my mobile app | MMA Pro 2.0.0.1175 on several Android 10, 11, 12 devices | WiFi Sync

- MP3Tag | MP3Diags | MP3DirectCut | IrfanView
Peke
Posts: 17850
Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2003 7:21 pm
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Re: [REQ] Auto-playlist criteria to match in playlist children

Post by Peke »

Hi,
I specify similar thing loong time ago https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=5418

Maybe all should be collected as MM has changed a lot meantime and new joined bug cleared of excessive features.
Best regards,
Peke
MediaMonkey Team lead QA/Tech Support guru
Admin of Free MediaMonkey addon Site HappyMonkeying
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ZvezdanD
Posts: 3262
Joined: Thu Jun 08, 2006 7:40 pm

Re: Auto-playlist criteria to match in playlist children

Post by ZvezdanD »

tletnes wrote: Mon Jul 22, 2024 4:02 pm @Andre_H thanks for the pointer. I have tired that plugin, and I think it does as much as anything can. Unfortunately it requires the parent playlist to be an Auto-playlist, which means it does not show up in the "Send To" context menu, which is the best way I have right now to add books to a series. It isn't impossible, just not ideal.
You are right, the Inherit Child Playlists add-on requires the parent playlist to be an Auto-playlist. That is a known fact mentioned in the Requirements and Limitations section of the addon-s web page, which is implemented like that because of technical reasons. For example, it is almost impossible to have one static parent playlist to inherit and contain files from all its children and still to know which files belong to itself and to any child individually, in case that you want to remove any particular child playlist.

I don't know the hierarchical structure of your list, but I don't think you would want to add books to a series by specifying the parent playlist in the Send to > Playlist menu. I suppose what you want is to specify a static playlist that is a child of the auto-playlist set to inherit its files. So, the problem is caused by the lack of Send to / Playlist option of the program.

The real question for MM developers is: why Send to > Playlist doesn't display static playlists that are children of auto-playlist:
https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=21101
Magic Nodes 4.3.3 / 5.2 RegExp Find & Replace 4.4.9 / 5.2  Invert Selection/Select None 1.5.1  Export/Create Playlists for Child Nodes 4.1.1 / 5.4.1  Expand Child Nodes/Expand All 1.1.2  Event Logger 2.7  Filtered Statistics Report 1.6  Track Redirection & Synchronization 3.4.2  Restore/Synchronize Database 3.1.8 / 4.0.1  Find Currently Playing Track 1.3.2  Queue List 1.2.1  Add to Library on Play 1.0.1  Tree Report for Child Nodes 1.1.1  Update Location of Files in Database 1.4.5 / 2.3  Inherit Child Playlists 1.0.3  Add Currently Playing/Selected Track(s) to Playlist 1.2
Peke
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Re: [REQ] Auto-playlist criteria to match in playlist children

Post by Peke »

Hi,
ZvezdanD wrote: Tue Jul 23, 2024 1:43 pm The real question for MM developers is: why Send to > Playlist doesn't display static playlists that are children of auto-playlist:
https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=21101
Good catch Zvezdan.
Best regards,
Peke
MediaMonkey Team lead QA/Tech Support guru
Admin of Free MediaMonkey addon Site HappyMonkeying
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MikeGahrns
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Joined: Thu Apr 09, 2020 9:37 pm

Re: [REQ] Auto-playlist criteria to match in playlist children

Post by MikeGahrns »

I also organize my music similarly to what tletnes describes. I think having more criteria for the Playlist property when creating AutoPlaylists as described in https://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewt ... p?t=102132 could help a lot of people who organize things similarly.

I think that part would be relatively simple, but the thread quickly diverged into something much more complicated like what the "playlist in main window MM4 add-on" does. While I would love to see something like that in MM5 it would be a lot more work.

Adding "baby" steps like just allowing more playlist criteria in the autoplaylist generation would be a great first step that helps a lot of people with not too much effort.
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