Dynamic Playlist Support

[seffparker]

I would like to have the Dynamic playlist feature in Poweramp, that I really miss after migrated from Rocket Player.

Dynamic Playlists consists of user defined criterias based on the tag values and other properties.

A simple example is:

year ≥ 2020 AND genre=pop AND genre ≠ hiphop SORT BY recently-added LIMIT BY 50

This feature help us to automatically update the playlist when adding new songs to the local library. Rocket Player has implemented this feature very well.

[flyingdutchman]

@Shafeer Painkal this is a feature i recently added to New Playlist Manager. It has the query builder where you link the query to a playlist. and an option to update those playlists.

[seffparker]

@flyingdutchman thanks for your reply.

May I have more information or a guide on how to achieve this in Poweramp?

[seffparker]

On 9/2/2021 at 11:09 AM, flyingdutchman said:

@Shafeer Painkal this is a feature i recently added to New Playlist Manager. It has the query builder where you link the query to a playlist. and an option to update those playlists.

I believe you are referring to https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.flyingdutchman.newplaylistmanager

[flyingdutchman]

@Shafeer Painkal correct. Email me if you have further questions

[andrewilley]

I agree that dynamic ("smart") playlists within the main app would be a nice idea.

In fact, it rather fits in with a previous suggestion of mine for user-customised Categories (https://forum.powerampapp.com/topic/16878-more-all-songs-list-arranging-options/?do=findComment&comment=72598). It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to add some sort of 'Filter' List Option - for example Year >= 2020 | Genre != HipHop | Limit Results = 50

Andre

 

[flyingdutchman]

@andrewilley you can build your own queries using my tool

[John Titor]

11 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

I agree that dynamic ("smart") playlists within the main app would be a nice idea.

Yeah I was actually thinking of suggesting a feature like how Spotify automatically creates playlists/mixes based on listening habits 🎧

[andrewilley]

5 minutes ago, John Titor said:

Yeah I was actually thinking of suggesting a feature like how Spotify automatically creates playlists/mixes based on listening habits 🎧

I think that would require a degree of audio analysis that's beyond a local music player - and besides, all that would happen in my case is it would decide that my type of music is, well, my whole music collection.   

Andre

[andrewilley]

13 minutes ago, flyingdutchman said:

@andrewilley you can build your own queries using my tool

But that's still an external step - albeit a very good and powerful one. But it still requires the user to exit PA to build a new fixed list rather, than the list being dynamic within the core app and adjusting itself as your music collection changes.

Andre

[flyingdutchman]

@andrewilley i am slightly puzzled by user insistance on core app functionality and the apparent willingness to forego additional features if they are not in the main app. In android, apps are "running" most of the time and switching is just 2 taps, probably the same "effort" as selecting this option in Poweramp should it be available. The notion you would need to exit Poweramp is false. As you know my app creates playlists directly in Poweramp so you could see npm as an extension rather than a separate app. By the same token, user do not use Poweramp as their main mp3 editor, they use an external app which does the job a little better.

Although these npm smart playlists do not react and update on changes by themselves, i have recently provided an option to update  them so one click will suffice to update all your smart playlists. (No doubt this process could be triggered by some event)

 

[John Titor]

9 hours ago, andrewilley said:

I think that would require a degree of audio analysis that's beyond a local music player

Well I was thinking of an "autoplay"  feature, like in Spotify, after a playlist reaches an end, a mix of most played songs/ or of tagged similar genres, gets queued immediately, for a continuous playback experience.

As for more complex and relevant suggestions/analysis, I think it could fetch song suggestions from last.fm or such sites, and query local file database to see if those suggestions are available for playback.

 

[Mark89]

On 9/4/2021 at 9:38 AM, andrewilley said:

I agree that dynamic ("smart") playlists within the main app would be a nice idea.

Andre

Can we expect "Dynamic/Smart playlist" feauture soon?

To be honest, all I need is auto-update playlist. 

For example, I choose folder "Rock music" as a playlist and everytime I add new song to that folder (by file-explorer app or PC) Poweramp auto-update that playlist. That way I dont have to manual add new songs to playlists.

Maybe I'm wrong but it doesnt require hard coding since every info you can pull out from existing android library.

Rocket player and PlayerPro are  great examples how "Dynamic/Smart playlist" should look like. I'm not able to post screenshots but check out their concept.

And I'm sorry but @flyingdutchman everytime comes up with his app but that app is not solution here. Why would I pay two apps? Besides, I need Dynamic playlist not a fixed one.

Thanks
 

[MotleyG]

5 minutes ago, Mark89 said:

And I'm sorry but @flyingdutchman everytime comes up with his app but that app is not solution here. Why would I pay two apps?

How many apps are are your phone already? Why pay for two - is because what you want doesn't exist in these ones. At least not currently.

[Mark89]

23 minutes ago, MotleyG said:

How many apps are are your phone already? Why pay for two - is because what you want doesn't exist in these ones. At least not currently.

Too many

Ok, fair point but his app wouldnt help much since it doesnt provide dynamic/smart playlist. 

I'm sure there is great audience for this feature. But all in all, it's a fact that "Dynamic/smart playlist" is now days common thing in audio players. So I was just wondering can we expect this feature. 

 

Thanks.

 

[flyingdutchman]

@Mark89 sorry to butt in again but i did develop dynamic playlists. You build a smart query playlist, link that to a playlist, you can either initiate an update of all your smart playlists or set it so it checks on startup. On the issue of having to pay for another, if we follow your train of thought, max should build all those different skins too

[Mark89]

1 hour ago, flyingdutchman said:

@Mark89 sorry to butt in again but i did develop dynamic playlists.

Ok. I tried your app few years ago and I didnt find what I was looking for. In this screenshot of yours I dont see option like "file path - contains". I need only that option so I can make "live" folder playlist. 

For example "file path - contains = /Rock&Roll/" and all songs from that /Rock&Roll/ folder would appear in that playlist and it would autoupdate with every new song added.

 

1 hour ago, flyingdutchman said:

@Mark89On the issue of having to pay for another, if we follow your train of thought, max should build all those different skins too

That's not my point, but ok. 

My point is that "smart playlist" is something that best android audio player on market, should have.

 

[andrewilley]

 

2 hours ago, Mark89 said:

all songs from that /Rock&Roll/ folder would appear in that playlist and it would autoupdate with every new song added.

If all you want to do is play the contents of a folder and all its subfolders, just view your 'Rock&Roll' folder in the 'Folders Hierarchy' category and press either the 'Play' or 'Shuffle' icons (whichever you prefer) at the top of the screen.

If you want a completely random shuffle with each song picked from any of the subfolders, enable Settings > Library > Lists> Shuffle All Songs in Folders Hierarchy. Otherwise it will go through the subfolders one at a time.

Andre

[Mark89]

10 hours ago, andrewilley said:

 

If all you want to do is play the contents of a folder and all its subfolders, just view your 'Rock&Roll' folder in the 'Folders Hierarchy' category and press either the 'Play' or 'Shuffle' icons (whichever you prefer) at the top of the screen.

Andre

Thanks.

So if I want dynamic playlist of some folder, I should go to folder hierarchy, set sort by "date added to Library" and voila, dynamic playlist? 

Then if I want to see other regular folder I must set sort by "title" cause that's how i prefer. And everytime I must switch from date added to title sort...

You see how that is complicated?

Besides, when it comes to dynamic playlist, I prefer list instead of showing subfolders. 

 

Anyway, I dont want to be boring but I think you guys understood what I was asking for. And I hope that there is a chance in near future for implementing Dynamic/Smart playlist to PA, cause that would make happy not just me but other users as well.

 

Thanks.

[andrewilley]

Just offering a possible work-around, no need to change any sort orders if you don't want to. I too use flat folder lists most of the time, but if I was going to make the effort to change to the 'Playlists' library category to find a list then it's just as easy to change to 'Folders Hierarchy' instead and tap on a high level folder name and listen to its subfolders. I do that quite a bit when I want to just listen to random music (in my 'Music' folder and its subfolders) and avoid film scores, radio plays, podcasts, audiobooks, etc. which all have their own separate folder hierarchies. 

Probably don't expect sophisticated dynamic/smart playlists in the short term though, variations of this thread have popped up in Feature Requests for a number of years now.

Andre

[flyingdutchman]

For what it is worth, I have added the path as a criteria to use when creating smart playlists so you can create your own dynamic playlists based on folder locations.

One more contribution from me on having to pay for "yet another" app, 

1. functionality other than basic functions, that should be in an app, is a personal opinion

2. different/competing products in the market place are the result of differentiation. Each tries to gain market share by offering something different/unique

by extension, if you like something in other players like Rocket player and PlayerPro do you then contact those developers with for instance the fact that they should at least have the same sound quality or equaliser functionality as Poweramp ( differentiators imho), as quality of sound is something you would expect in a music player

[andrewilley]

One really simple addition to playlists could be wildcards and/or open folder paths, within the existing format. Would need to be path-anchored (either relative or absolute) though rather than the current method of matching exact filename and containing folder pairs.

Foobar2000 for example supports M3U files with open path descriptors. For example this would include any content within the New Pure Moods folder on my NAS:

\\DiskStation\Music\Moods Collections\New Pure Moods\

And maybe there could be some way to support wildcards in playlist files - such as picking any Vangelis tracks from my Moods subfolders, or only including FLAC files: 

\Music\Moods Collections\*Vangelis*
\Music\*.flac

Andre

[Mark89]

3 hours ago, andrewilley said:

Just offering a possible work-around, no need to change any sort orders if you don't want to.

Well that's my point. I need to change sort to Date added in order to have new added songs on top of the list. That's the reason I would like to have Smart playlist so I wouldnt needed to change sort parameter everytime. I'd like to have nice preview of my music library, recent songs, separate from folder fixed parameters. For that reason I don't see your work-around as suiting. But thanks.

Some people mention BPM tag, that would be nice too for Dynamic/Smart playlist. And many other things could be useful with smart playlist feature. 

3 hours ago, andrewilley said:

Probably don't expect sophisticated dynamic/smart playlists in the short term though, variations of this thread have popped up in Feature Requests for a number of years now.

Andre

I'm sad to hear that but also glad to hear that people frequently ask for Dynamic/Smart playlist. That means there is audience for this feature.

 

3 hours ago, flyingdutchman said:

For what it is worth, I have added the path as a criteria to use when creating smart playlists so you can create your own dynamic playlists based on folder location.

Cool! Maybe I'll try this. It certainly helps me to achieve what I need. Thank you.

 

3 hours ago, flyingdutchman said:

if you like something in other players like Rocket player and PlayerPro do you then contact those developers with for instance the fact that they should at least have the same sound quality or equaliser functionality as Poweramp ( differentiators imho), as quality of sound is something you would expect in a music player

If you believe me, yes. I contacted developer of PlayerPro and also other audio player developers with questions about improving their sound quality. So far, developer of Musicolet app heard me and he improved equalizer. 

As far as I know, developers like to hear suggestions, ideas... and some of them reply. 

Little off-topic but, this section of forum should be valuable to PA development cause people, most of the time, leave great ideas. For example I saw someone asked here about A-B repeat option years ago, and yet there is no implement. Max responded and agreed but nothing so far. It's a shame. I see that he's working hard, maybe doesnt have time, but at least listen to people ideas here. We want strong PA, nothing more. We are grateful for great job so far.

Sorry if I' sound little picky but no bad intentions 

[andrewilley]

1 hour ago, Mark89 said:

For example I saw someone asked here about A-B repeat option years ago

That one does go back just a little while, yes....

Andre

[seffparker]

Could we get the status of the feature request? Is it still in consideration or not going to be implemented at all?