wish: return to directory last played

[theanthropos]

I'm using the iRiver HP-120 and have enjoyed Rockbox for a long, long time. One thing I do after listening to an album is delete it right away. Unfortunately, after and album completes I'm kicked back to the root directory. Can we have an option to remain in the last played directory or the directory prior to that?
Thanks.

[Llorean]

The forum is not the proper place for feature requests.

[safetydan]

The "follow playlist" option might go some way to doing what you want.

[AlexP]

This has come in since the root menu, and the current implementation was discussed extensively on IRC.  Having said that, I agree with you - it is really annoying after an album has finished to be back in the root menu and have to navigate all the way through the tree again.  At the moment, my work around is to (if I remember) press stop 5 seconds before the end of the last song so I end up back where I was in the file tree.

[Llorean]

If you have Follow Playlist enabled, you should be highlighting the last file played. If this is not true, it's a bug.

Otherwise, you'll be where you last were before entering the WPS. This means that if you launched the playlist, you'll be highlighting the playlist. But if you entered the menu to do something, then returned to the WPS, you'll end up in the menus because that's where you last called the WPS from.

[AlexP]

I've done some testing, and the following happens: (edit: all this is with follow playlist turned on)

If an album finishes that you launched from the file tree and listened to without stopping, you get returned to the same position in the file tree as expected.

If an album finishes that you launched from the file tree, you stopped it at some point but resumed by pressing play from within the file tree, you get returned to the same position in the file tree as you were when you resumed - but not from the directory in which the song you are listening to i.e. follow playlist is not respected.

If an album finishes that you launched from the file tree, you stopped it at some point but resumed from the root menu (i.e. you had the player turned off at some point), when the album finishes you get sent back to the root menu, and not to where you were in the file tree.

I think this is probably intended so not a bug, but I don't like it.  It seems at the moment, all follow playlist does is take you to the directory where the song you are listening to is when you enter the filetree with music playing.  When an album finishes, you get taken to where you launched it from, and follow playlist isn't respected.

I can see both sides of the argument, and this is what I meant by saying the behaviour was debated in IRC, as I seem to remember it being.  However, personally I would prefer follow playlist to always be respected, but I can live with this - it just takes more key presses to get back to where I was when an album finishes, as I often have my player turned off and just press play to resume on starting, and hence get chucked back to root menu on completion of the album.  Note that having startup screen set to file tree wouldn't help much, as then you'd just get sent back to the root folder.

[pabouk]

If an album finishes that you launched from the file tree, you stopped it at some point but resumed from the root menu (i.e. you had the player turned off at some point), when the album finishes you get sent back to the root menu, and not to where you were in the file tree.

In addition when you open the file browser from the root menu it shows the place where you were last time in the browser (for example where you started the playback) not the last played file as expected with the "follow playlist" setting. If you reboot Rockbox after starting the playback the file browser is in the root directory even if you enter it while the music is playing! It does not obey the "follow playlist" setting at all.

I think this is probably intended so not a bug, but I don't like it.  It seems at the moment, all follow playlist does is take you to the directory where the song you are listening to is when you enter the filetree with music playing.  When an album finishes, you get taken to where you launched it from, and follow playlist isn't respected.

I do not like it too. At least when you end in the root menu after stopping playback and then when you enter the file browser it should show the last played file.

[heze]

Dear Rockbox developers,

I'm also very interested in this feature!

How is the chance that you will answer our prayers? If the forum is not the proper place for feature requests, where is it else?

However, thank you very much for this phantastic piece of software!

[pondlife]

IMHO the non-respecting of follow playlist in these examples is a bug.  I don't have a working player at the moment so haven't rechecked and reported it myself, but would expect all entry to the File Tree to go to the currently playing song if Follow Playlist is enabled (whether that be from pressing SELECT, or STOP, or natural playback end).

Someone who's seeing otherwise (BigBambi?) should log onto Flyspray and report a bug.

If however you were last in the main menu (or any other screen) and pressed PLAY from there, it's reasonable that it would return to the main menu.  (If you think of Follow Playlist as purely a file browser configuration option this makes more sense.)

pondlife

[GodEater]

If the forum is not the proper place for feature requests, where is it else?

Flyspray.

Look at the menu down the left hand side of the screen. There's a link there that says "feature requests". Is this somehow unintuitive ?

[theanthropos]

I submitted a feature request. Also, I don't use playlists.

[GodEater]

Yes you do.

Every time you start playing a file in Rockbox, it builds a dynamic playlist - even if you don't know it's doing it.

[Llorean]

I think it may be intentional that from the WPS to filetree follows the playlist, but from the main menu doesn't. I'm not sure, but I can see that behaviour as being seen to offer more flexibility. At least, I remember a discussion on this, but don't remember how it turned out, so it may be that a bug replicates what was suggested by some as intentional behaviour. I dunno.

Anywhere in Rockbox, you're at most two button presses away from the filetree via the WPS. There's only one place outside the filetree that's closer to it than two presses, and that's highlighting the file browser option in the main menu.

Is there a compelling reason why highlighting the last played file is useful outside a few special cases? Because basically, the only time you can't follow the playlist is after playback has stopped, and that makes a lot of sense to me.

[AlexP]

Anywhere in Rockbox, you're at most two button presses away from the filetree via the WPS. There's only one place outside the filetree that's closer to it than two presses, and that's highlighting the file browser option in the main menu.

Is there a compelling reason why highlighting the last played file is useful outside a few special cases? Because basically, the only time you can't follow the playlist is after playback has stopped, and that makes a lot of sense to me.

I often want to play another album by the same artist.  As I have /music/artist/album/tracks, on stop it is much much quicker to back out one directory then go into another than to select file tree from the menu, then music, then scroll through a very long list to find the artist, then select the album.  Even on my H1x0 which scrolling is quick on, it takes a while to scroll to the middle of a list of 60 gb of music.

[Llorean]

You do realize that when you start the first one, you can simply queue the second album so you never even have to go back to the filetree, right?

It sounds like we're in another "Flexibility" vs "Convenience" situation. =/