How to switch from shuffled all music playlist to tunes by just one artist?

[timh]

Hi,
I am abit scared of posting, as I HAVE searched for this question and didn't find it, but if I am posting in the wrong place please forgive me !!  I think it's specifically hardware related, but f course software is involved too.

If you have rockbox installed on the sansa e280, is it possible to do this - and how many button presses does that involve?

(sansa is playing all songs on shuffle mode)

You hear a song you really like, and want to play all songs from that artist.  How many button-presses does that involve, and is it easy ? (ie how much wheel-navigation does that involve ?)

Then, how many button-pushes to get back to shuffle-all ?

And which buttons ?

alternatively, would it be easier in folder-navigation mode, if all the folders are ARTIST with sub-folders ALBUM ?

wd appreciate a response from someone who actually does this, not just 'hypothetically'. !!

cheers

tim

[karashata]

The easiest way would be either to have your music sorted by artist/album on your device, or you could use the Database to select which artist you want and just play music by that artist.

[Chronon]

Take a look at the "queue next" option.

[timh]

Hmm.
This was a very specific question I originally posted under sansa 280 hardware, which a friendly moderator has moved here.
The key elements of this question are
 
a) can rockbox software do this ?
and
b) exactly how ?

I don't care how I need to organise my music if it will do it with just one or two pushes. (like on the iriver H340 with iriver's firmware), but it takes a lot of doing on the sansa with sansa firmware, and I was just wondering if rockbox was better/easier/quicker.

so, still waiting for an answer then !!

tim

[GodEater]

As I said in my PM, it's not at ALL specific to the sansa hardware. It's a Rockbox usage question. The interface for Rockbox remains the same no matter which hardware you run it on.

[Chronon]

I think you probably cut down your answer pool by telling people not to answer unless they follow this usage pattern also.

I was going to follow suit, but for the benefit of other people who might have this question later I'll answer anyway.

If 'follow playlist' is turned on, then

1) Press Select to enter the directory containing the current track
2) Press Left until you exit the directory containing the other tracks by this artist
    --- If this is your primary usage case you may wish to place all tracks by an      artist in the same directory (maybe include album names in the file name).
3) Use the context menu to "queue next" the directory containing the artists tracks (1 press plus scroll down by five plus another press).
4) Press Play to return to the WPS (optional)

So. . . about 10 button presses (counting the scrolling as presses), but you don't have to do anything at all for it to resume playing your shuffled playlist afterward.

If you don't care about changing the dynamic playlist (e.g. you don't plan to save it later) then you can use "insert" instead of queue (meaning you only have to scroll down by one) and shave it down to about 6 "key presses".

[timh]

Thanks Chronon.

I do actually think that this would make the whole thing desperately complicated, and therefore of no use to me at all. However, thank you for explaining how to do it, should anyone want to try.

I think I'll have to go back to my iriver H340 then, which allows hot-swapping from 'shuffle all' to 'shuffle this folder' with just 2 pushes of the same button.  As I keep my folders split into artists, that does the job ok.

Downside is the player is a hard drive player & slow to boot up. The sansa e280 boots up in only 12 seconds.

Can I put in a request for one of you rockbox experts to build that functionality into rockbox maybe ??


tim

[Chronon]

Feature ideas are welcomed in the proper forum.  However, I believe this idea will have some practicality issues on most targets.  Rockbox offers a very large set of options and some targets already have some difficulty with a lack of available buttons. 

There are some patches on the tracker that offer insertion of the currently selected directory by pressing a button.  Such a patch could offer your desired operation in 3 button presses with suitable organization. 

[shoe]

I do this also a lot while listening to all music shuffled.  You can use the 'follow playlist' option mentioned above.  Or, if you go to the database menu there is a "same as current" selection that allows you to choose all songs that are the same artist/album/directory/etc. as the currently playing track.