random play over whole database

[ulf]

Hi there,

I'm not sure, if anybody already had this idea/question, because this forum is very slow working and I couldn't discover all entries...

My wish is to get the possibility to make a random play over all songs in the db - not only within one playlist. Even better would be - of course - the possibility to select random only for songs matching a definable key (like genre, length.. or any attribute of the song-entries).

plaudit: songs-db is the best software I found for managing all my music on HDD. The very best is, that it's for free! Beeing a SW-developer myself, I really appreciate the work you are doing here not claiming any money for it!!!! (honor and fame pay our rent )

regards
ulf

[jiri]

I will think about this idea - I think that autoplaylists do pretty much the same, but a bit different way, so probably this could be useful too.

BTW, it is quite hard to develop software without any money, not only I spend an incredible amount of time programming, but also webhosting, domain and such things cost money. However, I hope there will be a free version of Songs-DB forever.

Jiri

[Sertorious]

you can accomplish what you seek

1st go to this webaddress

http://www.webattack.com/get/mp3listshell.shtml

then DL this small freeware program

Mp3ListShellEx is a small program, which ads "Create mp3 list" to the Window Explorer context menu and allows to easy build many types of playlists and mp3- file lists based on ID3 tags and MPEG frames information. Currently Mp3ListShellEx creates Media Player (.asx) and Winamp (.bpl, .m3u, .pls) playlists. In addition, supported list formats also include Excel tables (.xls, .csv) and Web documents (.htm, .xml). Program settings such as output path and list name, additional mp3-file data, their order and others may be customized.

[Octopod]

Hi,

First of all, congratulation for this great freeware. Exactly what i was looking for!

As for me (talking about random playlist), i would appreciate an option allowing an album or an artist to be randomly proposed to play (at startup??).

Another little enhancement would be to modify the playlist window as a "docking window" (as for the toolbars). This would be useful to have the main tree and its current selection on top and the current playing playlist on the bottom part.

Thanks,

Octopod
(from France)

[jiri]

So far it isn't planned to add new random options, but some may come in the future.

Some better visual customizing options, including playlist docking, will definitely come in the future.

Jiri

[Lowlander]

I just switched from DJ2000 1.6 to MediaMonkey 2.0 (free). And one thing I really miss is a feature where the program is able to automatically play songs from user-defined genre's.
This is an easy way of enjoying once's collection of songs, and I used it a lot when having parties. Instead of me worrying about playlist and which songs to play the program takes care of that for me.
This is not a playlist itself and that's not necessary. But it saves a lot of time creating all sorts of playlist. Just select the genre's and your music play's.
In DJ2000 the program would randomly add a song once it was done playing the Now Playing list.

Thanks

PS. Great program and good work, enjoying my switch greatly!!!

[rusty]

Lowlander,

You can do what you're asking by:
-initiating a search for a genre
-playing all the tracks in the genre

To improve this to better meet your needs we could:
-allow you to search for multiple genres
-add a play button to the 'search' dialog
-dock the search dialog permanently

Is this along the lines of what you're asking for?

[Lowlander]

Thanks for the reply. This is unfortunately not what I'm looking for, but "allow you to search for multiple genres" would be nice.

What I want is an option that you can turn on or off, whereby MM automatically selects a song to play from a list of user selected genre's, when it reaches the end of the 'now playing list' or when the play button on the player is clicked without any songs in the 'now playing list'.

It would add a song automatically to the list everytime it reaches the end of the now playing list from those selected genres.

This is not about generating a playlist. This is about the program playing music for me without me selecting the songs.

Of course a playlist with all the songs of the desired genres would do the job, but the autoplay would have several benefits:

- When new songs are added to the DB, the autoplay would pick them up (otherwise you got to add them to the playlist, worry about duplicates as well)

- With all the genre's and all the possible combinations between them you can make hundreds of playlists. With autoplay, you would just select the genre's you wish to listen to and it would do the job for you.

You would be able in a list to select the genre's (one or multiple) once you turn the autoplay feature on.

Some additions to think about would be:
- Autodelete (Delete songs from 'Now Playing list' after being played)
- Repeat (When repeat is selected, autoplay wouldn't work as you repeat the songs in the 'Now Playing list')

I hope this explains what I want. It is a feature I greatly enjoyed in DJ2000 and I hope you consider adding it to MM.

Let me know if you have any questions left on this subject

Thanks

[rusty]

I got the gist of what you're looking for. MM kind of has some of this functionality in AutoPlaylists (you can define characteristics for an automatically generated list, however, it is not quite as simple to define the autoplaylist and play it as it can be).

We have something like this on our to do list.

[Peke]

Hmmm Rusty You Are correct here is some example:

Make new Auto playlist.

Go To Advanced and
Make search list like this:
Begin
By Genre, contains, Desired Genre
By Status, Is Accesible
If Wanted Limit the number of files.
End

The list will contain all songs that are accesible and cached.
The next thing is that you play that Playlist with Shufle Checked.

Hope it worked.

P.S. The list is constantly updated along with Library.

Note: Let us remind that Advanced search options are supported in GOLD

[Peke]

BTW Another Vote for multiple <Content> Search

[Lowlander]

Well in the DJ2000 there is no playlist generated. The program adds a 1 song to the now playing list everytime the end is reached. This is probably done on some algorithm, as basically the program shuffles through the songs in the selected genres.

This would be a case by case activity. Whereby the songs autoselected differ each time that the player is used.

I know that with playlist something similar could be done, but it is very inefficient as many genre combinations are possible (playlists). As well that each time songs are added to the DB you would need to recreate the lists (unless you know which songs where added, I don't most of the time).

[Lowlander]

Maybe you want to check DJ2000 out to really see what I mean. It can be found at http://www.215tech.com.

[rusty]

Will do at a later date; we're probably not going to be able to fit this into the 2.1 release.

[Lowlander]

That's okay. It's unfortunate for me, as I really liked it and used it most of the time.

Will keep an eye out for 2.2 or later...