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Topic: How do I make a track appear twice in an autoplaylist or album list? (Read 2142 times) previous topic - next topic
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How do I make a track appear twice in an autoplaylist or album list?

Here is my use case: I want a playlist, either generated by a autoplaylist or the album list (or something else), that displays the Billboard Top 100 Year-End charts from multiple years, and this may contain a track repeating itself more than once in the playlist.

My tracks contain the appropriate metadata in a field called %CHART_BILLBOARDTOP100%.
  • 2018-009; 2019-087 (multivalue example)
  • 2017-033 (single value example)

Using SimPlaylist I have a group preset containing the header $cut(%chart_billboardtop100%,4) <</ %items% tracks / %rating_stars% >> sorted by %chart_billboardtop100%.

The problem is the playlist only displays the track once, as does any playlist generated by the album list.

Is there any way around this, or any ideas to accomplish this?

Re: How do I make a track appear twice in an autoplaylist or album list?

Reply #1 –
Hi there,

For mind, library tracks are 1:1 with the actual files. So normally I guess you'd need a duplicate file, however with a bit of manual tagging...

You could assemble the playlist for each year, and save the 100 tracks in a single m-TAGS file (right-click tracks > Tagging > Create m-TAGS file), somewhere in your monitored library folder. That essentially creates an album in your library.

Remove the source tracks from the playlist (empty playlist), and drop the newly created m-TAGS file in there - now you can select all 100 tracks and right-click Properties to tag them with standard / custom fields, say - ALBUM: "Billboard Top 100 Year-End Chart", DATE: 2017, ALBUM ARTIST: "Various Artists", etc - whatever you want them to appear under in the library. (You are tagging the m-TAGS file, which you can verify the path in Properties > Details tab; the source tracks are not touched)

Once you've created and tagged each year, should be easy to select them in the library (depending on view pattern) to get every year in one playlist. Or make an auto-playlist based on ALBUM name.

Edit: The problem here is also that you are creating duplicates in the library. That album name will appear under each Artist when viewing by %artist%. To get around it you would have to edit the view pattern of your library viewer to exclude .tags files, if that bothers you. I'm not sure the best way to set it up / it depends on your setup...
 

Re: How do I make a track appear twice in an autoplaylist or album list?

Reply #2 –
Quote from: metal_termite on
Here is my use case: I want a playlist, either generated by a autoplaylist or the album list (or something else), that displays the Billboard Top 100 Year-End charts from multiple years, and this may contain a track repeating itself more than once in the playlist.

My tracks contain the appropriate metadata in a field called %CHART_BILLBOARDTOP100%.
  • 2018-009; 2019-087 (multivalue example)
  • 2017-033 (single value example)

Using SimPlaylist I have a group preset containing the header $cut(%chart_billboardtop100%,4) <</ %items% tracks / %rating_stars% >> sorted by %chart_billboardtop100%.

The problem is the playlist only displays the track once, as does any playlist generated by the album list.

Is there any way around this, or any ideas to accomplish this?
Can do it with the playlist manager (my sig), you have to create an smart playlist with duplication allowed (i.e. duplication filter disabled). You need Spider Monkey Panel.

The syntax is the same than an autoplaylist, but something like 'PLAYLIST IS ...' is allowed. You will use that Smart Playlist to load tracks from other autoplaylists ... then create multiple autoplaylists for the different years you want to check. Loading the smart playlist will merge the different autoplaylists' tracks without filtering duplicates.

Don't expect any more steps-by-steps, but you can check the readme pdf for the manager which should be a guide good enough to do it.

I may consider updating (Playlist Tools) to allow creating pools with duplicates filtering disabled, which would do exactly the same with standard Autoplaylists... but your use case is pretty niche, it depends on the amount of time it takes to me. Usually you want duplicates filtered not the opposite!

Re: How do I make a track appear twice in an autoplaylist or album list?

Reply #3 –
Quote from: regor on
Can do it with the playlist manager (my sig), you have to create an smart playlist with duplication allowed (i.e. duplication filter disabled). You need Spider Monkey Panel.

The syntax is the same than an autoplaylist, but something like 'PLAYLIST IS ...' is allowed. You will use that Smart Playlist to load tracks from other autoplaylists ... then create multiple autoplaylists for the different years you want to check. Loading the smart playlist will merge the different autoplaylists' tracks without filtering duplicates.

Don't expect any more steps-by-steps, but you can check the readme pdf for the manager which should be a guide good enough to do it.
Thanks. I tried this. I could not find any option to create a `smart playlist` or any option for duplication filtering. I just saw an option to create to 'add new autoplaylist'.

I cannot find any `readme pdf` in the zip package or on the github either.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: How do I make a track appear twice in an autoplaylist or album list?

Reply #4 –
Quote from: anamorphic on
You could assemble the playlist for each year, and save the 100 tracks in a single

Yeah, I used to do it that way. I guess it is the only way as of right now but it's tedious as hell. Thanks for the suggestions.

Re: How do I make a track appear twice in an autoplaylist or album list?

Reply #5 –
I must have made a mistake with my syntax on foo_albumlist, because you can have duplicate track entries in the separate nodes providing they have the necessary multi-value tag, eg %<artist>% or in my case %<CHART_BILLBOARDTOP100>%.

It just wont translate it into duplicate entries in the playlist.

Re: How do I make a track appear twice in an autoplaylist or album list?

Reply #6 –
Quote from: metal_termite on
I must have made a mistake with my syntax on foo_albumlist, because you can have duplicate track entries in the separate nodes providing they have the necessary multi-value tag, eg %<artist>% or in my case %<CHART_BILLBOARDTOP100>%.

It just wont translate it into duplicate entries in the playlist.

Nope, can't do it with foo_albumlist

"Any string manipulation function that removes a part of a string or inserts a substring by position is generally unsafe. This includes $left(), $right(), $cut(), $pad(), etc."

Re: How do I make a track appear twice in an autoplaylist or album list?

Reply #7 –
Quote from: metal_termite on
Quote from: regor on
Can do it with the playlist manager (my sig), you have to create an smart playlist with duplication allowed (i.e. duplication filter disabled). You need Spider Monkey Panel.

The syntax is the same than an autoplaylist, but something like 'PLAYLIST IS ...' is allowed. You will use that Smart Playlist to load tracks from other autoplaylists ... then create multiple autoplaylists for the different years you want to check. Loading the smart playlist will merge the different autoplaylists' tracks without filtering duplicates.

Don't expect any more steps-by-steps, but you can check the readme pdf for the manager which should be a guide good enough to do it.
Thanks. I tried this. I could not find any option to create a `smart playlist` or any option for duplication filtering. I just saw an option to create to 'add new autoplaylist'.

I cannot find any `readme pdf` in the zip package or on the github either.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You are not using the latest version, thats why you are missing that. Download from github the current repository directly as a zip file (green button "code" on main page), not the releases page.
I have delayed creating new releases until SMP fixes relative path script loading.