2012-06-10, 02:43
I love how Party Mode works for music, in the way that it queues up manually selected songs to immediately follow the currently playing selection. I'd use it more, but being truly (pseudo)random it tends to generate more repeats than I'd like when based on an existing playlist with a certain genre or mood. Predefined playlists set up for random playback are much better in that regard, since they shuffle the list once and generate no additional repeats - but adding a song ad hoc places it at the bottom of the the queue, which is not as useful as it could be during an "interactive listening session", be it personal listening or a party where the remote is being passed around the room.
When this has been brought up previously, my sense is one main objection to changing the current system has been ambiguous expectations of what to do with auto-queued items when "Play the next song automatically" is ticked in preferences; if we want to insert a song next in the now playing list, what exactly is "next"? After the current song? After the current song and the rest of the album that may have been auto-queued? And does only the selected song get pushed to the top, or does the rest of the album follow?
Personally I think "Play the next song automatically" is potentially confusing, and has no place in my own usage of XBMC. I'm all for hearing opposing opinions of course. If I want to hear an entire album of songs, I'll add the container (the album) to the Now Playing queue. Otherwise I'll add the song, and expect only the one song to be queued up. In light of this and the previous paragraph, I humbly propose that "Play the next song automatically" be deprecated. In its place I'd like to see an option worded like "Move new selections to top of queue" or "Queue new selections Party Mode style" or some such thing.
If unticked: adding to the Now Playing queue behaves exactly as it does now
If ticked: adding to the Now Playing queue behaves functionally like it does right now in Party Mode, with the following clarification:
- If something is added to the queue and the songs that comprise an album are currently in progress, the new selection should be placed immediately after the final track on the current album. If "Play the next song automatically" is deprecated, then we can assume an album in progress is there because the user explicitly put it there and wants to hear it all. If I change my mind I'll stop playback before adding more stuff. Likewise if I select an album, rather than a song, to be added to the queue in this manner, then the new album in its entirety should begin playback immediately after the current [song or album] has finished.
Thanks for reading.
When this has been brought up previously, my sense is one main objection to changing the current system has been ambiguous expectations of what to do with auto-queued items when "Play the next song automatically" is ticked in preferences; if we want to insert a song next in the now playing list, what exactly is "next"? After the current song? After the current song and the rest of the album that may have been auto-queued? And does only the selected song get pushed to the top, or does the rest of the album follow?
Personally I think "Play the next song automatically" is potentially confusing, and has no place in my own usage of XBMC. I'm all for hearing opposing opinions of course. If I want to hear an entire album of songs, I'll add the container (the album) to the Now Playing queue. Otherwise I'll add the song, and expect only the one song to be queued up. In light of this and the previous paragraph, I humbly propose that "Play the next song automatically" be deprecated. In its place I'd like to see an option worded like "Move new selections to top of queue" or "Queue new selections Party Mode style" or some such thing.
If unticked: adding to the Now Playing queue behaves exactly as it does now
If ticked: adding to the Now Playing queue behaves functionally like it does right now in Party Mode, with the following clarification:
- If something is added to the queue and the songs that comprise an album are currently in progress, the new selection should be placed immediately after the final track on the current album. If "Play the next song automatically" is deprecated, then we can assume an album in progress is there because the user explicitly put it there and wants to hear it all. If I change my mind I'll stop playback before adding more stuff. Likewise if I select an album, rather than a song, to be added to the queue in this manner, then the new album in its entirety should begin playback immediately after the current [song or album] has finished.
Thanks for reading.