Okay, here was my plan:

I have all of my playlists in a standard tree with the artists as the first level, and individual albums at the second level.

I decided that if I played the top level playlist (hit the bottom button three times), since I was playing the whole Empeg, I would always want that level to shuffle-play. If I selected an individual album, then I probably wanted to listen to that album in sequence.

So, it seemed logical: Turn off shuffle play on the Empeg, and check the "always randomize" checkbox in the property sheet for that root-level playlist. Leave it unchecked for all the albums. That way, I wouldn't have to manually turn shuffle on and off every time I went from whole-empeg-listening to just-one-album listening.

So I did that. But guess what happens? When I hit that bottom button three times, it selects a random album, but then it plays that album from the beginning in order.

I think that if you tell it to "always randomize contents" for a playlist, it should shuffle every song if you select that playlist directly, no matter what its children specify. If the parent list has a child list that is not shuffled, then don't shuffle it- but only if you DIRECTLY selected that child.

Here's an example. Let's say I have this heirarchy:

empeg-car .......... <- "Always Randomize" is checked here.
.....Rush ............. <- And here,
.........Moving Pictures .......... <- But not for these.
.........Power Windows
.........Grace Under Pressure

In that case, if I select the root playlist or the "Rush" playlist it should randomize all songs no matter what. But If I select "Moving Pictures" it should always play sequentially from the beginning.

See what I'm saying? It makes sense, right?

Who's with me on this one?



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

I have to agree that this should be classified as a bug.

It makes sense that a playlist that is marked "Always Randomize" should behave the same way that it does when it is played with Shuffle turned "on."

I was planning on documenting this and reporting it as a bug, but I hadn't quite figured out exactly what it was doing because of my labyrinthine playlist structure. So thanks, Tony. :)

Corby
SN#320, 6-Gig Blue

hmm.. I kinda like this behavior: I often just pick a catagory and let the empeg decide the cd/artist to play: you can always turn on random play if you want it to shuffle...
-m

...proud to have one of the first Mark I units

hmm.. I kinda like this behavior...

Okay, I'll grant you that the behavior is interesting and does have a potential use. I wouldn't use it that way, but to each his own.

However...

Strictly from a user-interface standpoint, don't you think that if a user (let's say a non-computer-savvy consumer) tells it to "always randomize this playlist", don't you think it should... oh I dunno... actually do that?

If not, then shouldn't that checkbox be renamed? And just how would you rename the checkbox: "Randomize this playlist, but only if it consists of just songs, if it consists of sub-playlists then the behavior of those playlists will take precedence, but the playlists themselves will be selected randomly." Gonna have to make that dialog box bigger.

I'm just kidding of course. I don't envy the Empeg guys. I've always said that there is no such thing as the perfect user interface, and this is no exception. There are exactly as many perfect user interfaces as there are users. A UI is always a compromise between all the possible users. As soon as I express my opinion about how I think it should work, someone else pipes up with a desire to see it behave in exactly the opposite fashion. The volume control is a classic example: I recall hearing numerous complaints that it was too slow, and as soon as they sped it up the other half of the users started to complaining that it was too fast.

Okay, let's hear from the other BBS users. How do you use the "Always Randomize" checkbox? I thought that my usage was its intended purpose, but found out otherwise when I tried to use it for the first time. How's it being used in the real world?



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

I'm going to look back on these days with fondness... when the patrons of the BBS were folks who could use words like "labyrinthine" correctly in a sentence. When they start shipping 1000 units a month, it's going to change, just like Usenet did when AOL opened the floodgates. Sigh.



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

perhaps there shout be a "random,shuffel,normal,never" meaning:
RANDOM all in this directory and sub dir shout be random (as one playlist)
SHUFFEL all in this director are playe random (sub dir are playe as one file)
NORMAL all in this directory are played in sequens (sub dir are playe as one file)
NEVER this dir is always played in sequens regarding topdir

and for each dir an variable (4/10) that tels howe fare you are in the sequense, so it continues form were you were last.

Mark
wait for mk III with a USB Host/slave
(USB->Ethernet)(USB->COM 1-8)(USB->You name it)

Yes, I agree. I would like the same functionality that you describe.

Strangely I found this a while back as well and it bothered me, but I just turned on 'Shuffle'.

However, I just went down to the car to check this out (ok, I *do* believe you!) ,and my unit is now shuffling properly. I.e. with the behaviour that you describe:

Root Level (i.e. down x 3) - Plays random songs in the unit (actually from every play list - so I get 'The Corrs' all of the time ).
Level One - Plays random songs from the playlist.
Level Two - Plays Random songs from the artist
Level Three - Plays Songs in Order from the CD.

Playlist as follows:

Root.
......Playlists
......'By Artist'
..................Sheep on Drugs
.................................Greatest Hits

etc.etc.etc.

In short, I've no idea how, but I've managed to get my unit to replicate exactly the behavious that I want and you describe.

?!?

Paul.

Paul Haigh, 6GB, Blue
Reg: 4120 - Serial 00254

Paul, your report made me do further tests. I still can't get it to behave the way I'm expecting.

When I do the following layout (with "R" indicating always randomize):

R...empeg-car
R..........Artist
....................Album
....................Album
R..........Artist
....................Album
....................Album
R..........Various/Mix

Then, if I have shuffle-play off on the Empeg, no matter what I do, if I select the root playlist or artist playlists, it plays the contents of the individual albums sequentially (although it randomly selects an album). If it happens to hit that Various/Mix playlist from the root level, then of course it randomizes that one. But my point is that the sequential albums don't get randomized.

Of course, If I turn on shuffle play, it shuffles the songs, but I thought the whole point of that checkbox was so that you didn't have to toggle shuffle play if you ran that playlist.



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

This behaviour is, essentially, correct: ie, it's as we designed it. Randomise only randomises the contents of that *level* - it won't descend recursively randomising there.

What is possibly needed is a "total randomise" option, which mushes everything up (as shuffle does) below that level.

Hugo

This behaviour is, essentially, correct: ie, it's as we designed it. Randomise only randomises the contents of that *level* - it won't descend recursively randomising there.

Of course. It's perfectly logical that way. I totally understand how and why it does what it does.

But that points up the standard gap that exists between engineers and the consumers who use their products. Sure, any engineer or programmer could understand that behavior. But do you expect a consumer to understand that?



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

I've never understood the reason for this 'Always Randomize' option anyway. Can't think of any CD that I would never want to hear in sequence, so 'Always Randomize' option is hardly useful IMHO. What I really would like to have is the very opposite: an option to protect the original sequence even when 'Shuffle On' is selected. This would play most playlists in random order (I do so anyway), except the ones where random play would ruin the experience (classical music; stage plays; test tracks, certain pop albums, etc)

'Shuffle On' works fine for me and I'd trade in the 'Always Randomize' attribute for a 'Never Randomize' option anytime, but I guess that this woud cause half the world to fall over the Empeg team, would they ever honour this humble request. May I therefore propose (again) an additional play list setting 'Never Randomize' that protects a playlist and anything below it. This without having to manipulate the Shuffle On/Off option everytime when classical, plays etc is selected.

Henno (#120)

Henno, I mostly agree that I would rarely want to listen to a given album randomized. Most artists put a lot of thought into the sequence of songs on an album, and some (like Pink Floyd) deliberately run the songs together in a coherent fashion. There are many albums which would be downright sacrelige to listen to out-of-order.

(However, there are some albums which work well with shuffle play. I've already mentioned "Apollo 18" by They Might Be Giants, which states specifically in the liner notes that it's intended to be shuffle-played. Also, many soundtrack albums are a mishmash collection of different songs where little or no thought has gone into the order of the tracks. But this is all beside the point, since it's not at the heart of our problem.)

In general, if I'm listening to the entire music collection from the root, then I usually want it shuffled. But if I choose a specific album, then I usually want to listen to it sequentially.

The idea of listening to an individual album sequentially but a collection of songs from those albums randomly is why I tried doing it that way in the first place, and why I was surprised when it didn't work.

In defense of the Empeg folks, your request for a "never randomize" option looks like it's in their future plans, and has been for some time. Just above the "always randomize" checkbox is another checkbox which seems like it would fit your bill. It's just grayed out for now until they implement that feature.

I mean, if you think about it, we're in a catch-22: To do what you and I want to do (randomize if we select the parent trees but don't randomize if we select an album), we currently have to maually turn Shuffle on and off each time we select a new playlist. But if we're going to have to do that anyway, why have the "always randomize" checkbox at all?

If we can assume that the "always randomize" checkbox has a purpose (i.e., it's there so that you don't have to manually activate shuffle for certain playlists), then how are we supposed to do what we want? Well, I see only two ways:

1) Turn on the Empeg's shuffle play, and set the "never randomize" flag on the albums we don't want shuffled. But this option does not exist yet. So we can't do that.

2) Turn off the Empeg's shuffle play, and set the "always randomize" flag on the parent playlists that we do want shuffled. But this doesn't work, as we've discovered. So we can't do that either.

There is another option, but it also results in a catch-22: You could create an "All tracks" playlist, set it to always shuffle, and copy all your songs into it. But if we have to do that, why do we even have heirarchical playlists at all?



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

Thanks, Toni, I feel less lonely now.
I think we're pretty close in expected behaviour. Let's hope the grayed option is for a 'never randomize' attribute.

Am not sure how this request for 'never randomize' was received by the empeg team. When I suggested it earlier (some 4 monts ago ??) the response from Hugo wasn't very positive. May be that the current discussion helped them to change their mind(s); or better yet, I may have mis-interpreted his reponse; he could have been careful not to promise too much.

Any comments Hugo??

Henno
(PS -- all in good faith and meant as positively (and that with an amp that finally killed itself after Empeg pops !!) -

There's some major work to be done on the playlist flattening code in the future to give us the flexibility needed to do these sort of things (and virtual tunes, audio books, etc) - I can't promise when it'll get done, but the objective is to allow every behaviour a user could want by twiddling flags.

We're all pretty busy here working on the Mk2 and other projects, but as always our aims are for stability before features. A lot of work has been going into getting sync's bulletproof before looking at new bells & whistles.

Btw, another programmer, Roger, has just joined the empeg team. He's working mainly on windows stuff (not emplode yet, that's still Mike's currently) but will probably also end up working on the linux bits :)

Hugo

Okay,

I checked this again.

If I press 'down' three times (i.e. select the 'Root' playlist), it shuffles the entire empeg. This doesn't seem to fit what you say.

'Shuffle' is definitely off on my machine.

However, if I select an album, I get the songs in order.

I tested this at lunchtime today, as well as on the way home - listened to random songs (ugh) and a whole album Without touching the 'Shuffle' option.

I'll try selecting the 'Artist' level and see what happens. I'll also check the 'randomness' settings in empload since I've not checked them for a while and my girlfriend was the last to use it (could be chaos).

Now, I'm worried about this, since Hugo says that this shouldn't happen and isn't the way it should work.

This is on 8c by the way - I'm too scared to go to 9a, just in case this behavious goes away.

Paul Haigh, 6GB, Blue
Reg: 4120 - Serial 00254

Thanks for that message, Hugo. It's great to know that you guys are dedicated to making the Empeg perfect.

There's some major work to be done on the playlist flattening code in the future to give us the flexibility needed to do these sort of things.

Yeah. I figured that. If you think about how the heirarchical playlists work, it makes perfect sense.

lot of work has been going into getting sync's bulletproof before looking at new bells & whistles.

Hear, hear! Absolutely. We wouldn't have it any other way. Thanks very much for working so hard on such a great product. We love our Empegs.


-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

There's some major work to be done on the playlist flattening code to give us the flexibility to do these sort of things

That's what I read into your previous answer. Am glad that you're not dodging the issue: I'm sure we all can hapily live with today's empeg. Knowing that you take your product (and us) serious is important is half the fun of owning an nepeg. Thanks

Henno