Playlist Track Count

[theta_wave]

I don't know about this, as it will add unnecessary visual clutter in my eyes.   I am quite fond of having a clean look to my left panel.

Do you not use podcasts or the inbox?  Track counts appear for those nodes.

I use the inbox but not podcasts.  I still keep Mediamonkey around for the latter, as there are more options to handling podcasts in MM than MB.  I keep around 300+ autoplaylists and the inbox track count is the only one that's currently displayed, something I can live with.  Having all of the track counts appended to all of my autoplaylists will not only add to visual clutter but also may slow down my MB setup since it has to calculate the track count for every autoplaylist.  I mean, look at any autoplaylist file, there's no tracks contained in there, so MB will have to query each one to get the playcount.

[Steven]

but also may slow down my MB setup since it has to calculate the track count for every autoplaylist.  I mean, look at any autoplaylist file, there's no tracks contained in there, so MB will have to query each one to get the playcount.

thats exactly the issue, and redo the query every time you add/delete or even modify or play a file.
I guess having a per playlist setting might be an acceptable compromise or would showing the count when mouse hovering over the playlist work?

[phred]

I guess having a per playlist setting might be an acceptable compromise or would showing the count when mouse hovering over the playlist work?

I fully understand the issues with MB having to recalculate the count on modifications, etc.  For me, showing the count on the mouse hover would be wonderful.

Thanks.

[psychoadept]

would showing the count when mouse hovering over the playlist work?

I fully understand the issues with MB having to recalculate the count on modifications, etc.  For me, showing the count on the mouse hover would be wonderful.

Ditto, mouseover seems like a great solution

[redwing]

I'm gonna post another wish that will suggest consolidating MB's all settings/database files into as few as possible.
Regarding playlists, I don't see the point of having actual playlists folder when mbp files are not editable and few people would directly edit autoplaylist definition files. Yes, I'm suggesting integrating whole playlists into the MB's database file just as iTunes does. Then MB could write down each count of a static/auto-playlist on the database when they are created. Then playlist section on left navigator or playlist manager could have a new setting "Show Counts" and a context menu command "Update Counts".

The current mouseover suggestion would be useful but won't make much differences with selecting each playlist and seeing the status bar. Also some users won't like it if just selecting an auto-playlist would lead to calculating for the mouseover count.

[Steven]

i've enhanced the mouse hover tool tip to include summary stats for the playlist: file count; total file size; and total duration
I'm not willing to do more than that.
@redwing, while your suggestion to integrate the playlists into the database would make things a bit faster there are reasons to not do that:
- you can configure MB to save library playlists as .M3U files and people use that to hook other programs directly to the playlist file
- some people have written programs to read auto-playlists from the xml file
- static playlists are not an issue anyway, and for auto-playlists it doesnt address the issue of stale counts (which i know you are proposing an Update Count function)
- it is a non trivial thing to implement with little performance benefit

[phred]

i've enhanced the mouse hover tool tip to include summary stats for the playlist: file count; total file size; and total duration
I'm not willing to do more than that.

WOW! This is great.  No need to do more than this IMHO. It's more than I was willing to settle for.

Will this be available with 3.1 or the next patch?

Thanks!!

[Steven]

it is in v3.1 and i dont have a definite availability date as yet

[phred]

I know never to ask a developer for the date of a release.  I just wanted to know where this new feature was on the roadmap.  And 3.1 it is.  Thanks.

[theta_wave]

but also may slow down my MB setup since it has to calculate the track count for every autoplaylist.  I mean, look at any autoplaylist file, there's no tracks contained in there, so MB will have to query each one to get the playcount.

thats exactly the issue, and redo the query every time you add/delete or even modify or play a file.
I guess having a per playlist setting might be an acceptable compromise or would showing the count when mouse hovering over the playlist work?

Yes it is a compromise and apparently there are some who desire this information.  Why, I don't know since autoplaylists are dynamic and may change through subsequent tag edits.  I will be fine with the final change so long as the performance hit will be negligible.

Anyways,  I believe the compromise effectively addresses my concerns: 1) visual clutter and 2) performance

[redwing]

@redwing, while your suggestion to integrate the playlists into the database would make things a bit faster there are reasons to not do that

Disregard my previous comments. I was only thinking about easier maintenance, but I can see MB's separating way is better than iTunes's integration in terms of performance especially with a huge library and tons of playlists.