[SOLVED] Ability to select randomly from directories / playlists?

[Jhyn]

Hello Rockboxers,

I've been using Rockbox for more than one month on a Sansa Clip +, and while I'm yet to get the hang of some features, I appreciate it very much already and I'd like to thank the community for their dedicated work.

I'm using the "Random album" feature a lot, and while it works well on most of my collection that is properly tagged, I would like to find a workaround for untagged files; essentially, reading tracks in a directory taken at random, regardless of the tags. Is there an easy, possibly automated way (with a simple script) to do this? I thought about putting an automatic "directory" tag, or building a playlist by directory and taking a playlist at random, but is it even possible?

Please give me your thoughts about it. If I can't find a simple workaround, I'll go post it in the feature suggestions.

If you ask, this happens for example when a friend recommends me some music and the tracks are not properly tagged; I don't want to go through the hassle of tagging them all since I won't be keeping most of them.

[evilnick]

The good news is that this is already in Rockbox!

Check out: http://download.rockbox.org/daily/manual/rockbox-sansaclipplus/rockbox-buildch12.html#x15-29600012.4.14
and http://download.rockbox.org/daily/manual/rockbox-sansaclipplus/rockbox-buildch7.html#x10-1240007.10 for details.

[Jhyn]

It seems I've not been doing my homework properly. I posted in the wrong forum section and I missed this option in the manual. My bad.

This seems to work for me, thank you very much. This is not 100% convenient as I have to select one song and go forward to the end of the directory to get a random directory.

So I'd prefer a <Random> option when you browse your files, exactly as in the database, but this is still good enough. Thanks.

[evilnick]

What happens if you select "Play Shuffled" from the "Random Folder Advance Configuration" plugin? After having generated the list by using "Generate Folder List".

The manual states that it:
"    Starts playback with the selected directories in random order. Tracks within a directory will be played in normal order. The plugin will exit after starting playback."

Isn't that what you want? If so, then hurrah! Problem solved. If it doesn't do this correctly then it'd be worth filing a bug for it.

[Jhyn]

Hurrah! This is perfect. I've been reading the manual too fast again, and was using the "Auto-change directory" setting.

Thanks and sorry for wasting your time.