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'Shuffle' issue


choppedartisan

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I'm not sure if anyone else has been getting this too, but the shuffle feature is a hot mess. Sometimes it works as intended (hallelujah!), and other times it simply leaves me disappointed. I shouldn't still be confused as to how it actually works. 

 

I remember it working well in v2. I am requesting for shuffle options to be 'Shuffle by album/folder' and 'Shuffle by artist'. *what is categories, anyway?*

 

I am listening to a song in 'Shuffle all'. A song comes on. I want to listen to that artist. I choose 'Shuffle artist' to listen to all the songs by artist in shuffle mode, or 'Shuffle by album/folder' for that album/folder in shuffle mode. 'Shuffle all' shuffles all music tracks in the library. It won't confuse anyone, even when navigating to a specific artist/album, PA plays that query and should only shuffle if user selects 'Shuffle artist' or 'Shuffle album'.

 

It's quite straightforward this way, I believe. Or, I might actually be ignorant about some tutorial on how to use shuffle mode on v3. 

 

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'Category' is an updated word for the old term 'List' (which was too easily confused with Playlist, which has a more specific definition). It means the currently playing Library category, which is based on the view-type that you were looking at when you started the current session playing. That could mean you are playing by Albums, Folders, Artists, Playlists, or a number of other available categories. Apart from that wording change from List to Category, the shuffle icon in the Player screen works in exactly the same way as it did in v2.

So let's assume you are playing in 'Albums' mode at the moment - i.e. you looked through the library in Albums view and found a song you like, and tapped on the song title to start playback:

  • You might tap (or long-press) the Shuffle icon and select "Shuffle Just Categories" - which used to be called "Shuffle Lists, Songs in Order" in v2. This would mean that at the end of listening to each album, PA will pick you a new album at random and start playing all of its songs in normal song order. And so on until all of the albums on your device have been randomly chosen and played.
  • If you selected "Shuffle Just Songs" then the sequence of Albums would stay in normal order (usually that would be alphabetical, but it is configurable) however the songs within each album would get shuffled, before moving on to the next album in order until everything has been played.
  • If you selected "Shuffle All Available Songs" then each song would be picked completely at random from any of the albums in your collection, with no ordering at all.
    In most categories (albums, folders, artists, etc) this just means totally random playback of any songs from your whole library.

"All Songs" playback category is a bit of a special case, and is not really an ideal mode in which to use the extra shuffle modes. The 'Category' in this case is just one great big long list of all of the songs on your device (there's a clue in the name I guess) so "Shuffle Just Categories" is pretty meaningless as there is only the one big category anyway. 

Andre

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Thanks for the explanation, it helps a ton!

However, I still believe it would be easier if shuffling by album or artist could be done when choosing mode 'artist' or 'album/folder'. This way I don't have to manually navigate to artist or album. It's a hassle, but I can live with it.

On a side note, I didn't get an email notification for replies, even though I checked 'notify me of replies' when posting the thread. 

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19 minutes ago, choppedartisan said:

On a side note, I didn't get an email notification for replies, even though I checked 'notify me of replies' when posting the thread. 

Check your Account Settings > Notification Settings to see if email is enabled as a notification method, and how frequently.

Andre

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  • 1 month later...

I can't get shuffle to do anything in a Playlist.  It just plays the next song in an album that resides in the Playlist. If I attempt to change the shuffle type, it ignores the Playlist and shuffles all the music... 

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6 hours ago, Lopicma said:

I can't get shuffle to do anything in a Playlist.  It just plays the next song in an album that resides in the Playlist.

Go to the Library > Playlists view and open the Playlist that you want to listen to, then tap on the first song that you'd like to hear to start it playing.

Then, when you are in the Player screen, tap the Shuffle icon until it shows 'Shuffle Just Songs'. You should now hear the whole of that playlist's contents in random order.

Andre

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