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Topic: Auto Playlist Creation (Read 1993 times) previous topic - next topic
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Auto Playlist Creation

I am new to Foobar2000, having moved from iTunes, and would appreciate some help in setting up some auto playlists. I would like to create the following auto playlists:

Recently Played
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
Top 25 Most Played

I have researched into creating auto playlists and gather each one is based on a query. However, I don't understand how to create a query correctly, and would be grateful of some help. Thank you.

Re: Auto Playlist Creation

Reply #1 –
Hi there,

Have a look at the Query Syntax help for what is possible. To search go Library menu > Search and enter the query, when you get the results you want, click '...' > Create Auto-playlist. (Then you'd probably want to rename it to be more identifiable). You can also right-click in the library viewer (Album List / Facets) > Create Auto-playlist.

For a date range (assuming your files use DATE tag) -
Code: [Select]
%date% AFTER 1979 AND %date% BEFORE 1990

That will get you the '80s ;)

For play counts, that would require the Playback Statistics component (or variant) which adds recent dates, ratings and play count tags to a database. Note when you first install it, everything in your library will have the same %added% date to begin with. See the documentation for more info.

Recently Played -
Code: [Select]
%last_played% DURING LAST 2 WEEKS

For 'Top 25' that might be outside the scope of queries - I'm not sure there is a way to limit the results to 25. (Maybe some title formatting, anyone?)  You could however do -
Code: [Select]
ALL SORT DESCENDING BY %play_count%

That would just sort the entire library. Not really useful as auto-playlist.

Cheers 8)

Re: Auto Playlist Creation

Reply #2 –
You can't limit queries, but you can do something like this:
Code: [Select]
%play_count% GREATER 100 SORT DESCENDING BY %play_count%
Adjust the number until you get roughly the amount of tracks you want. It shouldn't need to be changed too often. There are technically a few components that can have hard limits (one of the SQL based ones and I think there was a library tree one that had it too), but I think you are much better with this.

You might also want to sort that recently played list:
Code: [Select]
%last_played% DURING LAST 1 WEEK SORT DESCENDING BY %last_played%

Re: Auto Playlist Creation

Reply #3 –
Just to clarify a bit on the top 25 issue for better understanding. When creating auto playlists using query syntax you're searching for files on an individual basis, one track doesn't know about the state of other tracks and using titleformatting won't make a difference either. Thus it's not possible to make queries which limit the playlist to a specific amount of tracks.

Re: Auto Playlist Creation

Reply #4 –
Quote from: anamorphic on
Hi there,

Have a look at the Query Syntax help for what is possible. To search go Library menu > Search and enter the query, when you get the results you want, click '...' > Create Auto-playlist. (Then you'd probably want to rename it to be more identifiable). You can also right-click in the library viewer (Album List / Facets) > Create Auto-playlist.

For a date range (assuming your files use DATE tag) -
Code: [Select]
%date% AFTER 1979 AND %date% BEFORE 1990

That will get you the '80s ;)

For play counts, that would require the Playback Statistics component (or variant) which adds recent dates, ratings and play count tags to a database. Note when you first install it, everything in your library will have the same %added% date to begin with. See the documentation for more info.

Recently Played -
Code: [Select]
%last_played% DURING LAST 2 WEEKS

For 'Top 25' that might be outside the scope of queries - I'm not sure there is a way to limit the results to 25. (Maybe some title formatting, anyone?)  You could however do -
Code: [Select]
ALL SORT DESCENDING BY %play_count%

That would just sort the entire library. Not really useful as auto-playlist.

Cheers 8)

Hi - Thank you so much for the reply and detailed instructions :) I will now see if I can create my auto playlists, and report back.
 

Re: Auto Playlist Creation

Reply #5 –
Quote from: Daeron on
You can't limit queries, but you can do something like this:
Code: [Select]
%play_count% GREATER 100 SORT DESCENDING BY %play_count%
Adjust the number until you get roughly the amount of tracks you want. It shouldn't need to be changed too often. There are technically a few components that can have hard limits (one of the SQL based ones and I think there was a library tree one that had it too), but I think you are much better with this.

You might also want to sort that recently played list:
Code: [Select]
%last_played% DURING LAST 1 WEEK SORT DESCENDING BY %last_played%


Thank you very much. I will report back soon :)