Auto-reorder loaded tracks when changing playlist order

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szal77
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Auto-reorder loaded tracks when changing playlist order

Post by szal77 »

Hi Bernd,

I’ve had the opportunity to work with an older version of mAirlist (v3.x) over the weekend. One thing I liked about it was that when, in a 2-deck layout, you move a track to the ‘cued for playing next’ position, the track that was originally loaded in the other player is automatically unloaded, and the track newly moved to this position loaded. This works with existing playlist entries as well as with new entries added e.g. by dragging-and-dropping files.

Do you think it would be possible to add this behaviour as an option to PFOA? For practical reasons, I could think of a handling routine that does the following when using 3 or 4 decks (example): When moving a track to or inserting one at the ‘Play Next’ position, the track in 3rd (3 players) or 4th (4 players) position is unloaded, in its place the newly positioned track is loaded, then the playout order is changed such that the newly positioned track gets ‘Play Next’ status, and the following loaded tracks are queued behind this one without changing their order. Same in green for inserting a track in 3rd position in a 4-player layout. Of course, it should not be possible to put a track into 1st position and have it auto-loaded, except perhaps when playout is currently stopped. And, of course, the track that is thereby auto-unloaded should not be marked as played (or removed from the playlist, if that’s what the user set their playlist prefs to).

Thank you very much for your consideration.

Happy remaining Easter and greetings

Sven
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radio42
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Re: Auto-reorder loaded tracks when changing playlist order

Post by radio42 »

The behavior of ProppFrexx is already almost like you explained:
When you drag a track within a playlist over to a 'cued' entry (which is a playlist entry, which is already loaded to another DJ Player), that entry is unloaded and the new (dragged) track is automatically loaded.

The detailed behavior depends on the "Follow" option set for that playlist - "Change DJ Player with Playlist (Follow)":
If checked, the tracks loaded to a DJ Player will by default be changed according to the playlist.
This means, when you delete an entry from the playlist which was already loaded to a DJ Player (and it is not currently playing), the DJ Player will be ejected accordingly.
This also means, that the order in which tracks appear within the playlist will follow the order within the playlist.
Note: As this option might change the order in which tracks are played from a playlist it will automatically be disabled for scheduled playlist and as such only represents the default for manually opened playlists.

Any ejected track will by default be marked as played, except you either set the playlist option to 'Nothing' or hold down the CTRL key.

Is that what you are looking for?
If not, what exactly do you mean - how do you expect a playlist entry to be changed automatically?
szal77
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Re: Auto-reorder loaded tracks when changing playlist order

Post by szal77 »

So, if I understand you correctly, the ‘Follow’ option must be enabled for this to work. This would make the players play in a strict A-B-C-A-B-C-etc. fashion.

I just made a little trial playlist enabling ‘Follow’, and the playout behaviour seems to be as expected, as long as I don’t add tracks to the playlist. In this trial I had a short drop-in in the playlist, play time of which is shorter than the time between the Next and Cue Out points of the previous track. The tracks were played in the correct order, but re-sorted in the playlist, which is not what I wanted.

Then I had 2 tracks left to play: one playing in deck C, another queued in deck B. I then added another track between those two, which caused the track in deck B to be unloaded and replaced by the newly inserted track. BUT—the track that was previously in deck B was not loaded into deck A (which I would have expected), but instead marked as played and left there.

So, I would like something that strictly preserves the track order in the playlist—I don’t particularly care in what order the players are playing—, and that does not throw out tracks which were supposed to be still playing.

I hope I was being a bit clearer now. :)


P.S.: I don’t know whether this is possible, but I just had an idea regarding marking tracks as played: Perhaps it should be this way that tracks are only marked as played when ejected from the player after actually having been played, or when ejecting manually, but not when auto-ejecting because a track is dropped in position to be queued; in the latter case the ejected track should be left as not played, so it can still be queued in the process.
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radio42
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Re: Auto-reorder loaded tracks when changing playlist order

Post by radio42 »

I'll take a look what can be done in the next version!
szal77
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Re: Auto-reorder loaded tracks when changing playlist order

Post by szal77 »

Thank you very much. :)
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radio42
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Re: Auto-reorder loaded tracks when changing playlist order

Post by radio42 »

Just to be really sure what you exactly want to achieve.
Let' take this simple example (with 3 DJ Players A, B, C) and having this playlist.
1. Track A - Playing (DJ A)
2. Track B - Cued (DJ B)
3. Track C - Cued (DJ C)
4. Track D
5. Track E

You now drag 'Track D' over the playlist entry 'Track B'.
How should the resulting playlist look like?
Like this:
1. Track A - Playing (DJ A)
2. Track D - Cued (DJ B)
3. Track B
4. Track C - Cued (DJ C)
5. Track E
szal77
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Re: Auto-reorder loaded tracks when changing playlist order

Post by szal77 »

Ok, let’s make up some scenarios…

Original situation: as described by you above.

If I now drag Track D up, it should be like this:

1. Track A - playing (DJ A)
2. Track D - cued Next (DJ C) [for simplicity’s sake; if it went into DJ B, that would take some extra loading operations]
3. Track B - cued (DJ B)
4. Track C [NOT marked as played, so it’s still available for queueing without manual intervention]
5. Track E

Then we go further…

1. Track A [marked as played after eject (has been played)]
2. Track D - playing (DJ C)
3. Track B - cued Next (DJ B)
4. Track C - cued (DJ A)
5. Track E

Then follows another manual intervention…

1. Track A [marked as played after eject (has been played)]
2. Track D - playing (DJ C)
3. Track F - cued Next (DJ A) [newly inserted into playlist]
4. Track B - cued (DJ B)
5. Track C [NOT marked as played, so it’s still available for queueing without manual intervention]
6. Track E

Another step further, more or less for completeness’ sake…

1. Track A [marked as played after eject (has been played)]
2. Track D [marked as played after eject (has been played)]
3. Track F - playing (DJ A)
4. Track B - cued Next (DJ B)
5. Track E - cued (DJ C) [moved up one position]
6. Track C [NOT marked as played, so it’s still available for queueing without manual intervention]

Note: The fact that it’s Track C falling out of the loading order in all cases mentioned is purely coincidental. ;)

I hope I was able to shed some light on what I have in mind here.
TheoOrl45
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Re: Auto-reorder loaded tracks when changing playlist order

Post by TheoOrl45 »

I'm join the request of szal77...

And I think, Bernd, you sum up very well the goal within your last post :-) It's exactly what I understood from both your posts...
Theo, from France.
szal77
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Re: Auto-reorder loaded tracks when changing playlist order

Post by szal77 »

radio42 wrote:I guess I now understand what you are trying to achieve....however, I guess the scenarios you described above are a bit incorrect resp. not logical:
Why not logical?
radio42 wrote:Now you want to add/insert a new 'Track F' to the playlist...
You can now either drop this 'Track F' onto the following existing playlist entries:
a) onto '3. Track B - cued Next (DJ B)' […]

a) In this case the playlist would look like this:
1. Track A [marked as played]
2. Track D - playing (DJ C)
3. Track F - cued Next (DJ B) [as it replaced the previous Track B]
4. Track B - cued (DJ A) [this entry was replaced and now also needs to replace Track A to preserve the playlist order]
5. Track C - [marked as NOT played]
6. Track E - [marked as NOT played]
Please note that in the way of reordering you describe, not only would Track C need to be unloaded and Track F loaded, but also Track B unloaded from DJ B and reloaded into DJ A. The way I have described the scenario would only involve unloading Track C, loading Track F in its place, and changing DJ A from 2nd in queue to 1st in queue, and DJ B from 1st in queue to 2nd in queue. At this point I just assume that it is possible to change queue positions as described without having to reload the tracks. Please correct me if I’m wrong here.
radio42 wrote:As far as I understand your 'wish', the playlist order should be preserved in any case.
Yes, indeed.
radio42 wrote:Meaning the playlist will always play the tracks in the exact same order as they appear within the playlist.
As such, if you drag an entry onto an existing playlist entry (which was already loaded to a DJ Player, but never effectively played so far), this previous entry should be ejected (but NOT marked as played) AND if any sub-sequent playlist entry below exists (which also was already loaded to a DJ Player, but never effectively played so far), this entry should also be replaced by the previous one etc.
Yes.
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radio42
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Re: Auto-reorder loaded tracks when changing playlist order

Post by radio42 »

I guess I now understand what you are trying to achieve....however, I guess the scenarios you described above are a bit incorrect resp. not logical:

Let's take the 2nd 'transition' you described - when you want to insert a new 'Track F'...

Before this the playlist looked like this:
1. Track A [marked as played]
2. Track D - playing (DJ C)
3. Track B - cued Next (DJ B)
4. Track C - cued (DJ A)
5. Track E - [marked as NOT played]

Now you want to add/insert a new 'Track F' to the playlist...as such you can drag this 'Track F' (e.g. from the Find window or from a backstage playlist position) onto an existing playlist entry.
You can now either drop this 'Track F' onto the following existing playlist entries:
a) onto '3. Track B - cued Next (DJ B)'
or
b) onto '4. Track C - cued (DJ A)'

a) In this case the playlist would look like this:
1. Track A [marked as played]
2. Track D - playing (DJ C)
3. Track F - cued Next (DJ B) [as it replaced the previous Track B]
4. Track B - cued (DJ A) [this entry was replaced and now also needs to replace Track A to preserve the playlist order]
5. Track C - [marked as NOT played]
6. Track E - [marked as NOT played]

b) In this case the playlist would look like this:
1. Track A [marked as played]
2. Track D - playing (DJ C)
3. Track B - cued Next (DJ B)
4. Track F - cued (DJ A) [as it replaced the previous Track C]
5. Track C - [marked as NOT played]
6. Track E - [marked as NOT played]


As far as I understand your 'wish', the playlist order should be preserved in any case.
Meaning the playlist will always play the tracks in the exact same order as they appear within the playlist.
As such, if you drag an entry onto an existing playlist entry (which was already loaded to a DJ Player, but never effectively played so far), this previous entry should be ejected (but NOT marked as played) AND if any sub-sequent playlist entry below exists (which also was already loaded to a DJ Player, but never effectively played so far), this entry should also be replaced by the previous one etc.

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