Shortcuts to Albums

[BurkhardReike]

Hi there,

it would be great if Poweramp could create homescreen shortcuts that can play certain albums, not just playlists. That would be a convenient feature for people like me who have big album collections and play albums rather than single tracks. With shortcuts, you can organize your albums in folders in any way you like. It's much simpler than having to deal with playlists.

As a workaround, I'm already doing something like that by creating shortcuts with MK Explorer. Conveniently, a shortcut created with that app will display the album cover. Then, when clicking the shortcut, Poweramp opens and is - luckily - smart enough to play the entire album, not just the file.
Here's a video I made to demonstrate that approach:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA1IKKLfzDQ

So yeah, that's working. But it would be simpler if Poweramp seamlessly supported this feature in the first place. Other players offering shortcuts to albums (as well as shortcuts to songs or artists) are n7, BlackPlayer, Sony Music.

Cheers,
Burkhard

[andrewilley]

You could always create a Playlist for each album which you want to place on your homescreen (just long-press on the Album in the albums list and choose Add to Playlist to make a new list). A bit cumbersome if you want to do hundreds, but quick and easy for a few titles. 

Andre

[BurkhardReike]

The playlist shortcuts don't show the album covers but look all the same. Which makes them useless for browsing hundreds of albums.

[andrewilley]

1 hour ago, BurkhardReike said:

The playlist shortcuts don't show the album covers but look all the same. Which makes them useless for browsing hundreds of albums.

True. But homescreen shortcuts probably wouldn't have artwork even if they were for albums, you'd need a widget for that. If you want to put hundreds of albums (with artwork) on your homescreen anyway you'd need to use folders - and if you are going to need to tap on a folder you might as well tap on the app icon and be done with it.

Andre

[BurkhardReike]

The players I mentioned all create shortcuts with album covers. So does MK Explorer. So it does seem possible to have the album art displayed, doesn't it. And no, just tapping the app icon isn't the same since that doesn't launch a particular album, duh. Where I can only browse one list of albums which displays at most 4 albums at a time (yay!) and in which I cannot change the order, let alone arrange the albums in groups. Usabilitywise, I'd choose nearly every other player over Poweramp. Whatever, never mind.

[andrewilley]

I meant that tapping on a homescreen folder then an album is a bit like tapping on the app icon and then tapping on an album (assuming you have PA set to open to your list view). I agree a smaller view size would be nice, I only get five items per screen and on a Galaxy Note size screen more would be better (hopefully the new UI will support that). There is a lot of flexibility of sort order in all view modes (Menu > List Options) but no grouping function which I also agree would be nice.

Personally, I don't use albums/library mode anyway, I use Folders View which I can configure to show my content in whatever order I like depending on how I name the folders and set the sort order. Not an answer to your shortcut-with-artwork question I know, but it does make life much easier.

[Edit] Oh, and if you think PA's view modes and sorting options are limiting you, you should try the Sonos app which I had to set up for my wife's phone. Ugh, no useful options at all!  

Andre