Re: [Rhythmbox-devel] Auto-playlist innovation



On Sun, 2005-07-31 at 07:36 -0700, Pete Shinners wrote:
> I admitedly don't use the "auto" playlists much, but while working on my
> car yesterday, I had an inspiration. I would use the regular playlists
> and automatic playlists much more if it had the following feature.
> 
> I want to create automatic playlists that are "boolean" operations
> between other playlists. For example, combine two other playlists, but
> exclude songs in a third. An "intersection" between playlists could also
> be useful.

There's been an enhancement bug files in bugzilla about for a while, but
no-one has done it yet.


One possible way of doing it would to process the query (the auto
playlist definition) before running it - and replace the "is in playlist
A" with the query for playlist A. To illustrate:

Playlist A = (title contain "X" and playcount > 3)
Playlist B = (artist contains "Y" or is not in playlist A)

Before evaluating playlist B, rhythmbox processes into (artist contains
"Y" or not (title contains "X"and playcount > 3)). This should be able
to handle arbitrarily complex queries.


> The last thing I need to make playlists better overall is an "unlisted"
> playlist. These would be songs that are in my library, but not in any of
> the playlists. This way when new music is added to the collection, I
> know it would appear here for easy retreival.

If we had the above "is/isn't in playlist X" stuff working, this would
be fairly trivial.


> It would be nice if the auto playlists could be built from other auto
> playlists, but then you can work yourself into some infinite recursion.
> Even if they could only reference regular playlists for now, I could
> make good use of them.

Probably the easiest way would be to make the playlist editor check for
recursion, and display an error - probably with RB running the checks on
startup too.


> While I'm just throwing out ideas, I'd like to be able to share
> playlists between several computers. All my music is on a shared drive
> which multiple computers access. I'd like a way for the playlists to be
> kept in a shared area too. Even if only one computer could edit them,
> this would allow a real library of music for whatever computer I am at.

If only one computer is running Rhythmbox at at time, you can do this
already (move ~/.gnome2/rhythmbox/playlists.xml to the shared drive, and
make a symbolic link in the original location).

The best way is probably to wait until DAAP (iTunes music sharing)
support is done, and use that. The machine with the music on it can act
as the server and share it's playlists as well.


> Sorry to just drop in and drop a ton of ideas on you guys. I'm sure
> there's a lot to do. I've been enjoying Rhythmbox now for over a year,
> but I always feel like its missing something intangible.

Good ideas are always welcome, even if they don't get implemented for a
while (whether due to lack of time, or no-one thinking of a way to
actually do it).


Cheers,

James "Doc" Livingston 
-- 
I think I've finally worked out why the Irish drink Guinness. It's to
lubricate their throat so they can speak their own language. -- David P.

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