More / better Shuffle settings and Chromecast redesign

[xunsympathischx]

I‘m a new user to Poweramp and really like the app so far. I have two Ideas for features that I think would be useful.

Firstly, I think there should be a way to only play certain albums in full when shuffling a playlist. I know there is the ‚Shuffle by Categories‘ setting, but it doesn‘t doesn‘t really do what I am looking for. I don‘t want to play every 20+ song album to play in order but just certain ones that I chose beforehand. For example, if I choose one album that has 12 songs to play from front to back, it always starts at the first song, plays the full album, and returns to the normal, shuffled playlist. Songs from an album that wasn‘t chosen would just play as with the ‚Shuffle Songs‘ setting enabled. Hopefully I could explain it so it was understandable.

 

Secondly, I think the Chromecast UI is vastly inferior to the regular in-app design. I think that ‚copying‘ the design from the landscape mode from the app (with slight adjustments for bigger screens like TVs) would make for a much more beautiful interface that fits the design of the mobile version.

Thanks for any answers.

[andrewilley]

Playlists are just a collection of individual songs, there is no structure to them beyond the order you have chosen for them. You could enqueue several specific albums into the temporary Queue to play them before returning to normal playback.

Andre

[xunsympathischx]

@andrewilley  Sorry, I think I formulated my idea unfortunately in the post. What I meant is just: Keep the 'Shuffle Categories' setting as is, but with the ability to exclude certain Categories (or albums) from being played in order.

[andrewilley]

So when you are shuffling (for example) the Albums category, you would like to be able to define certain albums so they never get included in the shuffle. For example you may perhaps have some audiobooks that you would never want to come up in a music shuffling session. That sort of thing?

Andre

[MotleyG]

3 hours ago, andrewilley said:

So when you are shuffling (for example) the Albums category, you would like to be able to define certain albums so they never get included in the shuffle. For example you may perhaps have some audiobooks that you would never want to come up in a music shuffling session. That sort of thing?

Andre

@andrewilley I take it from the OP that when in Shuffle mode, sometimes a song comes up that should be part of a pair of tracks or even an entire album of tracks that are normally part of a complete movement. Think Queen’s Bicycle Race/Fat Bottomed Girls (too soon?), The Beatles most of side 2 of Abbey Road, or the entire Pink Floyd album The Wall. Some tracks are just meant to be heard in order and played back to back. 
 

@xunsympathischx There currently is no option in Poweramp to “Link” specific tracks together during shuffle playback. But it would be great if someday this feature could exist. There are some desktop apps I know do this now, MusicBee and Foobar2000. Maybe this can be added to the wish list?

Edited August 28, 2023 by MotleyG

[xunsympathischx]

@MotleyG Yes, that is exactly what I meant.

I understand it is probably not something a lot of people would be using, but I thought it would be worth the suggestion.

 

Also sorry for my horrible english, it is not my first language and I seem to have some problems conveying my thoughts.

[andrewilley]

Ah, I understand now. Yes, this has been requested in the past in fact, to somehow define certain groups of tracks so they are never shuffled during playback (e.g. "War of the Worlds" forms a complete story that should not be played back in a different order, even if you have Shuffle Songs enabled).

Andre