Support and General Use > Audio Playback, Database and Playlists

True random playback?

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williamskg6:
Yes, I know you can turn off shuffle, see your list in order, then turn it back on but that's just too much of a pain for lazy people like me and not user friendly.

I'm not asking for a way to turn off shuffle and then pick a song.  I'm asking for a way to have music randomly played while simultaneously leaving your playlist in useful (sorted) form without having to change settings on the player.  A Random Playback mode would do this just perfectly without extra steps.

Llorean:
You didn't mention that you only want it because you're too lazy for the few button presses it takes to turn shuffle off and back on. In your described use case, you made it sound like you weren't able to view the playlist in-order after shuffle, so I was simply telling you that it's actually possible.

Shuffle can be quickly toggled via the quick screen, so it's really not terribly difficult to turn off and on.

If you know of existing features, you shouldn't say things like
--- Quote ---The songs should play in random order, which is possible with the Shuffle option, but invariably one of the kids will ask for a specific song.  In a list of potentially thousands of songs, it's very very difficult to find a particular song in a shuffled list.  So, instead of a shuffled playlist, the playlist stays sorted (making it easier to find the song that was requested), but the playback mode is random.
--- End quote ---
that suggest that you believe you're stuck using the shuffled list.

It is always best to present the true problem you want solved, in this case "I feel it takes too many button presses to see a sorted list when I've been listening shuffled" rather than what you presented it as, "I can't find a song easily in a shuffled list." People will attempt to help you by solving the problem you present. New features should solve problems, so you should always present the real problem being solved when trying to explain how valuable it is. In this case, for example, there was already a way to unshuffle the list, so it wasn't a very strong reason, at all, for "random playback" considering the possible added costs and complications of an additional playback mode, especially when it just seemed like a user not reading the manual.

Honestly though, unless someone like you who actually wants this creates a patch that does this in a very minimally impacting manner, I wouldn't hold my hopes. As I said, turning shuffle on and off is pretty trivial, while playback can have enough problems as it is without introducing further complication. There's also a strong negative reaction to "feature bloat" and this being a nearly redundant feature (duplicating almost entirely the functionality of another feature) would fall in that category for many.

Your best bet is to take an interest in the project, and start working on a patch (or working on learning to program, then coding a patch) to show clearly that it can be done in a way with minimal negative impact on everything else.

williamskg6:
No need to get hostile

Llorean:
There's not a single hostile word in there. Try not to imagine added tone, you'll just get yourself upset over nothing.

Regardless of how you imagine it "sounds", what I actually said is nothing but sound advice - describe clearly why you think a feature is important, don't use examples that seem solvable with existing features, and if you really want something work on it as that's the best way.

evilnick:
If you want a way to play a specific song from a playlist that's being played at random, then that song has to exist on the player.
Therefore, the same effect can be achieved by playing the playlist on shuffle, then if one of the kids wants a specific song then that can be navigated to (in the file browser) and Queued to be played next within the shuffled playlist.

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