OTF playlists...

[skiflyer]

I'm a bit confused about playlists... can I or can I not make a playlist on the player on the fly containing any number of randomly picked songs...

I can't seem to manage it and the doc section on playlists is less than enlightening.

[edil]

Originally Posted by skiflyer

I'm a bit confused about playlists... can I or can I not make a playlist on the player on the fly containing any number of randomly picked songs...

I can't seem to manage it and the doc section on playlists is less than enlightening.

I don't know what DAP you are using but if it is the H1X0 I suggest using Pilot's build (http://homepage.sunrise.ch/mysunrise...l/rockbox.html), it contains patches that will give you more control managing playlists.

Yes you can create OTF playlists. Creation of playlists will be easier if you have your tracks properly distributed in an organized directory/file structure. Having your files properly “tagged” will also give you an advantage creating playlists when using the ID3 database mode.

Suppose you have the following:


Music_
|.............\_G_
|................... ...\_Great Expectations Soundtrack_
|................... .................... .................... .................... ...\_(Tori Amos)Finn(Intro)
|_____
|........... \_V_
|................... ..\_Vangelis_
|................... .................... ...\_Voices_
|................... .................... .................... .\_(Steina Nordenstam)Ask The Mountains
|_____
............\_W_
.................... ..\_Wicker Park Soundtrack_
.................... .................... .................... ..........\_(plusmin us)All I do

1)For this example click the A-B button and be sure to have the “Show Files Option” in “supported mode”.
2)Go to the first directory “Music\G\Great Expectations Soundtrack” and highlight the file first file, (Tori Amos)Finn(Intro).
3)Click and hold the joystick or navi button until you get into the playlist options menu.
4)Highligth and click “Playlist” and then “insert”. That track will be inserted in what is call the “dynamic playlist” and will start playing.
5)Quick press and release the joystick or navi button to get back to the directory tree and repeat steps 2,3 and 4 for the second file. If done correctly you will have the second track “Ask The Mountains” added to the dynamic playlist except that the track will not start playing until the first one finishes.
6)Repeat step 5 to add the third and last track.

You are done but you don’t want to repeat all that again right? Then you have to save the contents of “dynamic playlist” into a file:

1)Press and hold the joystick or navi button.
2)Select Playlist and then select save current playlist.
3)Enter the name for the playlist for this case lets call it… I don’t know… “ethereal_voices.m3u ” You have to be sure to end the file name with .m3u, if not Rockbox will not recognize it as a playlist file.

Even if you want to add 20 tracks I suggest saving the playlist often in case you make a mistake while selecting files.

Want to see you playlist?

1)Press and hold the joystick or navi button.
2)Select Playlist and then “View Current Playlist”.
3)You should see all the tracks.

That was a very brief description on how to create playlists you have to practice a little until you can master playlist creation. I hope you find this helpful. Try also using the forum's search tool, you will find many posts much better than mine. Now go and try creating your first playlist if you have problems ask again and I will try to help.

[Febs]

Originally Posted by skiflyer

I'm a bit confused about playlists... can I or can I not make a playlist on the player on the fly containing any number of randomly picked songs...

I can't seem to manage it and the doc section on playlists is less than enlightening.

1. What trouble do you have with the documentation?

2. What do you mean by "any number of randomly picked songs"?

[skiflyer]

edil, wow thanks for the informative post... haven't had a chance to digest it all yet, but am looking foward to doing that tomorrow... and yes, it's perfect I have the h140.

febs, I don't have a problem with the documentation... it's just a bit sparse and assumes a familarity with the rockbox layout I don't have... i.e. edil telling me to press the joystick navi down to get to the menu is useful to me because that's new to me... and I just mean say I want to make a 5 song playlist out of 5 songs in totally different folders.

[DD]

Originally Posted by edil

Even if you want to add 20 tracks I suggest saving the playlist often in case you make a mistake while selecting files.

Not really, because you can edit, move and delete entries in the OTF-playlist On-The-Fly. Just view the playlist, highlight a track and hold NAVI to see all the options (move position in playlist, delete, etc).

However I do suggest turning on "Warn when overwriting dynamic playlist" (in playlist options) because otherwise if you accidentally select a track normally it overwrites the OTF-playlist, but with this option on it says "are you sure" first and so prevents accidentally loosing your OTF-playlist.

[Febs]

Originally Posted by skiflyer

febs, I don't have a problem with the documentation... it's just a bit sparse and assumes a familarity with the rockbox layout I don't have... i.e. edil telling me to press the joystick navi down to get to the menu is useful to me because that's new to me...

Are you working with the PDF manual that is available from "Documentation" section of the Rockbox website? Or something else?

If you're working with the PDF, Section 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 both tell you how to get into the File Menu. Section 2.2.3 tells you how to use the Playlist submenu one you're there.

If this is what you are working with, let me know. I have been contemplating consolidating all of the separate playlist functions from the various menus into a "working with playlists" chapter, which I think would address the issue that you are having.

If you're not working with the PDF manual, check out the PDF manual here: http://download.rockbox.org/manual/r...0-20060625.pdf, and let me know if that would have answered your question.

Thanks. Feedback about the documentation from new users is very helpful to us.

[skiflyer]

Febs... yeah working with the PDF manual, and you're right it's all there, it was just a bit much for me after 30 minutes of otherwise reading through the manual to familarize myself with the thing.

I think an addendum for walkthroughs would be really neat like...
1) Build your first OTF playlist
2) How to shuffle all songs on your player
3) How to make an omellete using only your RockBox enabled player and duct tape

I know all the info is in the manual, but sometimes it's a little intimidating to pull up a 100+ pages to figure out why shuffle all didn't shuffle all my songs (yes, I found the note on this, but my point stands)