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I'm trying (and failing!) to create a smart music playlist that opens my FLAC songs, grouping by album.

The first bit was very straight forward, however, I can't workout how to group by album.

I had hoped that I could use the type "Albums" then a rule where "Songs" endswith "FLAC", however " Songs" isn't an option. I then thought that I could create the playlist at type "Songs", then refer to that playlist from type " Album", but that just kills Kodi.

I wondered if virtual folders would help, but couldn't find much explaining this option.

Any advice welcome. Using version 14.2

Any suggestions would be very welcome.

Thanks

I'm not anywhere near my HTPC to check, but I'm quite certain there is an order by option on the smart playlist creation window. I just can't be sure if it had options other than Ascending or Descending. Have you tried that?

Otherwise, you might want to have a read through the Smart playlists wiki entry. There is a grouping section in there as well that might help. But it seems to focus more on creating them manually vs using the GUI.

Wish I could test it for you. Sorry.

Thanks for the suggestions. The ordering is available, but still only at track level, rather than album.

Will take a look at the wiki, and update here with the outcome.

Sadly, I'm no further on. Really thought I'd be able to get this to work, but I can't. I've tried calling the "flac songs" playlist, from an album playlist, but this just crashes Kodi. Defeated.

If I'm understanding correctly that you're wanting to create a single music playlist for all your FLAC songs and also grouped by Album Artist within the same playlist, then you might want to try this config:-

Set your playlist type to 'Songs'
Create a new rule: 'Where the file ends with 'FLAC''

Unfortunately, I only have a few FLAC albums (5 Artists in totals) to test fully, but certainly this config did create a single music playlist of all my FLAC songs, grouped by Album Artist, with the album tracks in the correct order.

But like I said, I'm not exactly sure if this is what you are trying achieve.
Good luck
Cheers

Thanks for the suggestion. Sorry it's taken me a (VERY) long time to reply. It's the grouping I want most. What you described selects files perfectly. But the player lists as tracks. What i want is a collection of albums that meet the criteria. Then click on am album to play/show the tracks.

There is no such sort/grouping available for a songs playlist AFAIK, although sorting songs by album-track does make sense as something useful to add. How about creating an album playlist? That can be sorted by album titile, and the songs will appear using the current song view sort order (I think).

(2016-04-17, 08:32)DaveBlake Wrote: [ -> ]There is no such sort/grouping available for a songs playlist AFAIK, although sorting songs by album-track does make sense as something useful to add. How about creating an album playlist? That can be sorted by album titile, and the songs will appear using the current song view sort order (I think).

That would work, although I was hoping to do as a smart list. The FLAC files are in one folder, but as far as I can see I can't specify a folder as an option. I tried using the Virtual folder option, ie smart playlist to select songs, then album playlist selecting the songs playlist, but that just selected everything in my library.

So, to get this to work as you want in Kodi, you need two things - a smart playlist and a new music node.

The smart playlist goes like this


Now we create a node for the music library (you can use the addon to do it, or create it manually)


Now when you enter the music library, there will be a new option 'Flac Albums'. Clicking on that will list all the flac albums and clicking on an album will show the corresponding tracks.

(2016-04-17, 22:02)black_eagle Wrote: [ -> ]So, to get this to work as you want in Kodi, you need two things - a smart playlist and a new music node.

The smart playlist goes like this

PHP Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<smartplaylist type="songs">
    <name>flac</name>
    <match>all</match>
    <rule field="filename" operator="endswith">
        <value>flac</value>
    </rule>
</smartplaylist> 


Now we create a node for the music library (you can use the addon to do it, or create it manually)

PHP Code:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<node type="filter">
    <label>Flac Albums</label>
    <content>albums</content>
    <order direction="ascending">album</order>
    <rule field="playlist" operator="is">
        <value>flac</value>
    </rule>
</node> 


Now when you enter the music library, there will be a new option 'Flac Albums'. Clicking on that will list all the flac albums and clicking on an album will show the corresponding tracks.

I had tried that and I get all albums / all songs in the node, regardless if flac or mp3 (seems to ignore the playlist).

scott s.
.

Good suggestions Black_eagle, and I will check why it doesn't work Scott.

(2016-04-17, 20:25)BigK Wrote: [ -> ]That would work, although I was hoping to do as a smart list. The FLAC files are in one folder, but as far as I can see I can't specify a folder as an option. I tried using the Virtual folder option, ie smart playlist to select songs, then album playlist selecting the songs playlist, but that just selected everything in my library.

Because the files are all in one folder the rule you want is called Path. So in a custom node something like


Can also make a smart playlist with a Path rule.