shuffle album, ... button customization

[andrewilley]

1 hour ago, rala said:

I want to shuffle just the songs in the current playlist / album.

As @MotleyG  said, just go to the relevant Library Category that you want to hear (e.g. a playlist, album, folder, etc) and tap the 'Shuffle' icon at the top/left of the song list.

By default (i.e. with Repeat mode set to 'Advance Category') Poweramp will play all of those songs in that category item in shuffled order, and then move on to the next one and shuffle that too. If you just want to listen to the current playlist/album/folder/etc and then stop, tap the 'Repeat' button on the player screen until it shows as 'Repeat Off' (it will remain set like that until you change it again). You can think of the term 'Repeat Off' as meaning Play Current Category, while 'Advance List' effectively means Play All Categories. (I've got a long-standing request to help this make more sense to new users by slightly changing the wording on the button, see https://forum.powerampapp.com/topic/20035-rollover-to-next-folder-after-playing-last-song-of-current-folder/?do=findComment&comment=90598 )

Andre

[rala]

7 hours ago, MotleyG said:

Browse to the playlist you want to play. At the top, in the header, press the shuffle button. It will play all songs in the list randomly.

This is not what I want. This shuffles the categories too.

7 hours ago, andrewilley said:

If you just want to listen to the current playlist/album/folder/etc and then stop, tap the 'Repeat' button on the player screen until it shows as 'Repeat Off' (it will remain set like that until you change it again).

In my opinion this doesn't make any sense (like you said).

I want that the repeat is set to list and the shuffle is titles only.

Even renaming the button wouldn't reduce the confusion in my opinion.

 

I just want an option to set the shuffle button to shuffle titles only. This option is already there on a category/artist/... base but not for playlists / albums itself.

The option explicit says it is excluded. I don't get that.

If I click duffle it should shuffle the current view only - no matter in what section I am without me needing to click another thing.

I know there are other ways to get my goal but this is a QoL request.

[andrewilley]

@rala I'm not exactly sure what you are asking, but Poweramp's default mode of operation is to play through a whole music library using the sorting order specified in the Library Categories. So when one 'Category' is finished, by default PA moves on to the next one. The use of the world 'Category' means your chosen Library Category when you started playback - which could refer to albums, folders, playlists, genres, years, etc. This default operating mode is referred to as 'Advance Category', and it is what will happen for a new install of PA.

However if you prefer to listen to one album or playlist at a time and then stop, simply set the 'Repeat' icon in the player screen to 'Repeat Off'. Or if you want to keep listening to that same thing again and again, use 'Repeat Category'. Your chosen setting will remain in place for future sessions until you do something to change it, so no need to press it again when you choose the 'Play' or 'Shuffle' icons at the top of any song lists. PA will simply respect whatever mode you have chosen.

So to summarise:

• If you chose to operate Poweramp in 'Repeat Off' mode, then using the Play or Shuffle icons at the top of any lists will always play the entire contents of that displayed list and then stop.
• If you chose 'Repeat Category' mode, those same contents will be played and then repeated at the end of the displayed list.
• If you chose  'Advance Category', the next list will be started when PA gets to the end of the current one - for example to carry on listening to the next album or artist or playlist rather than stopping.

The Repeat mode can be adjusted at any time by tapping the icon of course, and it will stay that way until you change it again.

If I've misunderstood what you want (which does sound like 'Repeat Off' from your messages) please could you give an exact example of what is not working for you? Step-by-step.

Andre

[MotleyG]

3 hours ago, rala said:

This is not what I want. This shuffles the categories too.

The Shuffle button in the header at the top of the playlist (or any other library section) will play only that current list in random order. No song will repeat until the entire list has been played through unless you interrupt the playback with a new choice. The repeat option is separate, and can be set to any of the choices available including not to repeat, repeat just the list, or to move to the next list and stay in shuffle mode (of course the repeat one mode is there as well but certainly isn’t going to fit what you are seeking here). You can confirm this by checking the song counter once you start, it should show 1/xxx where the xxx value is the number of tracks in that list.

I’ve read your original request several times, this is exactly what you have asked.

[rala]

Ok sorry then, it looks like to really shuffle the list only.

Then the meaning might be a bit misleading in this case. I mean why is there an option to shuffle songs only (in the shuffle options menu [main view and settings])? The shuffle songs only would be more clear in my opinion so you can be definitely sure only songs are shuffled.

Thank you for your help.

Edited June 5, 2022 by rala

[andrewilley]

2 hours ago, rala said:

why is there an option to shuffle songs only (in the shuffle options menu [main view and settings])?

That option controls how the Shuffle icon behaves if the list you are viewing contains sub-items, such as an individual Artists page for example:

Traditionally, when you tapped on the header Shuffle icon, PA would shuffled what you are currently looking at. So for example if you were looking at four albums by an artist, the Shuffle icon would play those four full albums in shuffled order.

The control that you mention in Settings=>Library=>Shuffle was added to allow you to redefine how that shuffling process takes place.

 

• Shuffle Categories - Picks a random album from the displayed Artist list and plays that album's contents in its original (i.e. unshuffled) order. At the end of the album, PA will pick a new random album from the list and play that album in its original order. And so on until every album by that artist has been played. So in the above case, you might hear all 16 songs from Divide in their original order, then Plus, then Equals, etc.
• Shuffle Songs/Categories - Same as above, but the tracks within each album are shuffled too. So you will still hear one random album at a time, but the songs within those albums will be shuffled rather than player in order. So for example all 16 songs from Divide would be shuffled, then all of Plus will be played in shuffled order, then Equals, etc.
• Shuffle Songs - Completely ignores the album layer, and just randomly picks one song at a time by that artist, from any of their albums. This has exactly the same effect as tapping on the 'All Artist Songs' link at the top of the screen (which would show all 62 Ed Sheeran songs in one long list) and then tapping Shuffle. The option is only present to save you that extra tap each time if you only ever want to listen to fully shuffled songs with no album separation. 

The Repeat function that we were originally discussing controls whether PA should stop after each album has been completed ("Repeat Off") or automatically continue to play the next album(s) in the sequence ("Advance Category").

Note: the Folders Hierarchy category has its own separate control on that Settings page, as it is the only such category where any folder level can contain both songs and further subfolders on the same screen.

Andre

[rala]

Thank you for the detailed response.