Author Topic: Add "Work" and Possibly Other Fields to the Auto-DJ Random Sort Capability  (Read 10138 times)


redwing

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No, it doesn't split the same work by album / album artist. It adds all tracks for the same work.
Last Edit: November 02, 2017, 10:32:52 PM by redwing

Steven

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The ability to select by virtual tag isnt exclusively intended for works so you would need to include <work> in the virtual tag definition. For the files that match a randomly selected value, the files are sorted by whatever fields you define for uniquely identifying an album and the track number, although its not an alphabetical album name sort, just semi-random.

redwing

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Got it. For the same effect, "<Work> - <Album> - <Album Artist>" works.

So practically this can work for any combination of tags?

ArthurDaniels

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OK, here are further comments from me: :)

Steve, you have already achieved one neat element in this new Work selection feature.  I have noticed that the Work feature selects just one work when I have the same Work name under different Albums.  I expect this is because I have Album Artist and Album Name implemented in my Preferences in the Sort menu.

Perfect result -- when Auto-DJ Work encounters the same Work name, but in different Albums, it picks only one Work.  Just what I would want it to do.

I have set both Initial Tracks to 100 tracks and Maintain number of tracks to 100.  These two number insure that almost any long Work encountered will pick up all tracks in that work.  If I find a single Work with more than 100 tracks, I will adjust accordingly when it comes up (it may be that one of my very long Wagner operas will actually have more than 100 tracks).

So, the only "problem" I see now is the truncation of the last Work in the list if that work contains more tracks than the number of tracks remaining from the limiters setup.  If that is fixable, great.  Otherwise, the last work can either be played incomplete or removed from the list.

Many thanks, Steve!!

Art

redwing

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So, the only "problem" I see now is the truncation of the last Work in the list if that work contains more tracks than the number of tracks remaining from the limiters setup.  If that is fixable, great.  Otherwise, the last work can either be played incomplete or removed from the list.

No, it continues to play the rest of the work when the next set of upcoming tracks get supplied.

redwing

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Support for the virtual tag was an excellent idea!
Now, how about simplifying the setting as there's no need to list all virtual fields in the menu - track, album, and a few blank text box where the user can enter either a tag name or a formula with multiple tags?

ArthurDaniels

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So, the only "problem" I see now is the truncation of the last Work in the list if that work contains more tracks than the number of tracks remaining from the limiters setup.  If that is fixable, great.  Otherwise, the last work can either be played incomplete or removed from the list.

No, it continues to play the rest of the work when the next set of upcoming tracks get supplied.

Glad to hear that - I will test that capability when I load my next set of tracks.

Update:  I set both Initial and Maintain to 1.  I don't see any connection to adjacent tracks for a work with more than one track.  Please provide an example of how a work continues on the next set of tracks.
Last Edit: November 03, 2017, 04:02:47 AM by ArthurDaniels

redwing

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Use a bigger number for upcoming tracks and keep pressing play next after it started.

redwing

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For the files that match a randomly selected value, the files are sorted by whatever fields you define for uniquely identifying an album and the track number, although its not an alphabetical album name sort, just semi-random.

Tried a virtual tag that returns null for a specific grouping value to see if it can exclude those tracks from the source.

$If(<Grouping>="Opera",,<Work>-<Album>-<Album Artist>-<Year>)

But the generated list still includes Opera tracks from time to time but always as a random single track, not the whole work, unlike other grouping-value tracks. Does null value tracks get selected randomly as well?

Steven

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ArthurDaniels

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Use a bigger number for upcoming tracks and keep pressing play next after it started.

Still not clear to me.

I set Initial tracks to 10 and Maintain tracks to 30.  Random sort does not pull all tracks from a single work when the track presets numbers are reached.  Where is this "Play Next" button to which you refer?  Pressing the "play next track" symbol next to the "play" symbol does not change the track list  it just advances to the next track on the list.    Nothing I have done so far has altered the next track in the list after selection is complete.

As I continue to experiment with this function, I have noticed that, if the last track in the list is in the middle of a work, then adding tracks will continue to select tracks from the same work.  But, if a long work is selected in the middle of the track list, there seems to be an arbitrary limitation of the number of tracks chosen from that work before a different work is added to the list.

Seems to me that the possibly simple solution is to disable the Initial and Maintains tracks feature when Work is selected (or set both to null or zero settings so they are ignored) and then add an option to define the number of works to be selected, allowing the program to find all tracks for the number of works selected.  This approach eliminates all of the issues related to the highly variable number of tracks per work, which ranges from a single track for many works to perhaps over 100 tracks associated with a very long work such as a Wagner Opera.


redwing

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But, if a long work is selected in the middle of the track list, there seems to be an arbitrary limitation of the number of tracks chosen from that work before a different work is added to the list.

Looks like the bug occurs only to the first set of upcoming tracks right after the initial list. After the first set, all is working fine, keep playing multi-track works completely that have more tracks than the number of upcoming tracks.

Seems to me that the possibly simple solution is to disable the Initial and Maintains tracks feature when Work is selected (or set both to null or zero settings so they are ignored) and then add an option to define the number of works to be selected, allowing the program to find all tracks for the number of works selected.  This approach eliminates all of the issues related to the highly variable number of tracks per work, which ranges from a single track for many works to perhaps over 100 tracks associated with a very long work such as a Wagner Opera.

That makes sense. Maybe it could simply change the counting unit for the initial list and upcoming tracks from the number of "tracks" to the number of "grouping unit". So when album is selected, that counts the number of albums. For work, counts the number of works.

ArthurDaniels

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Perhaps Steve will take a look.  I'll wait for his comment - until then I will enjoy the Random Works feature as it stands