Now playing list/Queue Feature

[superluig164]

5 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

Interesting, I don't see that on the default audio controller on my Galaxy Watch 5 (I don't see anything other than current track in fact). What control app are you using?

Andre

I have a GW4C.  If I open the full media controller app, there's a little pill at the bottom.  I can swipe up on that and see a queue.

If I choose a song on that list, Poweramp will skip back or forward to that song.

Here's a couple pics.

[andrewilley]

Odd, I have the next model up (Galaxy Watch5) and the interface is basically the same but don't see a slider at the bottom. I do have PA's 'Now Playing List for Connected Devices/Apps' enabled by the way.

Andre

[superluig164]

1 hour ago, andrewilley said:

Odd, I have the next model up (Galaxy Watch5) and the interface is basically the same but don't see a slider at the bottom. I do have PA's 'Now Playing List for Connected Devices/Apps' enabled by the way.

Andre

Hmm.  Are you looking at the tile or having actually launched the Media Controller app on the watch?  The tile looks identical, but only lives to the right of the watch face.  Either way, Max probably knows how/why it works, and thus, he could add a UI section that does what it does.

[andrewilley]

Ah, I worked it out! You can get to the watch's media control view in a couple of ways: I've always just swiped left on the main watch face, but you can also tap the little blue bouncing music symbol at the bottom of the main watch face, or select the media controller icon from the full app list. My normal swipe-left version is as per my screenshot above (i.e. with no pull-up option for a track list) but the other version (tap on blue note, or use the app list) does also include the pull-up pill at the bottom which displays the now playing list. How odd, why would they be different in such a small respect I wonder? 

Anyway, now that I can get to the list I see that it only shows up to the end of the currently playing category - so just the current album, folder, playlist, Queue, etc, exactly as you'd see by tapping on the cover art on the player screen in the phone app. This ties in with what @maxmp said earlier about PA not building the whole upcoming sequence in memory in advance, and only calculating the next (or previous) category as and when it is needed. This also explains why the 'Queue' button in Android Auto also displays tracks only up to the end of the current category, which had puzzled me for a while.

Max, would it be possible to generate a more complete list from the database once playback has commenced? The logic would be exactly the same as for playback progressing track-by-track, and as it would be entirely in memory it shouldn't take too long to build on-the-fly. I know Android Auto has a hard limit of around 400 (600?) items in any list, and the Galaxy Watch interface seems smaller still (around 42 on my watch) but it'd still be really nice to be able to see a bit further forward (and backward) than just the currently playing album/etc. And once that list was generated, it would make displaying a full 'Now Playing' list in the main app very much easier.

Andre

 

[superluig164]

17 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

You can get to the watch's media control view in a couple of ways: I've always just swiped left on the main watch face, but you can also tap the little blue bouncing music symbol at the bottom of the main watch face, or select the media controller icon from the full app list. My normal swipe-left version is as per my screenshot above (i.e. with no pull-up option for a track list) but the other version (tap on blue note, or use the app list) does also include the pull-up pill at the bottom which displays the now playing list. How odd, why would they be different in such a small respect I wonder? 

The stuff to the right of the watch face are "tiles" which are basically widgets that can be supplied by apps on the watch.  They're a little bit interactive, but not much, you'll notice that if you're looking at the tile and tap the volume icon, the full Media Controller app opens up to do it.  When you tap the little bouncing music note, or open the app from the list, those do the same thing, i.e. open the full Media Controller app.  It's a bit annoying, but the technical differences between them explain it.  You'll notice similar things with other tiles, tapping on them always opens up the full app on the watch, and all the tiles can do is change visually (and open a different part of the app based on where you tapped, or in the case of the media controller, not open anything and just change tracks.)

[superluig164]

23 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

This also explains why the 'Queue' button in Android Auto also displays tracks only up to the end of the current category, which had puzzled me for a while.

My suggestion is for there to be some kind of button just like these, in the main app.  So you can skip forward and back in the shuffle order without having to reshuffle the list.

[andrewilley]

8 hours ago, superluig164 said:

My suggestion is for there to be some kind of button just like these, in the main app.  So you can skip forward and back in the shuffle order without having to reshuffle the list.

Exactly, that's pretty-much all this Feature Request, and others like it, were originally asking for - a simple scrollable list of all the upcoming songs in their planned order, so you can see what's coming up next (or earlier) and optionally jump to a new position within that list if you want to.

My recent suggestion of including appropriate Category subheader names was just a visual nicely by the way. There's no real need for it, but I suspect they would be easy enough to insert and would make the list look prettier and easier to follow. Would even work for categories like Top Rated (1-5 headers), Recently Added (today, yesterday, a week, a month), and Most Played numbers too.

To call up such a list, I thought tapping on the track counter area on the player screen (the "xxx / nnnn" indicator between the Sleep Timer and the Repeat icon) would be ideal - it almost seems made for the job in fact, as it's the only one of the five icons on that line that's not currently clickable.

Any kind of more exotic editing features would make it horribly more complex to code, and would break the entire Category playback methodology anyway. And quite honestly, adjustable playback ordering is what the Queue is already for.

Andre

[superluig164]

21 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

To call up such a list, I thought tapping on the track counter area on the player screen (the "xxx / nnnn" indicator between the Sleep Timer and the Repeat icon) would be ideal - it almost seems made for the job in fact, as it's the only one of the five icons on that line that's not currently clickable.

I agree with you, that would be literally the perfect place in the UI for a queue button.

[CrusaderTM]

Any updates on if this will ever get implemented? I love Poweramp but it's really frustrating to see such a basic feature missing, all music players/streaming services I have ever used all have some sort of "now playing" list where you can reorganize/add/remove songs. It seems like such a simple concept and I'm surprised it still has not been implemented. The "queue" as it currently exists serves an entirely different purpose, it is still useful in it's own context but it does not offer the functionality that's being requested. I hope it gets implemented because otherwise it would be the perfect music player.

[andrewilley]

@CrusaderTM Any free-layout editable options would indeed need to be done via the Queue as you say, that's what it's for. Or a Playlist if you want it to be more permanent. Poweramp's regular Category-based playback is specifically pre-defined by the Category and List Option ordering that you have already chosen - so yes you can manipulate the order later, but you do it via the Library Category views and  List Options menus.

As an example, if you are listening to your music organised in the Years category, it wouldn't make any logical sense to be able to 'reorganise' one 2020 track into the 1990 songs category.

There has been some further discussion of creating a Now Playing list in another similar thread:

This also span off into discussing the possibility of creating a 'Queue Only' mode, where playback is completely defined by the Queue and control never returns to category-based listening even after the Queued songs are finished:

Andre

[John Wong]

sad to see that it's been 3 years since the OP but there's still no current playlist ( which is basically an essential function in any other audio player)in PA.

[andrewilley]

@John Wong Please see the discussions in:

But as something of a TL;DR:

1. It would be possible without too much programming work to show a full list for Shuffle Mode (e.g. All Songs) as PA already builds a full internal index of every song in the library in the planned shuffle sequence in order to avoid unwanted repetitions. Displaying that index data as a flat list shouldn't be too complicated.
2. PA does not however currently build a full index for regular - i.e. Category ordered - playback. It knows the List Options sort-order for the currently playing Category - which  you can already see by simply tapping on the cover artwork area - but each new Category (such as the next album or next folder) gets loaded dynamically whenever you press the '>>>' button, or when the automatic Advance Category feature triggers. So there is no fully indexed song data available beyond the end of the currently playing Category, and Max is concerned that building such a list "on the fly" could become quite a time-consuming task, especially with very large libraries.
3. Even if such a full library playback index were available, remember that it would only be a fixed reflection of the currently playing Category mode, based on your various List Options sort settings. Basically just a preview at what would happen if you kept pressing '>>' until you ran out of songs. It would not be a freely editable list. It should be easy enough to allow skipping to a different position within that fixed preview list though.
4. If you do want fully editable functionality, that is already available if you use the Queue instead of using regular, Category-ordered, playback. That's what it's there for. You can see the full planned playback order in the Queue and move songs around to your heart's content,

Andre

[lautmaler]

Hi everyone, 

Sorry the thread is long so I did not read it fully, but I will add my two cents here. If I am repeating someone, consider it a +1 or ignore me. 

My issue is, I am mostly an album listener and adding an album to the queue every time I listen to something is an extra annoying step. But if I am mid way of an album when I decide that whenever the album finishes I want to listen something else, I can't be helped! The queue buttom will add the new song to the queue and play the queue immediately, breaking my album. The play next buttom will play it next (breaking my album) to then next keep on going with the album. 

To me it feels that this "playing context" (to avoid calling it playing now) is obscure and confusing. My suggestion would be:
Make the queue default. Whenever you click on play something it would be added to the queue, resetting it if not empty. Then the buttons "queue" and "play next" will be clear: "queue" adds something to the bottom, "play next" to the top (of the queue).

I know, this would be making the queue to work as those playing now on other apps but, what is the use case in which it should be otherwise? Isn't the playing now in other apps exactly some kind of ad hoc playlist?

Does this make any sense?

BR

[andrewilley]

@lautmaler When you add something new to the Queue using the '>>Queue' button, you can use long-press to change its functionality so that the new stuff is added either at the end of the queue (by default, so it only gets played after the currently queue content is finished) or Shuffled within the existing queued content. You can also use the adjacent 'Play Next' button, which is actually a bit of a historical misnomer now as all it really means is 'Insert at Start of Queue', which really belongs as a third '>>Queue' option instead (in the same way that the updated '+Playlist' button works).

Better though, if you are listening by Albums then don't use the queue at all, use the Artists>Albums category. In Poweramp, unlike some other apps, the Queue is not designed as a primary listening mode, but a way to temporarily jump away from your current album/folder/etc to listen to a few different songs (or even a whole albums) and then return you back to regular listening afterwards, exactly where you left off. 

There has been some discussion about implementing a 'Queue Only' option in Poweramp, and there are some parts of that already available, but such an option would remove a lot of functionality (e.g. the Repeat and Shuffle icons could only work on the whole Queue, not on any individual albums, as they album grouping ceases to exist once the individual songs have been added into the Queue). Explore some of the options in Settings=>Library=>Queue, along with Settings=>Library=>Lists=>List Item Click Action (set it to 'Enqueue and stay in list').

Andre

[lautmaler]

@andrewilley Thanks for your reply. 

Honestly, I am new and the settings of Poweramp are a bit overwhelming. 

I am toying around your suggestions. I see that "enqueue and stay in list" would break the possibility of changing what I am listening to by just tapping something new. However the Library>Queue>After current category/etc seems to make it work as I like. Thanks!

[nowhere]

I was just wondering if this now playing queue is on the to do list of the devs or its just off the table currently?

I think this is the very basic of the basic things about a music player. I was surprised to see that Poweramp which is very overpowered is lacking such a basic thing. The idea for now playing queue is to remove the songs in the queue which you don't want to listen, currently queue feature can add what songs you want to listen but now playinf queue is important for the songs that we don't want to listen say for the next 15 songs which are going to play 

[andrewilley]

5 hours ago, nowhere said:

The idea for now playing queue is to remove the songs in the queue which you don't want to listen, currently queue feature can add what songs you want to listen [...]

You can already remove items (including multi-selections) from the Queue just as easily as you can add them.

 

What you can't do (and are unlikely to be able to in the near future) is remove or insert odd items during Category-based playback. The whole point of that method is that you have chosen to listen to a folder, an artist, an album, a genre, etc. So moving "Dancing Queen" into 1964, or the middle of Heavy Metal, just wouldn't make any logical or programatical sense.

For that sort of listening, use the Queue (or a playlist) which can contain whatever you want, in whatever order you want. It's completely flexible.

Andre

[veinheiker]

Hello everyone. i came to this post because i am just new to Poweramp and i was looking for the playlist option. i thought it was me not finding the option but i see that it is missing in Poweramp. i think this option is very necessary, both to see and reorder the songs that are about to play and to see the history of what has been played.

[andrewilley]

@veinheiker This is a very regularly requested feature, and actually tops the Voting list at the moment, but you can add your voice here:

Note that if it does get implemented, it would be a passive list not an active one - i.e. it would show you the whole forward-planned order and history, and you could skip to a different position in that planned playback sequence, but not change/edit/reorder the sequence. This is because Poweramp organises its playback ordering based on the Category that the user has chosen, at each Category has its own user-defined sorting order. So for example, if you are listening by 'Years', then songs from 2010 will be followed by songs from 2011, 2012, 2103, etc. Clearly in that sort of sequence, you can't suddenly move a random 1980 song into the middle of 2012, the whole structure would be broken.

You can however use the Queue system to create an editable playback order, enqueuing songs or even whole categories (albums, folder, etc) at a time. That Queue can then be manipulated however you want, songs moved around, etc. It's like a temporary Playlist which you can adjust as you want.

Andre