User experience doubt coming from different players

[Akumasama]

I beg everyone's pardon for my naivity, but there's something I don't get about how Rockbox works.
I'm not criticizing btw, just trying to understand how to use it correctly.

My Use on previous players
What I tipically used to do most of the time was keeping my player in an "all Tracks" mode, played with shuffle (random) on.
I would skip tracks accordingly, but maybe sometimes I get a track from an artist I like and that makes me will to listen to a full album from that artist, or from another track.
I could quickly do that in a few steps directly from the track, and it wouldn't interrupt the "random playlist" (which isn't a playlist at all, I seem to understand?)
Whenever I would get bored of listening to that artist/album, I would simply go back to "all tracks random" in a few steps, just a matter of a bunch of seconds.
Similarly I listen to a track that makes me want to listen to another, I could simply browse to that track in a few seconds and start playing it, all of this while keeping the random all track thing on, so that from the next time I press "Forward" or the current track finishes, it would still randomize what to play next.


I've been unable to do this on Rockbox, it takes me ages to navigate to the right track (the list is ordered alphbetically and I could find a way to move through "letters" fast, only track after track one by one).
Also each time I press play on a new track it "cancels" my current "random all" playlist and creates a new one with just a single track/album on, the one I picked up.
Going back to playing all tracks takes some more steps, and it performs a very very long "loading" before starting to play again.

All in all it's very unfriendly and convoluted.
Maybe I'm doing something wrong? Is it really necessary for Rockbox to "create" these playlists on the fly? Can't it just play tracks randomly without having to create playlists?

[bluebrother]

Maybe I'm doing something wrong? Is it really necessary for Rockbox to "create" these playlists on the fly? Can't it just play tracks randomly without having to create playlists?

No, you can't "just play tracks randomly" -- how is Rockbox supposed to know which tracks to play? However, it's quite easy to achieve your usage patten. The key is to have your music sorted in folders in a way that allows you to do this. In my case I have a top level folder "music" with Artist/Album folders below which allows me to achive this usage patten (there might be other ways as well ...) Make sure you have Recursively Insert Directories set to On in the settings, otherwise the subfolders will get into the way.

1. to play all tracks shuffled select the top level folder, go to the context menu and choose Current Playlist / Insert Shuffled. Play.
2. to play more of the current artist / album, simply go to the file browser and make sure you have Follow Playlist enabled. You can then select another track / the album folder / the artist folder, open the context menu and choose Current Playlist / Queue Next. This will insert the files temporarily to the current playlist, i.e. after they have been played they get removed from the playlist again.

The manual explains how Rockbox playlists work. This should explain things -- if there are any questions on that please ask more specific

[Akumasama]

Given how I'm a bit OCD about keeping my music sorted on my HDD from the old days, it already has that structure.
Container>Artist>Album>Songs (sorted by track number thanks to my naming protocols)

I'll try  what you suggested, thanks a lot!
This little thing was bugging me a bit because otherwise Rockbox is absolutely outstanding and literally transformed my Sansa into something more than it originally was.

[Akumasama]

Tested a bit with the method you suggested.
Works like a charm!

Thanks a lot for teaching me this new way to use it, love it!