Customize shuffle button behaviour in library

[hrolf1713]

I discussed that matter on another topic a long time ago, and I still think the behaviour of the shuffle button in the library is an aberration in terms of logic.

In whatever category I am in the library, pressing the shuffle button at the top always activate "Shuffle songs and categories". For me, this is a flaw and I think the behaviour of the button should at least be coherent with the category. Because when I'm in the Album category, I would like to Shuffle Categories. Same with Artists. But when I display an album, I would like to shuffle that album only, meaning "Shuffle songs".

I think it would benefit to have an option to customize the behaviour of this button. Because as is, the shuffle button in the library is completely useless, as I always have to change it in the now playing screen anyway.

[andrewilley]

I think Max said a while back that he does plan to create a long-press option for the Shuffle icon at the top of lists. But for now, it does seem to do what it says on the tin - e.g. in Albums mode, it plays all of the songs in the selected album in random order, then (if Repeat is set to 'advance' mode) it picks another album at random and plays that shuffled. If you want to stop at the end of the current album, turn Repeat Off.

Personally I never touch the Play or Shuffle icon in the library views at all though. I prefer to select my Shuffle and Repeat needs within the player screen, and just leave them set the way I like them. To ensure my preferences are retained, I start new playback sessions by tapping on a song, not the icons.

Andre

[MotleyG]

2 hours ago, andrewilley said:

Personally I never touch the Play or Shuffle icon in the library views at all though. I prefer to select my Shuffle and Repeat needs within the player screen, and just leave them set the way I like them.

@andrewilley respectfully this is fine for how PA works in your case, especially since you currently don't use those buttons. But @hrolf1713 has a very good point. These header buttons should correspond to the current active list. I believe the play button does already. But the shuffle button doesn't always work as expected. It's function should change depending on if the active list is genre, album, artist/albumartist, composer, etc. and acting only that list. The repeat function shouldn't change from the current selection whether it be the play or shuffle header button that is pressed. My 2¢ at least.

[andrewilley]

2 hours ago, MotleyG said:

The repeat function shouldn't change from the current selection whether it be the play or shuffle header button that is pressed. My 2¢ at least.

So you are saying that tapping the 'Shuffle' or 'Play' icons within (for example) a given Album view should play only that album's songs (either in order or shuffled) and then stop? i.e. Repeat mode should get changed from 'Advance List' to 'Repeat Off'. Or maybe setting it to 'Repeat Category' might be better, so it continues to play the chosen album indefinitely?

 Andre

[MotleyG]

5 hours ago, andrewilley said:

So you are saying that tapping the 'Shuffle' or 'Play' icons within (for example) a given Album view should play only that album's songs (either in order or shuffled) and then stop? i.e. Repeat mode should get changed from 'Advance List' to 'Repeat Off'. Or maybe setting it to 'Repeat Category' might be better, so it continues to play the chosen album indefinitely?

 Andre

Just that the repeat function already selected should stay that way. I see no reason why using the play or shuffle header button should change your repeat preference.

[andrewilley]

45 minutes ago, MotleyG said:

Just that the repeat function already selected should stay that way. 

Repeat can be set to Play One Song, Repeat One Song, Repeat Category, Advance Category (i.e. the default PA playback mode) or Off (stop after current category). These selections do stay in place if you start playback by clicking directly on a song, but if you just use the Play icon to start playing an album, presumably you won't want it to continue to use Repeat One Song mode for example?

Anyway, as I said before, I believe Max is planning to add some options to the Play and Shuffle buttons anyway - I'm just offering the correct way to do what you want within the current versions of the app.

Andre

[hrolf1713]

On 6/14/2020 at 7:17 PM, andrewilley said:

So you are saying that tapping the 'Shuffle' or 'Play' icons within (for example) a given Album view should play only that album's songs (either in order or shuffled) and then stop?

No. Forget the repeat option, that's not what we're talking about. 

My point is that when you press the shuffle button at the top of a list, the activated shuffle mode is ALWAYS "songs and categories" no matter if you're in the albums list, or the artists list, or the all songs list, in the library. But if for example I press the shuffle button at the top of the album list in the library, I find no reason that it shuffles "songs and categories". It would be more coherent that it shuffles categories only. 

[andrewilley]

13 minutes ago, hrolf1713 said:

My point is that when you press the shuffle button at the top of a list, the activated shuffle mode is ALWAYS "songs and categories" no matter if you're in the albums list, or the artists list, or the all songs list, in the library.

If you press Shuffle when viewing the Albums category, it will do what you have asked - i.e. randomly play the songs of those albums in a randomised order. After one album is finished, it will then pick a new album at random and play that in randomised order, until all albums have been shuffled/played. The same sort of thing would happen if you choose folders, artists, etc. If it shuffled categories only, then the songs within each album would be played in normal order. If you do want that to happen, just tap on a song title rather than using the overall Shuffle icon, and then select 'Shuffle Categories' in the player screen.

Andre

[hrolf1713]

22 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

If you press Shuffle when viewing the Albums category, it will do what you have asked - i.e. randomly play the songs of those albums in a randomised order

Yes, but that's exactly what I DON'T want it to do. My point is exactly that I think it should NOT do that, but it should shuffle only albums and not the songs inside those albums ! That's my whole point: I think that the fact it shuffles categories AND songs no matter what is not coherent. That's why my proposal is to match the behavior of the shuffle button with the viewed category, or at least making the behavior of the shuffle button at the top of lists customizable.

22 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

If you do want that to happen, just tap on a song title rather than using the overall Shuffle icon, and then select 'Shuffle Categories' in the player screen.

Yes, I could do that (and that's what I do), but that's an extra step induced by an arbitrary choice to make the shuffle button always trigger the "shuffle songs and categories" mode. But there are 4 modes, so the user should at least be able to choose what mode the shuffle button should trigger.

If supposing Max is planning to add a long-press option for this button (as you said in your first answer), it would solve that issue (maybe then it should save the last selected mode, so we won't need to long-pess each time when we always use the same mode)

[andrewilley]

I agree that using a long-press shuffle selector (as and when Max implements that feature) should result in the chosen option becoming the default for that category for the next time you tap the icon.

To be honest, I'd like that to happen in the Player screen too: so long-press would allow choosing a new shuffle mode, while single-tap would simply enable/disable that Shuffle. As I almost always use the same shuffle mode, it's a bit long-winded to go cycling through all the options, or choose from a five-item list, every time I just want to turn it on or off. 

Andre

[hrolf1713]

20 hours ago, andrewilley said:

I agree that using a long-press shuffle selector (as and when Max implements that feature) should result in the chosen option becoming the default for that category for the next time you tap the icon.

To be honest, I'd like that to happen in the Player screen too: so long-press would allow choosing a new shuffle mode, while single-tap would simply enable/disable that Shuffle. As I almost always use the same shuffle mode, it's a bit long-winded to go cycling through all the options, or choose from a five-item list, every time I just want to turn it on or off. 

Andre

Completely agree with that!

[GeilerHeinz]

On 6/14/2020 at 4:28 PM, MotleyG said:

[...] But @hrolf1713 has a very good point. These header buttons should correspond to the current active list. I believe the play button does already. But the shuffle button doesn't always work as expected. It's function should change depending on if the active list is genre, album, artist/albumartist, composer, etc. and acting only that list. The repeat function shouldn't change from the current selection whether it be the play or shuffle header button that is pressed. My 2¢ at least.

This enhancement would be great.

Kind regards