Page 1 of 1

Feature: More Intuitive Playlist Creation

New postPosted: Fri Apr 23, 2010 3:31 pm
by Feature Bot
User therealjoeblow submitted the following feature request:

More Intuitive Playlist Creation

Vote for your favorite features

More Intuitive Playlist Creation

New postPosted: Fri Apr 23, 2010 3:31 pm
by therealjoeblow
Granted I'm a new user with only a couple of hours of testing, but I can't seem to find any "intuitive" way of creating Playlists, my main focus is for audiobook listening, but it could also be for off-line podcast management.

I have a folder structure on my SD Card as follows:

Audiobooks
-->Title of Book
-->>File01.mp3
-->>File02.mp3
-->>Etc...

Now when I want to create a playlist specifically for these files (and not add to the default or current PL), the only way I've found is *not* very user friendly: I have to do the following series of convoluted steps:

1) go to the main screen
2) select "Show Playlist" from the menu
3) click menu button, scroll *way* down, select "Add Playlist"
4) Manually type in the name for my playlist (could be lengthy and cumbersome if the name of the book is long)
5) Save the (empty) playlist
6) make sure I remember to switch to the new playlist now before going further, otherwise I'll be in the wrong one
6) Now exit back to the main screen
7) navigate to my files with "Browse Other Files"
8) Find the folder I want, click Menu, and then "Add to Playlist"
9) Navigate *back* to the playlists to play the files

My goodness, that's punishing!

This could *all* be easier if you would add 2 features to the Menu that would automate most of this when I'm already at step (8) as noted above) (IE, I'm already browsing the files/folders):

1) Menu..."Create NEW Playlist" (when clicked on the FOLDER, and that would create a new PL named with the folder's name, automagically)

and, to simplify playing of that playlist, a subtle option would be:

2) Menu..."Create NEW Playlist and PLAY When Done" (same as above, but it auto loads and plays once created)

Much simpler, unless I missed something and just found the convoluted way about it by accident.

Cheers
The REAL Joe

Re: Feature: More Intuitive Playlist Creation

New postPosted: Sat Apr 24, 2010 6:59 am
by arkolbus
I'm not disagreeing that this would be a great feature. It would be nice to have a quick playlist function. However, it seems that new feature development is on hold while Marcus prepares the Android version of PT.

In the meantime, here are some keyboard shortcuts that may speed things up for you:

(B) will take you to the bottom of the screen ("Browse other files" on the main screen)
(A) will add the selected item to the active playlist
(Alt+A) will add the selected item to the playlist of your choosing
(N) will take you to active playlist. Once you are at the playlist screen, (N) again will allow you to activate a different playlist.

Not sure what your listening style is, but I usually finish an audiobook before starting a new one. I just have one "Audiobook" playlist that I queue a few books into, rather than create a new playlist for each book. Just make sure auto-sort is off.

Re: Feature: More Intuitive Playlist Creation

New postPosted: Mon Apr 26, 2010 8:44 am
by marwatk
What I should do is have a 'New Playlist' option for alt+a that has a 'switch to this new playlist' checkbox when asking for the name. Would that work?

-Marcus

Re: Feature: More Intuitive Playlist Creation

New postPosted: Mon Apr 26, 2010 9:01 am
by therealjoeblow
That would work.

Also, though, automagically filling in the playlist name from the folder name would be a huge benefit (so you wouldn't have to type in "Terry Brooks - Magic Kingdom For Sale, Sold" or something like that when creating a new playlist and the folder already reads as such.)

Cheers
The REAL Joe