Add 'Complete Albums' as a criterion for limiting autoplaylists

[Anti]

I can replicate this.

If I create the playlist to include all my albums, out of 300 about 3 or 4 are apparently randomised order (although they keep the same order each time I load the playlist, so it's not random per se), and 2 or 3 are in reverse order.

Like you, I've no idea why these albums behave differently than the others.

[Steven]

i think i've found the issue and have fixed that for the next update

[Anti]

Awesome. I'll try to remember to test it.

[Steven]

the fix:
http://www.mediafire.com/?3d49ujgeev91bl2

[Anti]

That has fixed it, certainly for all my albums.
Cheers Steven.

[IMGrant]

If I understand this option correctly, it should (in theory) do what I want, but it doesn't appear to:

I want to select my top 10 most played albums, that is the entire album for each of the top 10 most played tracks, after grouping by album.

For example, I've played 'Hometown Glory' by Adele loads more than the rest of the album, so it features in my top played, but the rest of the album doesn't. However, I want this auto-playlist to return the whole album.

Another example, I've played Joni Mitchell's album 'For The Roses' in its entirety lots too, so all of those tracks feature in my top played. They might be my top 12 played tracks (since there are 12 on the album), so grouping by album prevents just one album being returned.

And then I want to sort them in the Artwork view by most played first!

I think it doesn't work because although the 'group by album' option does successfully return, e.g. tracks with 0 plays from an album that features a top played track, the limit function then works after this, and since I choose by most played, all the 0-played tracks get pushed to the bottom.

[Anti]

If I limit the number of tracks or albums in the restriction section, it doesn't return 'whole albums' like you described.
You need to post the rules you're using.

That said, I don't think musicbee is programmed to do what you want. There is often a discrepancy between human 'logic' and cold, hard programmed logic. If you post your rules, it will help to explain any misunderstanding you have about what musicbee is programmed to do.

For example, take the restriction rule:

limit to 10 albums selected by 'most often played', grouped by album

In English that sounds exactly what you want.
But under the hood, programmatically, it means something like:

· Look for the highest track playcount. Add it to the list. Look at the album name and count it as one.
· Repeat step 1 continuously. Keep looking at the album name and stop when there are ten different album names in the list.
· Finally, instead of applying the 'playlist order #' by highest to lowest playcount and then displaying the list alphabetically by
album -> track#, group the tracks alphabetically by album -> track#, *then* apply the 'playlist order #', then display
alphabetically by album -> track#.

This returns partial albums, and not in playcount order: not what you thought you were going to get at all!! If you then try to sort by playcount -> album (by ctrl-clicking on columns), you'll find that it doesn't sort and group 'by most played album' because the logic for that kind of operation simply hasn't been programmed.

Anyway, post your auotplaylist rules, and we can pick holes in your logical fallacies and see if Steven will come up with something to help.

[IMGrant]

Not at home at the mo, so I'll have to try and remember my rules correctly, but I think it was simply this:

Match: Play Count greater than 0
Restrictions: Limit to 10 albums, selected by most often played, group by album

I understand why it doesn't work, as you described. I suppose maybe this is a new feature request in some ways: an 'expand selection to all tracks matching this/these album(s)' option. This would function as your programmatic explanation, except that instead of adding just the one track to the list (with the highest play count), it would add all tracks with the same album title.

P.S. Some care would be needed to identify the correct album, obviously album name alone isn't good enough as you run the risk of selecting albums with the same from another artist (e.g. in the case of albums titled 'Greatest Hits'). You could combine it with album artist, but then you'd also need an exception for compilations without an album artist.