Easy way to clear the playlist without stopping play?

[mborus]

Hi

is there an easy way to clear the playlist without stopping play?

Currently, when I play a track in a directory, the whole directory is created as a playlist. (If I do this from the "Tracks"-List in database view, the whole player content becomes a playlist).

I'm looking for a way to clear this playlist without stopping play. The list should either be completely empty or just contain the currently playing track. If that's not possible, is there a way to clear the playlist without starting a new one?

[Febs]

This is not directly responsive to your question, but if you want to play a song without creating a playlist of the current directory, instead of selecting the file, press and hold select/navi/joystick on the file and select "insert" or "queue."

[bascule]

Currently, when I play a track in a directory, the whole directory is created as a playlist. (If I do this from the "Tracks"-List in database view, the whole player content becomes a playlist).

Yes, that's the designed behaviour.

I'm looking for a way to clear this playlist without stopping play. The list should either be completely empty or just contain the currently playing track. If that's not possible, is there a way to clear the playlist without starting a new one?

There is no way currently to do exactly what you have described, but as usual with this sort of question, it is why you want to do this that is important.

There is usually a way of achieving most things, but it may not involve answering the actual question asked...

[mborus]

it is why you want to do this

The situation is this:

The player is connected to a (rather large) stereo system and plays to a room full of people at pretty high volume. I don't want to stop playback (as this annoys the others) but get rid of the rest of the playlist to fill it again with other titles to play after the currently running track.

Normally I use the "insert/queue" functions to fill up the playlist. But once in a while over an evening I make a mistake and just select the track. This instantly messes up my playlist. There's the party mode - I can change to that to prevent this mistake. Still there's no way to clear the playlist before entering party mode (or while in it) unless you delete each entry manually.

[bascule]

Ok, here we go... 

Start your player
Press 'Stop', so that you return to the File Browser/Database view
Navigate to your first track of the day
Press and hold select/navi/joystick on the file and select "insert" (as per Febs' suggestion)
[Track starts playing in a playlist of 1]
Change to Party Mode

...et voilá!

[mborus]

Start your player
Press 'Stop', so that you return to the File Browser/Database view
Navigate to your first track of the day
Press and hold select/navi/joystick on the file and select "insert" (as per Febs' suggestion)
[Track starts playing in a playlist of 1]
Change to Party Mode

...et voilá!

Thanks for taking the time to answer.

Alas this way I need to re-boot whenever I want to get a clean playlist.
This is OK for the beginning of the party, but not what I'm looking for. I'm looking
for a way to dump the current playlist in mid-party (when the mood changes and
you suddenly realise that the 20-something tracks coming up need to go)

I had already found the work-around you mentioned.
There's also another one that works without re-booting, but is even more annoying:
First I have to leave party mode. Then I use the search function to search for the track in a way that only the one result is displayed and then wait for the current track to finish and then start this on manually at the last second of the currently playing track. Now I can enter Party mode again.

This is not really practical...

[bascule]

That's definitely a tricky problem...  

How about this:

Set Crossfade setting to 'Track Skip Only' (to avoid ruining your normal running)
When the mood changes, navigate to the song you want to play next and do Playlist>Insert Last
View the playlist and scroll down to the last track then select it
Rockbox will then crossfade into that song and you will have a clear playlist ahead of you

Don't know how this will work with Party mode, I've never used that.

Also, consider setting up a couple of themes (titled '1-party on' and '2-party off' so they sort to the top) containing just the Party Mode setting, to make it easier to change in and out of that mode...

Beyond this, I think I'm fresh out of ideas  

[nls]

I think I have a solution to your problem. Create a playlist of the songs you want to play in the playlist catalog and then insert that playlist next in the current one, it will however not clear the songs that were there previously. Or you could load that playlist on a trackchange, and perhaps make it fairly seamless, or maybe crossfade on trackskip works with playlists too...

[ctt]

Took a stab at this.  See http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/6464 (and original request, http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/2730).  The patch should allow you to take your time preparing the list and move to it with a crossfade, when everything's ready.

Feedback would be appreciated as this is my first patch.

[mborus]

Thanks for the patch. This is exactly the behaviour I'm looking for.

Feedback would be appreciated as this is my first patch.

It'll test this after christmas (I'll be offline for a few days)
and post some feedback afterwards.

[ctt]

Thanks for the patch. This is exactly the behaviour I'm looking for.

Feedback would be appreciated as this is my first patch.

It'll test this after christmas (I'll be offline for a few days)
and post some feedback afterwards.

Looks like the patch was merged into CVS last week.  The menu name has been changed from `Replace' to `Play Next'.  See http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/6486 for an attempt at documenting the feature in the manual.

[polluxx2006]

hi there!

i would also be happy to have another menu entry
in the playlist menu which says "clear playlist" that
deletes all songs in the list except the one thats playing.

greets
polluxx