Can I delete instances of playlists in jEmplode without the copies disappearing?
Not that I know of. Each copy of a playlist is actually the
same exact file. What you're copying is not the playlist, you're copying the reference
to the playlist. So anything you do to one playlist is automatically done to the other copy. FAQ entry is
here.
See, with heirarchical playlists, you can't have it both ways...
Let's say you've made a Artists/PRS/Rush playlist, with each album as a separate playlist under that. Now you make a "My Favorite Artists" playlist, and copy Rush into it. Now you get a new Rush album and put it into the "Rush" playlist. Yay! You don't have to put the album into the Rush playlist twice, it's automatic because they're both links to the same playlist.
But now you want to delete one without deleting the other. But you can't have that without breaking the above functionality.
Here is one possible work-around. Taking the above example...
Let's say you want to delete the Rush playlist from Artists/PRS but you want to leave it in "My Favorite Artists". Do this: Create another playlist, perhaps named "Rush2". Then copy all the sub-playlists into it. Then you can delete the old Rush playlist and it will disappear, but the sub-playlists will still exist under the new one. Or at least they should, I think. Worth a try anyway.
If you want one copy of a playlist to be edited differently than its source playlist, then you have to
create a new playlist instead of copying it. See the difference?