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Topic: Extended Playlist Generator (Read 86105 times) previous topic - next topic
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Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #25 –
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I'm not sure what could be used to trigger "new tracks".  Again, some tag would be needed because I can't think of any other way off the top of my head.

Hmh, there is a %_timestamp% extrainfo field. Only thing is that it uses some rather abstract format.

Something like seconds passed ever since a certain date.  Not exactly sure what that date is though. Some weird predefined year month day.

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #26 –
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(tboehrer @ Apr 13 2004, 06:48 PM)
I'm not sure what could be used to trigger "new tracks". Again, some tag would be needed because I can't think of any other way off the top of my head. 


Hmh, there is a %_timestamp% extrainfo field. Only thing is that it uses some rather abstract format.


Yeah.  Winamp apparently uses the timestamp of the file.  I found that exceptionally annoying because whenever a tag was updated, Winamp considered it "new".  Which of course, it isn't.  But you can use %_timestamp% for the sort order now.
Santa is very jolly because he knows where all the bad girls live.  - Dennis Miller

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #27 –
sounds like a job for the foobar-database itself. Maybe the database could keep track of playcounts and last-played in a future version of foobar?
I am arrogant and I can afford it because I deliver.

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #28 –
The web server that was hosting this component is toast...  until I get it running again, you can get this plugin at:

EDIT:  As of Apr 16, the web server should be back up...
Santa is very jolly because he knows where all the bad girls live.  - Dennis Miller

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #29 –
Quote
Quote
I'm not sure what could be used to trigger "new tracks".  Again, some tag would be needed because I can't think of any other way off the top of my head.

Hmh, there is a %_timestamp% extrainfo field. Only thing is that it uses some rather abstract format.

Something like seconds passed ever since a certain date.  Not exactly sure what that date is though. Some weird predefined year month day.


I've just asked Peter about the _timestamp field. Below is the IRC exchange (in case you wondered ):

[17:37] <teetee> hello, can anyone tell me what the number in the _timestamp field is please? It doesn't seem to be the seconds since epoch..
[17:38] <DEATH> teetee: 100-nanosecond intervals since 01.01.1601
[17:39] <teetee> seriously?
[17:39] <DEATH> msdn says so at least
[17:39] <teetee> weird
[17:39] <DEATH> never tried to translate them into human-readable values
[17:39] <DEATH> _timestamp is for debug purposes only
[17:39] <teetee> ah, ok
[17:40] <teetee> so not updated at predictable events
[17:40] <DEATH> i believe it does get updated
[17:41] <DEATH> should be possible to format into something that makes sense with excess amount of titleformatting code
[17:41] <teetee> taking into account leap years and other weirdness of calendars since 1601
[17:42] <DEATH> yes

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #30 –
hmm, wouldn't it be easiest to implement the features of the playcount plugin into foobar itself? I mean, it could be usefull maybe for other plugins too and shouldn't be that difficult to implement?

- Lyx

edit: i mean, only the database-functions(maintaining last-played-date/time and number of playbacks)
I am arrogant and I can afford it because I deliver.

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #31 –
Ok, just reorganized my entire music collection again one of these days and must say the current playlist generator was of great help 

Especially the drop down presets you implemented helped quite a bit.

Am gonna use this oppportunity once more to ask you (well, by now bug you is probably the better discription  ) wether you might consider adding script saving and generation of multiple playlists into this project at some point.

Thanks once more for keeping up the work. This plugin really has saved me quite an amount of time so far.

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #32 –
I haven't forgotten... I'm not "sold" on multiple playlist generation, mainly because I can't see a widespread need for it.  Maybe you can convince me otherwise?

I can however, still see a need for "presets" that you can create, that generate a single list.  Would that help?  I will eventually do it as I want it on a regular basis.
Santa is very jolly because he knows where all the bad girls live.  - Dennis Miller

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #33 –
Well I'll try to convince you on multiple playlists then

Basicaly the idea behind this is that it would get extremely close to smart playlist functionality.

All a user would have to do is occassionally rescan (using the scan button in the database preferences) the database and apply said script.

Then all desired playlists should get updated simultanously by a set of predefined rules.

All one would have to do is run the playlist generator lets say once a day and all playlists should always be up to date.

Personally that would absolutely rock my boat.

Off course it is entirely up to you wether you want to go through the effort to implement this or not.  I can see that this might invlove quite a lot of work.

I was pretty sure you hadn't forgotten about it. I was just wondering out of pure personal interest wether you were still considering it. 

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #34 –
OK.... You kind of have my interest.  The reason I liked the playlist generator was because I'm not big on creating playlists.  It's tedious.  I wanted a way to enter criteria, and get a list.

How would the interface for something like this work?  I would hate to clutter the current dialog too much.

The idea of presets might be extended for this.  My thought was to include a "Load" and "Save" button on the existing dialog.  This would allow you to save what's currently on the dialog under a named preset (or load a preset).

Then, there would be another dialog (accessed via a menu) that would allow you to select a preset and press OK, and without ever seeing the existing dialog, get your new playlist.

What if this new dialog allowed you to check off the presets you wanted generated?  Maybe with a "Select All" button?

This is primarily why I hadn't done anything yet.  I just hadn't worked through the interface issues.
Santa is very jolly because he knows where all the bad girls live.  - Dennis Miller

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #35 –
Hmh, the idea that I had originally in mind was similar to the way the masstagger works.  Where you have a main window to wich you can add items one by one and then save the entire thing as a script. I am not sure wether I am able to express myself clearly enough there right now. So feel free to poke me with a hot iron stick to squeeze some sense out of me, in case I am not clear enough

This would probably be hard to implement into the current interface of the extended playlist generator though.

The suggestion you mentioned sounds very nice to me as well:

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Then, there would be another dialog (accessed via a menu) that would allow you to select a preset and press OK, and without ever seeing the existing dialog, get your new playlist.

What if this new dialog allowed you to check off the presets you wanted generated? Maybe with a "Select All" button?


Although only beeing able to do a select all would probably be a bit limiting. However a small checkbox next to each preset might be a really nice feature.

This would allow quite some flexibility as in to which playlists to generate at any given moment.  Obviouly there would have to be quite some room in those presets to add more.  Am not exactly sure how many of the past presets the playlist generator stores at this very moment. Meaning I am not sure how many presets are stored at maximum.

If it comes down to me I am quite flexible in how the interface could look like. As long as it is flexible enough to cater those needs

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #36 –
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However a small checkbox next to each preset might be a really nice feature.


Yes... that's what I meant (or multi-select).

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Obviouly there would have to be quite some room in those presets to add more. Am not exactly sure how many of the past presets the playlist generator stores at this very moment. Meaning I am not sure how many presets are stored at maximum.


When I say "preset" I mean the contents of the entire dialog... not just the query field.  So a preset would be:  query + sort + playlist name + etc...

The current query field only stores 10 items.  But I would handle the presets differently.  No real reason to have a limit.
Santa is very jolly because he knows where all the bad girls live.  - Dennis Miller

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #37 –
Here's some concept pics I hacked together. A possible config page based off of musicmusic's exceptional foo_quicktag and a possible way to access these playlists. A request would be the limit to # of entries/items as seen in the first pic (would be useful in doing Top #-type playlists). I think being able to access the playlists in the menu (or even assigned to shortcut keys, which this would allow) would be a very handy alternative to complement the current on-demand dialog box.
f to c to f to c

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #38 –
Very nice.  Is the first pic what the current dialog would look like after your changes, or is that a Preference config dialog?

I like the menu pic too.

Good idea for a limit on number of tracks.  That one is easy...
Santa is very jolly because he knows where all the bad girls live.  - Dennis Miller

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #39 –
Thanks. The first pic would be a config dialog from the preferences.
f to c to f to c

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #40 –
Hmh, thanks silverbolt.  Really like your suggestions there myself a lot.

However I would personally prefer to have access to those functions throught the main playlist generator window as well.  rather then through tthe config page.

Otherwise this really looks like a good indication on how this could look like.

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #41 –
I would tend to agree with picmixer... Having the same functionality on a Preference dialog is somewhat redundant.  However, adding a list box to hold preset names will make the exsting dialog huge.  Unless there isn't a need to have a "results" list on the dialog?  i.e., To see the results, just create the playlist.
Santa is very jolly because he knows where all the bad girls live.  - Dennis Miller

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #42 –
the "results"-list is imho one of the most usefull things of this plugin, because it allows fast search'n-contextmenu operations, without the need to add the results to a playlist.

- Lyx
I am arrogant and I can afford it because I deliver.

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #43 –
Hmh, personally I would say that for generating multiple playlist a preview isn't that nessecary, since it is supposed to be a rather automated task anyway.  Although of course if anyone can think of a simple non obtrusive way to do this it could be nice to have.

However for genrating a single playlist it can indeed be quite convenient.

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #44 –
The solution I'm working on now is to keep the current dialog exactly the same, with the addition of a "Preset" and "Save" button.  This will allow you to save the current settings as a preset, and to load existing presets.

Of course, there will be a another dialog to select multiple playlists ("presets") to generate, and likely menu items to select a preset directly.

I can't think of any other way to make most of the users happy.  I don't like the idea of two dialogs doing almost the same thing (current dialog + preference page dialog), nor do I want to remove the results list from the current dialog (because I like it too).
Santa is very jolly because he knows where all the bad girls live.  - Dennis Miller

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #45 –
Hmh, I personally quite like that sollution actually.

Very good idea.

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #46 –
New Version 1.2:

1) Added Presets.
  a) Save and Preset buttons added to Playlist Generator dialog
  b) Generate playlists directly from a new dialog
  c) Changed menu item name to "Extended Playlist Generator" which contains
      child menu's for a and b.
2) Added "Track Limit" to limit number of tracks selected.


Note:  You will lose your dialog history settings for this plugin.  For example, query and sort fields, etc...

I've been testing this for the past couple days, but let me know if you have problems.
Santa is very jolly because he knows where all the bad girls live.  - Dennis Miller

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #47 –
Lovely Stuff!

Cheers,
Steve

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #48 –
Absolutely great, I love it 

Really like the way you split up the menus between the "Generate playlists" and the "Configure playlist query" window. Very elegant sollution IMHO and keeps clutter nicely out of both interfaces.

Tried it out and so far everything works flawlessly. Unfortunately I am just in the process of reorganizing all my files and therefore my database is an absolute mess    Will have to give this a lot closer look when I'm finished and I am sure I will have quite some extensive use for it straight away.

This has really turned out nicer then I ever wanted it to be.  The only thing that I can personally still think of that could possibly be implemented is a "rescan database" button in both interfaces. Not really a necessity though.

Great work and thanks once more for all the effort you have put into this this has really tturned out nicer then I could have ever thought of it

Extended Playlist Generator

Reply #49 –
Very nice work, tboehrer :D
A suggestion would be to allow selection of acsending or descending sorting. Say for instance you limit the results to 100 and have it sort by %play_counter%. If there are over 100 tracks which satisfy the query, everything beyond 100 will be discarded, but since it always sorts ascending, the tracks which you probably care about most are the ones discarded. Thanks :]
f to c to f to c