Feature Suggestion

I just switched to Rhythmbox for managing my playlists. I
previously
used madman (madman.sourceforge.net), but I got tired of
waiting half a
lifetime for updates, and because I don't particularly like
QT. I really
like Rhythmbox for the most part, but there's one feature I
feel would
make a great improvement. This has been mentioned briefly on
the mailing
list, but it was a couple years ago.
I think there should be a way to do Advanced Automatic
Playlists.
Instead of using the default method for creating an
Automatic Playlist,
an Advanced Playlist should be able to use some type of
boolean
expression for more sophisticated playlist generation.
For example, I should be able to type something along the
lines of
"( genre = 'Rock' && rating >= 3) ||
artist ~= 'djpretzel'" to get all
songs that have a genre of rock and a rating of 3 or more OR
whose
artist matches the regex "djpretzel."

One other useful feature would be to save playlists in m3u
format, in
addition to pls, since pls is not as widely supported by
m3u.

-- Dan Jones

_______________________________________________
rhythmbox-devel mailing list
rhythmbox-develgnome.org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/rhythmbox-devel

On Thu, 2006-03-23 at 17:10 -0600, Daniel Jones wrote:
<snip>
> One other useful feature would be to save playlists in
m3u format, in
> addition to pls, since pls is not as widely supported
by m3u.

The playlist parser Rhythmbox uses to save playlists already
supports
saving to m3u (actually, Winamp's EXTM3U), it's just a
matter of adding
a drop-down to select the format. Mind filing a bug about
that one?

James, you could even mark it as gnome-love and not be
really fast about
fixing it ;)

-- 
Bastien Nocera <hadesshadess.net> 

_______________________________________________
rhythmbox-devel mailing list
rhythmbox-develgnome.org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/rhythmbox-devel

On Thu, 2006-03-23 at 17:10 -0600, Daniel Jones wrote:
> I think there should be a way to do Advanced Automatic
Playlists.
> Instead of using the default method for creating an
Automatic Playlist,
> an Advanced Playlist should be able to use some type of
boolean
> expression for more sophisticated playlist generation.
> For example, I should be able to type something along
the lines of
> "( genre = 'Rock' && rating >= 3) ||
artist ~= 'djpretzel'" to get all
> songs that have a genre of rock and a rating of 3 or
more OR whose
> artist matches the regex "djpretzel."

The database and playlist layers already (almost[0])
supports that. The
problem is that there isn't any UI for it.

Bug 320243[1] has a copy of the patch that Gabriel de
Perthuis wrote
almost a year ago to do boolean expressions in the search
box. It
shouldn't be too hard to turn this into a auto-playlist
editor. Sounds
like a good plugin.


[0] we don't have regexps, but we have full boolean
expressions
[1]http
://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=320243

> One other useful feature would be to save playlists in
m3u format, in
> addition to pls, since pls is not as widely supported
by m3u.

As Bastien mentioned, this would be fairly easy to do. It's
already been
filed as bug 316295[2], and I've made some comments on it,
about how
someone would implement it.

[2] http
://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=316295


Cheers,

James "Doc" Livingston
-- 
Died. Woke up in Hell. Punched in PIN, logged on. Just
another day."
    -- David Gerard

_______________________________________________
rhythmbox-devel mailing list
rhythmbox-develgnome.org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/rhythmbox-devel

On Fri, 24 Mar 2006 12:35:03 +1100
"James \"Doc\" Livingston"
<doclivingstongmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 2006-03-23 at 17:10 -0600, Daniel Jones wrote:
<snip>
> > For example, I should be able to type something
along the lines of
> > "( genre = 'Rock' && rating >=
3) || artist ~= 'djpretzel'" to get
> > all songs that have a genre of rock and a rating
of 3 or more OR
> > whose artist matches the regex
"djpretzel."
> 
> Bug 320243[1] has a copy of the patch that Gabriel de
Perthuis wrote
> almost a year ago to do boolean expressions in the
search box. 
>
> [1]http
://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=320243

Which brings an idea to mind that I think was mentioned here
some
while back: How about adding a button, that saves the
current search
result (including browser-selection filters) as an Automatic
Playlist?
Of course, that would require the Automatic Playlists to be
able to do
everything that the search box does. But if I do a search
(for example
for 'MTV' and cut it down to my favourite artists by
selecting them in
the browser) and I like the results, that button may come in
handy.
UI-wise, the button could be located on the far right-hand
side of the
search-bar.

Just jumped into my mind.
-karsten

-- 
/"\
\ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
 X   against HTML email & vCards
/ \   Visit http://arc.pasp.de/
_______________________________________________
rhythmbox-devel mailing list
rhythmbox-develgnome.org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/rhythmbox-devel

On Fri, 2006-03-24 at 09:07 +0100, Karsten Schmiedecke
wrote:
> Which brings an idea to mind that I think was mentioned
here some
> while back: How about adding a button, that saves the
current search
> result (including browser-selection filters) as an
Automatic Playlist?
> Of course, that would require the Automatic Playlists
to be able to do
> everything that the search box does. But if I do a
search (for example
> for 'MTV' and cut it down to my favourite artists by
selecting them in
> the browser) and I like the results, that button may
come in handy.
> UI-wise, the button could be located on the far
right-hand side of the
> search-bar.

Automatic playlists can already do anything the search box
can (they can
do anything the db can). The problem is that the auto
playlist editor
can't - so you could create playlists you can't edit.

If we got a auto playlist editor that could edit those kinds
of things,
it would be fairly easy to add. I think that being able to
create
playlists you can't edit would be kind of odd.


Cheers,

James "Doc" Livingston
-- 
Every fleeting thought you've ever had in your life, no
matter how
bizarre, is someone's lifelong obsession. And he has a
website.
    -- Skif's Internet Theorem

_______________________________________________
rhythmbox-devel mailing list
rhythmbox-develgnome.org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/rhythmbox-devel

On Sat, 25 Mar 2006 00:10:37 +1100
"James \"Doc\" Livingston"
<doclivingstongmail.com> wrote:

> Automatic playlists can already do anything the search
box can (they
> can do anything the db can). The problem is that the
auto playlist
> editor can't - so you could create playlists you
can't edit.
> 
> If we got a auto playlist editor that could edit those
kinds of
> things, it would be fairly easy to add. I think that
being able to
> create playlists you can't edit would be kind of odd.

Makes sense. Then how about simply adding an
"advanced" button to the
Automatic Playlist Editor, that opens a text-entry box where
you can
type in (or edit) your complete boolean expression? Not
having dug into
the Rhythmbox code yet, I'm _assuming_ that should be
fairly easy. 

On the other hand, there could be an option to "edit
using search box
and browser". When choosing this, the search box and
browser would be
automatically set to the values they were set to when
creating the
playlist (possibly changing the "save as
auto-playlist" button to a
simple "save" and adding a "cancel"
button to revert to the state
before clicking "edit") and you could then
change those settings.

-karsten

-- 
/"\
\ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
 X   against HTML email & vCards
/ \   Visit http://arc.pasp.de/
_______________________________________________
rhythmbox-devel mailing list
rhythmbox-develgnome.org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/rhythmbox-devel