Album Playback Order

[PaulMoore]

I just installed Rockbox on my Sansa Clip+ because the original Sandisk software could not handle the number of files that I had on my 32GB card.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a "deal breaker" because of the way that it plays music.  I use the Player in my car to have music while I am driving, mostly playing classical music.  On the original software, I would set it to play a certain artist (Say Beethoven) and then it would play through the Albums, then through the individual tracks on the album, etc.
For example it will play in this order:
Album - Beethoven Symphony No 1
              Symphony No 1 - 1st Movement
              Symphony No 1 - 2nd Movement
              ...
Then
Album - Beethoven Symphony No 2
              Symphony No 2 - 1st Movement
              Symphony No 2 - 2nd Movement
              ...


This is also the way that my players on my computer  (Rhythmbox abd Banshee) handle it

Unfortunately, the roxbox software plays all of the tracks in order, without sorting by albums.

i.e.  it will play in this order:
Album - Beethoven Symphony No 1
              Symphony No 1 - 1st Movement
Album - Beethoven Symphony No 2
              Symphony No 2 - 1st Movement
Album - Beethoven Symphony No 3
              Symphony No 3 - 1st Movement

This is not the way that I want to listen to music.

I know that I could set up a bunch of playlists, but that would be a HUGE amount of work.

Is there any simple way to do this, or do I have to submit a bug request?

[bluebrother]

How have you created the playlist on Rockbox? Are you using the Database or the file browser? I tried adding multiple albums to the dynamic playlist (I'm usually listening to single albums only) and it worked as expected -- the playlist contains all tracks of the first album, followed by the second and so on. Also, what version on Rockbox are you using?

[PaulMoore]

I am using Rockbox Version 3.13

No, I have not tried creating a playlist - AS I said before, "that would be a HUGE amount of work", even to add multiple albums.   On the original Sansa software (Or on Rhythmbox  or Banshee on my Linux computer), I would just choose Beethoven, and then it would do it from there, no further fiddling with playlists.   I am using the database tool to select music.

[AlexP]

What about bluebrother's other questions?

[torne]

On the original Sansa software (Or on Rhythmbox  or Banshee on my Linux computer), I would just choose Beethoven, and then it would do it from there, no further fiddling with playlists.   I am using the database tool to select music.

Unfortunately this is a limitation of our current database implementation. If you select "all tracks" under an artist, genre, etc, the resulting track list is always just alphabetical by track name, not sorted by further subcategories like album.

If your files are arranged in Artist\Album\Track layout, then you can make this work as you want by not using the database and instead just long-pressing on the artist's folder in the file browser and inserting the folder into the playlist: this will add all subfolders recursively (as long as you haven't disabled recursion in the settings) and it will add them one subfolder at a time, giving you the right playback order.

[PaulMoore]

torne,

Thank you for your reply.  I for the most part have my files organized that way by artists /composers.

Could you point me in the right direction in the manual on how to add to a playlist and enable recursion.  I will see if it works for me.

Also,  are there any plans to add the feature to your database implementation?

Thanks

[torne]

Nobody has made any significant changes to the database code for a really long time; few if any current developers really understand that code, and few developers use the database in the first place (it was implemented mostly as a workaround for devices full of music in iTunes's mangled directory structure).

[evilnick]

Could you point me in the right direction in the manual on how to add to a playlist and enable recursion.  I will see if it works for me.

Remember that you should be using the File Browser, not the Database for this.
It's probably best to have a good read of the manual.
Specific links are here: http://download.rockbox.org/daily/manual/rockbox-sansaclipplus/rockbox-buildch4.html#x7-390004.1 and http://download.rockbox.org/daily/manual/rockbox-sansaclipplus/rockbox-buildch4.html#x7-720004.4.3 but I do recommend that you read the whole thing, so as to understand as much as possible, and reduce the support burden.

Those links *should* enable you to achieve what you want, but do ask if anything is unclear.