Rockbox Development > Feature Ideas

"Play after end of song" feature, as per iriver firmware

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rjg_scotland:
Hi there,

After a discussion on IRC on the topic between n1s,  domonoky1 and I, I've decided to post this on here.

A bit of background: I have an iriver H300. The iriver firmware has a feature which possibly only iriver users may be familiar with. This feature involves pressing the A-B button on a file in the file browser to tell it to play that file once the currently playing song has ended, and then continue through the filesystem from that point. It's possible other players have this feature in their firmware, but I don't know.

I found this feature incredibly useful and it's the only thing I really miss in Rockbox.

Now, from IRC I've learned that this needs careful explaining in order that it's not confused with existing playlist functionality.

This must be seen as a "Play after end of song" option with the "play" sense meaning the exact same thing as simply selecting (playing) a file in the file browser, but only after the current playing file has ended. This must be seen as a delayed playing action rather than having anything to do with playlist functionality in order to be understood correctly.

It could be described as "wipe any playlist and pretend you played this file from the file browser, only after the currently playing song has finished".

It's very similar to the existing "Play Next" feature in the Playlist submenu, except that that option only plays that single file selected and stops or jumps ahead to the next directory entirely and starts again from there if you have dir skip enabled.

Does this make sense? I think people who are more used to working with playlists perhaps don't quite understand this option at first. It's not really working with playlists as such, it's really just like delaying an action.

If such a feature were ever to be implemented, I'd say it would probably make more sense to have it in the root of the file browser context menu, rather than burried within the playlist or another menu.

An example use for the feature on the iriver was when using it in the car. I would decide as I went along what I wanted to play and just quickly pop into the file browser and tell it what to play next. Sometimes I even knew the layout of the filesystem in relation to the currently playing song to be able to select tracks blind.

For those interested, the IRC conversation can be read here

If there's any other iriver users out there who found this feature useful, do say!

Thanks!


Edit: This might clear things up, after further IRC discussion!


--- Quote ---00:15:01  < stripwax> I think the setting would look similar to the existing "warn before erasing dynamic playlist" setting   --   a new setting like "preseve currently playing track before erasing dynamic playlist"
00:16:51  < stripwax> Right now, when you just select a track, it (and the rest of its directory) gets put into a blank dynamic playlist.   If that setting* is true, the only difference is that the currently playing track gets bubbled to its own spot at the top of the playlist and the new tracks go after it.  I might have a stab at doing that (doesn't sound too hard)

--- End quote ---
*that setting = that imaginary new setting

stripwax:
Yep :)  So it doesn't look like a difficult change (there's literally a couple lines in filetree.c that would need to change, and a new option added).  I think I would also use this feature.  However I'm not sure which of the following two approaches would be better

1.  Have it on the CONTEXT menu for selecting a track (e.g. context->Playlists->Delayed Play From Here).  That Playlists menu is already particularly cluttered
2.  Have it as a system setting (e.g. as described in irc convo snippet above)  -  however that would mean that if you have that setting enabled and you DO want to immediately switch to that track, you would click to play as you do normally, and then skip the rest of the currently playing (preserved) track


#2 doesn't sound too bad, to be honest.  Any other thoughts/opinions?

Llorean:
I think it makes more sense in the context menu.

What might make more sense is making the current "Play Next" option behave like this when done on a single audio file (and behave as normal when done on a folder or playlist). Is there much use for a single-song "Play Next" (I thought it was generally used on folders anyway). If there is, and since it doesn't really relate to the normal 'play' functionality from tapping select on a song, another name could be come up with for starting a new playlist from a single song to be played at track end.

rjg_scotland:
That's a very good point Llorean. I personally don't think there's much point in the existing functionality of the "Play Next" option on single files, so changing its behavior to as I've suggested would fit in very well. I guess someone out there might have a use for the current way it works though, so it might need further thought before it's changed. Coming up with a sensible name for a new function does seem to be a bit of an issue I agree.

Thanks for the input so far guys. :)

AlexP:
I think the context menu makes more sense than a system setting - I'm not sure about changing how play next works though depending on what you are "playing next" as that sounds a bit like a recipe for confusion to me.

Incidently, I do use the play next on single files if I'm listening to a specific playlist and the current song reminds me of another song then I use it to listen to that other song, then continue with my current playlist.  I don't use it all that often, but often enough to not want to lose it :)  I suppose I could use queue next for that, so my primary argument against changing play next remains the potential for confusion.

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