Static playlist?

2008-07-15 10:59:24

Hello!

I'm new at using foobar, and have been using Winamp ever since I got my first PC. I really like how foobar lets you do thing exactly how you want to do them yourself (encoding, layout, etc.) but there is one thing that I really miss when comparing foobar to Winamp. It's probably right in front of my nose, but I can't seem to get it right. What I'm talking about is a static playlist, just like the one you can just drag and drop files to in Winamp.

I already have foobar set up with the Facets plugin, which makes browsing my music library very easy, but I would really love to have one entire facet dedicated to a static playlist that should be visible at all times; I don't want to press a tab each time I want to see it. The playlists I do manage to add in foobar, change each time I select a new artist/album, and I don't want that for this playlist -- I don't want it to change unless I manually add tracks to it. Is there a way to do this?

As you probably know already, the playlist looks like this in Winamp5:

[a href="http://picbg.net/img.php?file=ed5db5075898daaf.jpg" target="_blank"]

Static playlist?

Reply #1 – 2008-07-15 21:17:24

Hello pinoniceusagi!

Before i give you an advise let me clarify one essential thing: What is right in front of your nose you are not really missing. That is Winamps playlist editor and has exactly the same like the foobars playlists you are managing in tabs. The big difference is: Foobar has multiple playlists whereas Winamp 2 or 5 just has one (Winamp 3 had multiple playlists). In fact you are missing Winamps possibility to preview the content of the library in a tracklist - in your WA5 screenshot thats the part in the lower middle (the list directly under the two panes for library browsing).

I will tell you how i have organized my workflow without saying that this is the right way for other users too - so i hope somebody can give you other advices. I not only learned to live without the tracklist you are missing but also experienced that my new workflow (i also come from winamp) is more efficient. Try this and decide if you like it: Stop using Facet playlist in that sense that one single click sends the content of the library to it - play around with the different options for double click and middle click.

What best fits my needs is following:

Doubleclick = Send to Facet Playlist;
Middle click = Add to Facet Playlist;
By context menu create new playlists;
with Playback queue jump from Playlist to Playlist;
Playlists you don't need you can easily remove by middle click on the tab.

You can try that for one day.

Static playlist?

Reply #2 – 2008-07-15 21:40:00

Wow. Thank you -- that is very clever! And you're right. What I was really missing is indeed the preview feature in Winamp. I will try out what you said and see how it goes after using that setup for a while, it sounds very sensible.

Thank you q-stankovic!

Static playlist?

Reply #3 – 2008-07-16 12:55:46

As i said: Play around - don't use just my settings but also try others (f.e. double click=create new playlist; middle click=add to active playlist).

Another tip: the previewing tracklist is not really necessary as all library viewers can display the files. You can create f.e. in Facets an own tab with  that view: Artist // Album // Title. The last Facet would give you something similar like a preview and you even can use multiple columns.