Author Topic: Auto-refresh static copies of autoplaylists and playlist mixers at [X] interval  (Read 1224 times)

billybuck

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I use Musicbee as my player, tagger, and library organizer when I'm on my home computer, but I use a third-party music server (Subsonic) for listening to my library on mobile devices, at work, and for streaming in my home to various Chromecast devices.

I have a large, well-tagged, multi-genre library and make extensive use of autoplaylists and playlist mixers, exporting static copies to a folder that gets scanned nightly by my music server.

My goal is to have the static exported copies of autoplaylists and mixers automatically refreshed by Musicbee at some preset interval, say nightly at X A.M. so that I have fresh lists to listen to throughout the day.

Currently, it seems MB only rewrites the playlist files when it exits--and only when the exit is triggered from within MB itself, not from a forced close. I thought it would be easy enough to schedule a nightly exit of the app at a certain time with a scripting tool like Autohotkey, but this becomes complicated because A) MB runs in the system tray, and many tools like AutoHotKey have limitations in dealing with apps running in the tray and B) because MB reports itself as the name of the last-played track rather than something a script could key on like just "Musicbee."

Because MB's autoplaylist building logic is second to none, I'm sure I'm not the only one who uses it this way. How about a preference setting to regenerate static copies of autoplaylists and mixers nightly at a set time? or, even simpler, just a setting for "daily" or "weekly"?
Last Edit: February 08, 2020, 05:31:36 PM by billybuck

phred

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I don't see a need for Steven to invest time in something like your request since it's done automatically.

As long as you have "automatically export a static copy" enabled, MB updates the playlist file when ever there's a change to the playlist. Adding or deleting a song will trigger an automatic update.

Using a file explorer, look at the modified date/time of one of your exported playlists. In MB add or delete a track from that list. Leave MB open. Go back to file explorer and look at the modified date/time.


EDIT: In addition to saving/exporting/updating playlists upon each addition or deletion of a file, it also saves them all upon closing MB (assuming you have "automatically export a static copy" enabled.
Last Edit: February 09, 2020, 03:34:52 AM by phred
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

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Zak

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because MB reports itself as the name of the last-played track rather than something a script could key on like just "Musicbee."

If it would help Autohotkey find the program, you can configure the text that appears in the TaskBar button in Edit > Preferences > Now Playing > Show in task bar as.
Bee excellent to each other...