Shuffle Play of ALL files (iRiver iHP140)

[MickeyKnox]

Hi

I found this firmware yesterday and think it's great, but I have ONE question.
First of all ... I don't play any playlists (actually I don't like them) - I just want my player to play just one of the songs on it.
Second ... I did create the following directory order -> iRiver_root: Artist/Album (I don't have any single tracks, just albums)
So, what I want is simple - in shuffle mode, the player (iRiver iHP140) should take tracks from ALL directories not just from the current one. Is that possible and when ... HOW? I haven't found  it yet and I think I looked in EVERY single option menu.
Can someone help me please?

P.S.: DOOM on my iRiver ... hahaha, that's funny

[romero]

I was just wondering the exact same thing.

The way I've found to do it is this:

In the General Settings/File View/Show Files/ menu, select "ID3 Database".

First you should have all your files tagged if you want to know what anything is (but it will play the untagged files, just not tell you what they are).

You can then browse by artist, album, track, or actually many of the ID3 tag fields (which is pretty cool).
If you browse by track, you'll then see a list of all the files in your database. Playing with shuffle turned on will then play all these tracks randomly.

I'm totally new to this myself as well, but I think generating your database (initializing the tag cache?) may be the first trick if you haven't done that. (and updating it whenever you add stuff to the device)

I hope that helps...

Damion

[AlexP]

In the options turn recursivly insert directories on, then create a playlist of all the files on your player by holding down navi in the root, then selecting playlist --> create playlist.

Turn shuffle on, play the root playlist, and voila.

[MickeyKnox]

Thanks Mr. ZOMBIE (hahaha, i love your movies )
I will check that later if it works

Bambi: The thing is, I don't like playlists, you know? And I change the albums on my player very often and I don't want to recreate a Playlist each time I changed something - but when that's the only way ... I will see ... maybe the guys here change that in a later version

[AlexP]

Either way something will have to update when you change albums, be it the root playlist or the tagcache database (although I think that'll do it automatically).

The problem you might run into is that the entire design philosophy of rockbox is based around playlists.  Even when you select a file/folder/whatever to play, rockbox creates a playlist.  The way I said is the way to do it without tagcache (which personally I don't like).

[Didgeridoohan]

Thanks Mr. ZOMBIE (hahaha, i love your movies )
I will check that later if it works

Bambi: The thing is, I don't like playlists, you know? And I change the albums on my player very often and I don't want to recreate a Playlist each time I changed something - but when that's the only way ... I will see ... maybe the guys here change that in a later version

You're gonna have a tough time with Rockbox then, because it is all about playlists. Everytime you play a song it makes a playlist. It either makes a playlist of only that song, if you want, the whole directory, the entire directory and sub-directories, and so on... It all depends on how you want it, but one thing is certain... Rockbox uses and makes playlists and that is not likely to change.

Everytime you play a file, it creates a dynamic playlist, that can be erased or saved just as you want it. Another great playlist tool is the playlist catalog. There you keep all your saved playlists and can add any song you want with just a few button-clicks.

About making a playlist of your entire music collection. If you keep a saved playlist of it, and later update your collection, it is just a matter of choosing the new folders or files and adding them to the playlist with the playlist catalog. Very easy...

I just checked as well. Creating a playlist of my collection (4500+ something songs) took less than a minute from pressing the first button until I had a saved playlist on my player.

[bluebrother]

I just checked as well. Creating a playlist of my collection (4500+ something songs) took less than a minute from pressing the first button until I had a saved playlist on my player.

With dircache enabled you can have it even faster -- I just generated a root playlist with ~3000 songs in just a couple of seconds. No big deal at all.

[Didgeridoohan]

I just checked as well. Creating a playlist of my collection (4500+ something songs) took less than a minute from pressing the first button until I had a saved playlist on my player.

With dircache enabled you can have it even faster -- I just generated a root playlist with ~3000 songs in just a couple of seconds. No big deal at all.

I have dirchace enabled... The time is counted from pressing the first button (press and hold NAVI on my H340 -> Playlist -> Insert) to bring up the playlist options and making a root playlist. Press and hold NAVI again -> Playlist -> Save current playlist and then entering the desired name for the playlist. Waiting for it to be saved, and voila! Less than a minute from start to end.

[Llorean]

I have all of my music in the "Music" folder. I go into it, choose "Create Playlist" from the menu, about 1.5 seconds later a Music.m3u is sitting in my root folder. It's a slightly quicker method if you don't mind the playlist sharing a name with the folder it was generated from. I've done this for a few artists I have as well as my "Game Music" folder.

[Didgeridoohan]

I did not know about that one... Thanks!

[Didgeridoohan]

I myself realised that there is an even quicker method if you want to name your playlist something other than the default name, and also keep them in a folder of their own without having to cut and paste. Use Playlist catalog -> Add to new playlist. A lot faster than my previous method.

Cheers!