How can I identify (and delete) tracks already played?

[DrRemulak]

Hi,

I have a Rockbox'ed Sansa e280. 

As with my previous DAPs, I like to load up alot of music, put the player on shuffle and listen randomly.  Sometimes I like to remove the tracks I've already listened to.  Is there any way to do this easily?

On the Database page, I saw that there is a playcount tag, but unfortunately, it's not stored with the music file as an id tag; it's a runtime db tag.  So I can't see the value when I load up the music files in a tag editor such as mp3tag.

And I guess I can't easily delete multiple files directly via Rockbox (right?) so I can't delete all the ones that I've already listened to it that way.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks!

[bluebrother]

Not sure if this is exactly the solution you're looking for but you could use the playcount to create a playlist and then delete all files in that playlist using a PC.

[Strife89]

If you happen to be listening to the track, you can delete it while it's playing. From the WPS, go to the WPS context menu and select Delete. Presto! The song will keep playing, since it's cached, but skip ahead and it'll be gone for good.

[ryran]

FS#7049 might be helpful, though it looks like it hasn't had any interest from anyone besides the author... I tried to compile a build with it to have a look but make error'ed out.

[DrRemulak]

you could use the playcount to create a playlist and then delete all files in that playlist using a PC.

That sounds like a decent solution.  Can you point me in the right direction towards creating a playlist based on playcount?  I tried and didn't get very far.

[bluebrother]

That sounds like a decent solution.  Can you point me in the right direction towards creating a playlist based on playcount?  I tried and didn't get very far.

You need to create a tagnavi_custom.config file to create a custom search in the database. Check the wiki, can't tell you off the top of my head how it works (and have a look at the default tagnavi.config)

[DrRemulak]

Hmmm.... well I thought I was able to successfully create the custom tagnavi but it didn't work.

I created the file similar to what's listed here for Example 3:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/DataBase#Examples

However, I don't think the runtime stats are ever getting updated on my player.  I did enable 'Gather Runtime Data' in the database settings but maybe I'm missing something else. 

The reasons why I don't think the runtime stats are being updated
1. The 'Recently Played Tracks' view (which is already in Rockbox, not something I created) doesn't show anything even after I play a few tracks.
2. I tried to backup the runtime stats by performing Export Modifications in the Database settings menu.  It created a small file with no stat data in it.

Any ideas why the runtime stats are not being updated?

Thanks.

[bascule]

You may need to restart your player (or at least wait until a re-buffer has happened), in order to ensure that the data has been committed to the database.

[DrRemulak]

You may need to restart your player (or at least wait until a re-buffer has happened), in order to ensure that the data has been committed to the database.

Tried those.  No change.  Not sure why I can't see runtime updates. 

EDIT1: OK, I tried again and now it's working.  The only thing did differently was to take it out of shuffle mode.  Maybe that was the issue.  Will try again later.

I created the playlist of tracks that had been played and saved it as an m3u file.  Then I edited it to be a batch file to delete the tracks.  It worked!  I will probably write an AutoIt script to automate the process of deleting the files once the playlist file has been created. 

Thanks!

EDIT2: Here's the AutoIt script to delete files from a playlist generated by Rockbox:

Code: [Select]

;Delete already played files by using playlist generated by Rockbox
;
$message="Choose playlist file containing tracks to be deleted"
$var = FileOpenDialog($message,@ScriptDir,"All (*.*)", 1)
If @error Then
    MsgBox(4096,"","No File(s) chosen")
    Exit
EndIf
$file = FileOpen($var, 0)
; Check if file opened for reading OK
If $file = -1 Then
    MsgBox(0, "Error", "Unable to open file.")
    Exit
EndIf
Global $microdir = ""
While 1
    $line = FileReadLine($file)
    If @error = -1 Then ExitLoop
    $line = StringReplace($line, "/", "\")
	$microchk = StringLeft($line,12)
	if StringCompare($microchk,"\<microSD1>\")=0 then
	  $line = StringTrimLeft($line,12)
	  if StringLen($microdir)=0 then
	    $microdir=FileSelectFolder("Choose drive folder containing microSD1 card.","")
	  endif
	  $line = $microdir & $line
	endif
    If FileExists($line) then 
       FileDelete($line)
    else
       MsgBox(4096,"",$line & " does not exist")
    endif
	Wend
FileClose($file)
$answer = MsgBox(4,"Delete?","Delete playlist file?",20)
if $answer=6 then
   FileDelete($var)
endif

EDIT 3: Modified script to delete files from microSD card.  Obviously the card has to be out of the player and inserted as a drive on your PC (e.g. via USB adapter.)

Also note that you must use AutoIt 3.2.4.0 or greater because of UTF-8 support.  Rockbox saves the playlist in UTF-8 format and previous versions of AutoIt would only use ANSI, thus choking on the playlist text.