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Topic: Shuffle Albums Issue- skipping to the next album is fully randomized&# (Read 2403 times) previous topic - next topic
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Shuffle Albums Issue- skipping to the next album is fully randomized&#

Hey all,

I often use the Shuffle (Albums) playback order after queuing my entire music library. I've been using the Playback/Random button to skip to the beginning of a new album in this playback order. However, while this works, I have an issue with it- when using the Playback/Random button, it will skip in the playlist to another album but using the 'Random' order instead of 'Shuffle'- as in, it will pick a random album to start playing out of all the albums in the playlist instead of just the ones that haven't been played or skipped yet.

I am hoping for a way to skip to the next album without this full randomization. It works as I wish in Shuffle (Albums) if I either listen to an album all the way through or hit Next for each track until the album ends, but listening through each album that comes up isn't always desired and mashing the Next button through albums is not so fun. The issue is that albums will occasionally randomly come up that I've already decided on skipping or that I already listened to part or all of during any particular listening session. Ultimately this makes it harder for me to reach my entire collection of music in this playback order setting since I can't prevent the album shuffle to stop showing me albums that I already said no to within an individual listening session.

I've had this issue for a few years actually but I never cared enough to look for a fix since it didn't seem to be a big deal, but I have grown weary of this slight nuisance. I appreciate any help or potential fixes. Thanks!

-Pequod

Shuffle Albums Issue- skipping to the next album is fully randomized&#

Reply #1 –
It's not exactly surprising that the button/command which is literally called Random jumps to a random track ignoring the shuffle order.

Playback/Next is the one you are looking for.

If you want to remove skipped tracks from your playlist, you can use foo_playlist_attributes.

If you want to automatically skip tracks you already listened to, install foo_playcount along with foo_skip, then go to 'File/Preferences/Tools/Skip track' and use a query similar to this:
Code: [Select]
%last_played% DURING LAST 1 HOUR

Shuffle Albums Issue- skipping to the next album is fully randomized&#

Reply #2 –
Quote from: Daeron on
It's not exactly surprising that the button/command which is literally called Random jumps to a random track ignoring the shuffle order.

Playback/Next is the one you are looking for.

If you want to remove skipped tracks from your playlist, you can use foo_playlist_attributes.

If you want to automatically skip tracks you already listened to, install foo_playcount along with foo_skip, then go to 'File/Preferences/Tools/Skip track' and use a query similar to this:
Code: [Select]
%last_played% DURING LAST 1 HOUR


Thanks for your reply. Yes, I was aware that it was the Random button. You see, there is no other way (without, potentially, additional components) to skip to a new album within Shuffle (Albums) playback order. Playback/Next goes to the next track, not the next album. My goal is to shuffle albums, so that means I want to go from album to album. If I use Playback/Next, I have to click it many times to get to the next album even if I'm in Shuffle (Albums)- I have to click next past every track on the album. Playback/Next is not the one I am looking for. If you have tested it at all, you'd see that the Playback/Random button, while in the Shuffle (Albums) playback order, will not go to any random track in the playlist! It actually will only go to the first track of a random album. So Playback/Random does not ignore the shuffle order. But Playback/Next is useless here.

Those components you've listed may help if they can remove from the playlist full albums that I've skipped or listened to part of. I'll look into it.

EDIT after installing those components and checking them out: foo_playlist_attributes has the option to remove skipped or played tracks from the playlist- however I tested this in the Shuffle (Albums) mode and it only removes a track, not the full album. When I use Playback/Random to skip to another random album in the playlist, it can still randomly choose an album that I've already skipped- it just starts at the second track of the album since only the first track was removed from the playlist when I skipped it.

Same issue seems to be the case with the foo_skip component- although I am wondering if, in the skip track query, foobar can be told to skip not only each individual track that's been played within the last hour (or whatever time), but to skip the entire album of any track that's been played within the last hour. If there is a query for this component that would do this then that would do exactly what I need.

Essentially what I'm looking for is a component that adds a Playback/NextAlbum button, but if anyone knows if foo_skip can do the above query, it would be very useful to me. Thanks.

Shuffle Albums Issue- skipping to the next album is fully randomized&#

Reply #3 –
One way to do this may be with foo_random_pools.
If I was doing it I'd try something like this:

You have a blank playlist and it's connected with foo_random_pools.
You set up foo_random_pools to fill that playlist with a random album.
Set it so that it adds another random album when the playback position is 1 item from the end or when it has 1 item or less.
Then if you can set up a shortcut key to clear the playlist that would have the effect of forcing foo_random_pools to load a new random album. So I think that would do what you're after.

Example you're half way through Album 1 (you may not even need album shuffle since I'm pretty sure you could get the album loaded in a randomized order) so then it's on default play, when it gets to the end it would auto load another album at random. However, if you wanted to skip to Album X after listening to half the tracks of Album 1 you'd just clear the playlist and another random album would load.

That sounds to me like what you want. I haven't tested this, but I'm 80% sure it can be done.

C.
PC = TAK + LossyWAV  ::  Portable = Opus (130)

Shuffle Albums Issue- skipping to the next album is fully randomized&#

Reply #4 –
Just tested it. This works.

You can use a keyboard shortcut to EDIT > Clear (to clear the playlist and this will load a new album - as long as you are focused on the random pools set playlist)
The album is loaded in random order by default. Additionally I played the tracks in Track Shuffle mode, as there's always only one album in the playlist at any one time.

You might want to have foo_playcount installed so you can exclude recently played tracks.

Here's my settings:

GROUP: %album%
Number of groups to add: 1
Filter: (%path% HAS "some string to identify where albums are stored" OR %path% HAS "some string to identify where other albums are stored") AND (NOT %last_played% DURING LAST 24 HOURS)

PRIORITY: Make sure this is the only pool with a priority > 0
Limits all set to 0

Main settings:

Select a playlist where your tracks are added (can't be an autoplaylist - obviously)
Add when the playlist has X items or less: 1
Others set to 0

That's it.

C.

EDIT: Just re-read your first post. So, if you want to play the albums through in normal track order just add %tracknumber% under "sort" (in the random pools settings dialog for that group) and play in default mode.
PC = TAK + LossyWAV  ::  Portable = Opus (130)

Shuffle Albums Issue- skipping to the next album is fully randomized&#

Reply #5 –
carpman,

Your solution is close to perfect in response to what I was asking for. After your first reply I went ahead and tested it myself and had it working enjoyably with slightly different settings- I had nothing in the Filter category because I wasn't sure how to get that to exclude what I wanted yet, and I had slightly different settings for the Autoadd since all 3 of the Autoadd options are very useful for my purposes, they just do what I want in slightly different ways. I also included entering the value '1' here for the last of the three Autoadd options ('Add, when the playback position is X items or less from the end') in addition to at least one of the first two so that if I do end up listening through a whole album another random album will be loaded to continue music playback.

Of course without anything in the Filter category the albums will be loaded randomly without excluding albums that I've skipped already or listened to. However, your suggestion in your own test of this isn't ideal to solve this. This is because only albums that actually get recorded as played in the playback statistics of foo_playcount will be excluded when loading new random albums into the playlist. When using this way of going through albums, none of them actually begin to play unless I hit Playback/Next or something similar to tell foobar to begin playing the new playlist- otherwise whatever I was listening to previously continues to play- for example if I start playback of an album that comes up in this mode, then I decide to skip to another by using my hotkey for 'Clear,' the album that I started playback of will continue to play even if I use the hotkey multiple times to skip through albums. A new album begins to play only if I command foobar to start using the new playlist (now, this is actually a really awesome thing that has gotten rid of all the real issues I was having from using Shuffle (albums) playback order before using any of your solution). Therefore, because none of the albums I skip using this method actually play, the albums that I skip don't get counted by foo_playcount and will not be excluded by your suggested Filter setting.

So essentially, to achieve my initial desire when I posted this thread, I'd need something to add to the Filter setting that excludes any album that has been in the playlist recently (last # of hours), instead of any album that has been played recently, if I want to be able to skip an album so that it doesn't return to the shuffle pool without having to actually play it.

Even without anything in the Filter setting, though, this setup is really nice. Because I can so easily skip through albums without actually starting their playback by hitting the hotkey for 'Clear,' I can seek through my albums randomly and choose which of the random options I want to listen to. The albums load into the playlist instantly-  I even held down the hotkey and foobar flew through tons of them with grace (watching this was satisfying, lol).  I can do this all without having to start each album's playback, which is huge. Instead of hearing the cut off first half-second of each album as punishment for skipping it (this punishment adds up when you are too picky, I know by experience), I can listen to a song or album with no interruption while I skip/browse through the random albums I'm offered, each one displaying in my playlist for my consideration. Another is summoned instantly simply with a hotkey press. This makes it so hassle-free to call up random albums to the playlist that it frankly no longer matters if recently skipped/played albums are not excluded when doing so. All it takes is another press of the hotkey if one of these does appear.

One other important thing I should mention (in case anyone else wants to set this up) is that, in the random pools settings for this, I also added %tracknumber% under Sort and have the checkbox below it ('Sort / limit each group') checked. This will always make the added albums have the correct track order.

Thanks so much carpman, I have very deep gratitude for you.

with love,
pequod
 

Shuffle Albums Issue- skipping to the next album is fully randomized&#

Reply #6 –
Yes, you're right, there are limitations.
Ideally you'd want a button that a) cleared the playlist, b) waited one second for the playlist to re-populate, then c) went to the next track all in one action. But I don't know if this combination of actions is possible.

Your other point is a good one, which as far as I know cannot be solved. Since fb2k works on a per track basis, it cannot (AFAIK) make decisions based on a per album basis. So if tracks 1 - 5 have been played in that last hour but tracks 6 to 10 have not, that kind of filter will load an album of tracks 6 to 10 only.

Anyway, glad it at least gets close to what you were after.

C.
PC = TAK + LossyWAV  ::  Portable = Opus (130)