"Add To Playlist" patch

[lenny]

A while ago Shebb made this really cool patch that I used all the time. It allowed you to have a "playlist catalog" and insert songs at any time to a playlist in your catalog. Anyway, I'm really missing it and it doesn't seem to compile with recent builds (I have no idea when it became incompatible).

Here is the patch
Here is the original forum thread

Did anyone use this patch besides me? What are the chances that it might get fixed/updated? I pm'd Shebb a few days ago but he/she hasn't responded.

[Mad Big Sausage]

I havn't used it but I've been wanting those features for a while.

[dunno]

1). I really don't see a difference between "Insert" and "Insert Last", surely these two are the same, and menu clutter sould be reduced by removing one of these. (same goes for "Queue" and "Queue Last" ).
(OK, subsequently found out that 'Insert' positions new files after the previously entered file)

2). It would be nice to be able to add any song at any time to any previously created playlist.

3).  A playlist can ONLY be initiated with "Insert", thereafter any new additions to the playlist can be "Queued", but this means that the first album will replayed if shuffle is selected down the line.

[LinusN]

That patch is a cool idea, but it is implemented wrong. It uses the playlist API in a way that it is not intended to. I once tried to clean it up, but I gave up due to lack of time.

[dunno]

* dunno orders more time for Linus from Amazon*

[Shebb]

Been away for some time.

Well this is something I really would like to see implemented in Rockbox some day.  Building up multiple playlists at a time is something I think is useful.  I like to use it to gather up music that has been encoded poorly or I can't justify having on my player.  The favorites plugin is a little too limiting for me.

I could recode it in a way that fits the rockbox design philosophy if you could tell me what I shouldn't be doing, Linus.  The 'favorites' plugin just writes the information to the end.  I thought it would be better to use the playlist API becuase functionality such as insert directory is already implented there.

[LinusN]

The problem with the playlist API is that it is designed to be used on the running playlist. It can't be used on a disk-based list while another is playing.

That might be a bug in the playlist code, but that's how it works today at least.

[Shebb]

That is not how it works for me.  I can play my shuffled playlist of all my music and use 'Playlist catalog' to add the currently playing track to any playlist I have indexed.  Whilst the music is still playing I can also browse through my files and add them to any indexed playlist.  The playlist.h file states that the functions can be used for all playlists even if another is currently loaded.  From this I infered that the playlist API was designed to be used on any playlist not just the current one. 

There are parts of my code that I do not like, for instance much of the stuff that governs the saved playlists, but the actual playlist manipulation parts I believe are correct.

[Shebb]

Well here is a new patch anyway...  Using diff through cvs made a massive file for some reason which just replaced all the old file with my updated one.  Drop the .doc extention and apply this to onplay.c in the apps folder.

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[lenny]

Shebb thank you

it works great

[Assimalyst]

IMHO this is a really useful patch, it would be great if it could be added to CVS builds.

[Shebb]

Here is an updated patch.  Cleaned the code up a little bit.  I also added a view playlist and a shuffle playlist function.

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[LinusN]

That patch has a bug that manifests itself in the simulator. I fixed it and uploaded it to Sourceforge:

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&atid=439120&group_id=44306&aid=1255322

I also made proper LANG entries of the texts.

Question: is it really necessary to have 3 ways to add a file (last/first/shuffled)?

[dunno]

Question: is it really necessary to have 3 ways to add a file (last/first/shuffled)?

good question ?.
Seeing as the extra files will be added to a dormant playlist, it should suffice to add the files using 'Last>(Insert)' only. That playlist can always be manipulated once its dynamic (this is more logical to me), i.e. it can be shuffled and files can be moved around at will once its dynamic. so in my opinion its not neccessary to include the first and shuffled options, the other options are superfluous, a 'Insert' options should suffice.

My.000002c worth.

[LinusN]

Yes, you can edit the playlist anytime by opening it in the playlist viewer. You don't even have to play it.

Also, by only adding to the end of the list, we can use a simple file append instead if having to load the playlist with the playlist API.