Remember Shuffle Settings

[John Borges]

Iphone apostate, love the Poweramp interface except for the playlist system.  The FAQ says the playlist is meant to be played in order.  I dont like having to  long press the shuffle button then select "songs" in order every time I want to play a playlist in random order (which is what I normally do).  Why cant Poweramp remember the last shuffle setting used and go from there?   It already has a setting to remember last position in the queue

[andrewilley]

PA does remember the Shuffle setting that you select in the Player screen, until you next change it manually or you select a playback mode which needs to trigger a different shuffle style - such as by pressing the overall 'Play' or 'Shuffle' icons in one of the Library category views. But as long as you simply click on a new song title (e.g. a song inside a folder or an album list, etc) the current Shuffle mode will not be changed.

If you just want to ensure that a Playlist is played as shuffled, just tap the 'Shuffle' icon at the top of its library songs list (or tap the 'Play' icon to play it in order). As mentioned above, both of these icons override whatever shuffle mode was previously in use in the Player screen. 

Andre

[blaubär]

 

[maxmp]

@blaubär do you mean, for any possible shuffle-off scenario out of there (except for main screen shuffle button), you want that optional dialog? (Keep shuffle / play in order)? That will affect those > / shuffle header buttons as well.

[blaubär]

13 minutes ago, maxmp said:

@blaubär do you mean, for any possible shuffle-off scenario out of there (except for main screen shuffle button), you want that optional dialog? (Keep shuffle / play in order)? That will affect those > / shuffle header buttons as well.

Yes, that was the idea.

[maxmp]

@blaubär should it confirm any shuffle mode change (e.g. from previously selected shuffle all to per list specific shuffle songs) or should it confirm just possible switch to Shuffle None?

[blaubär]

It should ask for each and any change that would change the current shuffle status, be it switching shuffle off or shuffling again or shuffling another category or start playing another category or whatever. That is, if this change occurs while the shuffled list of songs hasn't yet finished. Once it has finished I wouldn't expect a warning

[andrewilley]

I think from the earlier discussions, the request seems to be for cases where you have a shuffled sequence that hasn't finished playing yet, so as to prompt the user if they are about to take any action that will exit or re-randomise that playback order. Personally it doesn't worry me at all, random is just random as far as I' concerned, and the worst that can happen is you hear an odd track or two again soon in the new re-shuffled order. Hardly a critical issue, but it does seem to worry some people.

Andre

[blaubär]

1 hour ago, andrewilley said:

random is just random as far as I' concerned, and the worst that can happen is you hear an odd track or two again soon in the new re-shuffled order. Hardly a critical issue, but it does seem to worry some people. 

That's because it isn't exactly random. Random would mean selecting songs or categories ramdomly. Shuffling means ordering the set randomly and them playing it.

Where would I use this ? Let's say I want to listen to all of an artist's albums in random order. Then I would set shuffle categories. And I would then like to hear all through all the albums, not knowing what comes next, but each album once, until I'm through.

[andrewilley]

I understand why, but overall it seems a pretty trivial occurrence to warrant a 'dangerous action' warning message. Deleting a file sure, but reshuffling a shuffled list.. I just couldn't get worked up about it.

Anyway, just my thought on the matter, it's obviously much more important to other people.

Andre

[John Borges]

11 hours ago, andrewilley said:

PA does remember the Shuffle setting that you select in the Player screen, until you next change it manually or you select a playback mode which needs to trigger a different shuffle style - such as by pressing the overall 'Play' or 'Shuffle' icons in one of the Library category views. But as long as you simply click on a new song title (e.g. a song inside a folder or an album list, etc) the current Shuffle mode will not be changed.

If you just want to ensure that a Playlist is played as shuffled, just tap the 'Shuffle' icon at the top of its library songs list (or tap the 'Play' icon to play it in order). As mentioned above, both of these icons override whatever shuffle mode was previously in use in the Player screen. 

Andre

That is only partially correct.   I put a "favorites" widget on my screen, the playlist always comes up as non shuffled and always starts at track 1 which is pretty dam annoying.

I do not care for the meta that you are using with categories.  I dont like having to use long press to make sure I shuffle only songs.  Shuffling "Categories" within a playlist I have spent time curating makes no sense at all.    Worse yet if you press shuffle by accident it can put you into a different playlist.  

I dont care that you put you have your extra special shuffle feature in, just disable it for those of us who find that it is unnecessary.

And if I have a play list, just shuffle from within that playlist

 

 

 

 

 

[blaubär]

4 hours ago, andrewilley said:

overall it seems a pretty trivial occurrence to warrant a 'dangerous action' warning message.

... Would be more of a 'stupid action' message 🙂 .... agreed !

[blaubär]

8 hours ago, andrewilley said:

Anyway, just my thought on the matter, it's obviously much more important to other people.

It depends on the use case.

Use case "playlist as in radio program" : unimportant, we could even use ( a requested but not yet existing ) random instead of shuffle

Use case "planned listening" : important, to protect the plan from the user

Or to put it otherwise : what is the benefit of shuffle compared to random ? IMHO its mixture of randomly establishing an order and then sticking to it

[andrewilley]

7 hours ago, John Borges said:

That is only partially correct.   I put a "favorites" widget on my screen, the playlist always comes up as non shuffled and always starts at track 1 which is pretty dam annoying.

As I said, if you launch playback using any button that has a specific category function (such as the Play icon at the top of a list, or in your example a widget which does the same thing as the Play icon) then part of its functionality needs to be to assign the Shuffle feature to something suitable for the request. For example, if your existing Shuffle mode was set to 'All Songs' then you hardly want that mode retained when you have told PA to play a whole album, or a playlist, or a folder. If PA didn't reset the Shuffle mode at that point, you'd only hear the first song of your chosen category before PA picked something else completely at random.

As PA is a 'power' app, rather than a basic stock-like app, there are a lot of features and a whole plethora of options - and yes, that can sometimes get a bit overwhelming or confusing especially for new users. There are four possible Shuffle modes (plus Disabled, if that counts as a mode). You don't need to long-press specifically by the way, you can cycle through the four by tapping on the Shuffle icon in the player screen. Long-press might be a quicker way to get to one specific choice though.

If you don't want your chosen shuffle mode to be adjusted, don't launch playback using one of the methods that refers to a whole music Category (such as the master Play icon at the top of a Folder, Album Playlist, etc list of songs) as Shuffle would have to be set according to the requested action as detailed above. Instead, you should just find and choose the first new song you want to play (by drilling down through any of the library views) and then tap on the SONG title to commence playback. The existing Shuffle mode will not be changed, and playback will continue in the newly chosen category with the existing Shuffle mode applied to it.

Andre

[John Borges]

On 6/27/2019 at 4:29 AM, andrewilley said:

As I said, if you launch playback using any button that has a specific category function (such as the Play icon at the top of a list, or in your example a widget which does the same thing as the Play icon) then part of its functionality needs to be to assign the Shuffle feature to something suitable for the request. For example, if your existing Shuffle mode was set to 'All Songs' then you hardly want that mode retained when you have told PA to play a whole album, or a playlist, or a folder. If PA didn't reset the Shuffle mode at that point, you'd only hear the first song of your chosen category before PA picked something else completely at random.

As PA is a 'power' app, rather than a basic stock-like app, there are a lot of features and a whole plethora of options - and yes, that can sometimes get a bit overwhelming or confusing especially for new users. There are four possible Shuffle modes (plus Disabled, if that counts as a mode). You don't need to long-press specifically by the way, you can cycle through the four by tapping on the Shuffle icon in the player screen. Long-press might be a quicker way to get to one specific choice though.

If you don't want your chosen shuffle mode to be adjusted, don't launch playback using one of the methods that refers to a whole music Category (such as the master Play icon at the top of a Folder, Album Playlist, etc list of songs) as Shuffle would have to be set according to the requested action as detailed above. Instead, you should just find and choose the first new song you want to play (by drilling down through any of the library views) and then tap on the SONG title to commence playback. The existing Shuffle mode will not be changed, and playback will continue in the newly chosen category with the existing Shuffle mode applied to it.

Andre

You just basically said "You are doing it wrong"  and that is not an appropriate response.   All I am requesting is that Poweramp remember the shuffle setting for a playlist if I choose to set it so, like Itunes, Double Twist, Media monkey and a plethora of other apps do.

I just want to select my workout playlist and start my exercise without having to mess anymore than needed on my phone. 

Based on the review of the various forum entries I find that I am not alone in my request, not all were thrilled with the latest release of Poweramp. Perhaps the most appropriate answer for me is that I wasted the money on your app and I should look elsewhere and certainly give the trial apps a more thorough look. 

 

 

 

[andrewilley]

43 minutes ago, John Borges said:

You just basically said "You are doing it wrong"  and that is not an appropriate response.   All I am requesting is that Poweramp remember the shuffle setting for a playlist if I choose to set it so.

Yes, I guess it is fair to say that you are doing it "wrong", as far as Poweramp's design is concerned anyway. Every app has its own way of achieving things, and sometimes that does create a learning curve, but at least now you know how PA works so you should be fine in future.

To reiterate, if you want to retain your existing Shuffle mode (rather than activating a specific one by using the 'Play' or 'Shuffle' icons) simply tap on the first song that you wish to listen to from your chosen Playlist - or indeed any library category.

Andre

[Hilikus]

On 6/28/2019 at 10:01 AM, andrewilley said:

To reiterate, if you want to retain your existing Shuffle mode (rather than activating a specific one by using the 'Play' or 'Shuffle' icons) simply tap on the first song that you wish to listen to from your chosen Playlist - or indeed any library category.

This is great to know. I was going to file a bug on the shuffle mode not being sticky. Thank you. Having said that, this is just a workaround, at least for a specific use-case, which is when the mode is "shuffle categories" + "advance list". What you said about disabling shuffle all or songs (or really every other mode except Shuffle Categories) makes sense: when you tell PA to play a category (folder, album or any other) it would be weird to play only the first song and then shuffle since you told it to play the category, so disabling shuffle makes sense. But when you are in "shuffle categories", i really see no reason to disable it when you play another category with the play button. The songs will play in the same order whether shuffle is sticky or not, the only difference is when the category ends. Instead of going to the next category, go to a random one like the mode you had before you hit play. Because you did the play action in a category, what happens at the end of the category is completely arbitrary. The action is "play this category where i am". what it does after is either go to the next one, or go to a random one if you are in "advance list" mode. if the category advancement was random before, why not keep it?

I will use your workaround in the future though but I think this improvement would make it less surprising

 

In short, if your action doesn't contradict the current shuffle mode, I don't see why it should be disabled. 

 

[andrewilley]

5 hours ago, Hilikus said:

I will use your workaround in the future though but I think this improvement would make it less surprising

My suggestion was not a workaround, it's just the normal way to use PA if you want to keep a specific chosen Shuffle or Repeat mode set. If you use the quick-action button icons (which are a new invention in v3 of Poweramp, they weren't present in v2 at all) they will adjust those two settings, so I rarely use those icons. In fact thinking about it, apart from testing purposes, I never actually touch them; I always control Shuffle mode using the icon in the Player screen, and start new playback by tapping on the first song title.

Andre