Playlist Shuffling using Ratings

[Hayden_54]

Hi, just joined the forum to add this to the wishlist

I like the idea of ratings, but they don't seem to do much apart from the top rated list. Another good way to make use of them would be to have the playlist select tracks with higher ratings more often and tracks with lower ratings less frequently.
Also, it would be helpful to be able to change the ratings from the playlist as well.

[Robert Kooijman]

Indeed, it should be possible to play higher rated songs more often! This while keeping random functionality at the same time.

Shouldn't be too tricky to implement.
Without it, song rating is useless to me!

All the best, Robert

[drkfdr]

I want to play whole albums, but excluding the ones that were marked with low rating.
Guess I could create lots of playlists and let it play a random playlist?
Also, I want to categorize & rate my music as they play, with a simple press on an input device.

[Moguta]

Hayden_54's suggestion sounds great for a plugin. I just don't see Nullsoft implementing it.

drkfdr, can't you make an advanced playlist that will include all files with rating > your_cutoff_rating? And you can use the Currently Playing playlist to rate current songs.

[Hayden_54]

how difficult would it be to implement this as a plugin?

[Moguta]

I have no clue. Depends if WinAmp allows plugins access to its shuffle algorithm, or if you'd have to code a workaround.

I suspect the latter.

[Robert Kooijman]

Why not just implement this in Winamp itself? I even don't mind to pay for the Pro version if it gets in there.

It's just great to have better songs played more often, without having to mess around with a multitude of playlists.

[xmfplt]

I agree wholeheartedly. Winamp 5 already has track ratings implemented in the Media Library, so they should incorporate them as into the shuffle algorithm (preferrably as an option that can be toggled on/off).

AND, there needs to be hotkeys to increase/decrease a file's rating as it plays or when it is selected. I know Milkdrop already has this feature for its preset shuffling -- try pressing numpad +/- as it's running. Very cool, IMHO, as the ugly presets get low ratings and rarely show up, and the sweet ones apprear more often. Same idea for songs. I'd recommend using the regular +/- keys or the square bracket keys, as they don't seem to do anything at the moment.

I think this feature should be called "Weighted Shuffling" (or something similar), and it would also be nice if it was playlist-specific (i.e. loud metal tracks get good ratings on a daytime playlist but very low ratings for a late-night playlist).

[Moguta]

Originally posted by Robert Kooijman
Why not just implement this in Winamp itself?

Becase the devs probably won't implement it... there have already been plenty of compliants about the not-very-randomness of the shuffle function w/o any action being taken.

And secondly, the ratings only exist in the Media Library. I imagine it would be difficult (though I doubt impossible) to use the ML ratings for the shuffle function of the Playlist Editor.

@xmfplt:
The Media Library is not integrated with the Playlist Editor, and ratings are only a part of the Media Library, so you'll never have a button to rate the current song or any song in the PE. It's cumbersome, I know, but the devs have specifically chosen to do this & do not plan to integrate the two (nor make the ML functional enough to replace the PE).

[theAXeffect]

i have heard (from the maker of mp3-tag-editor), that there is a specific field in id3-tag that is exactly for the use of rating!
so you could use it in your playlist as well!

[Sammy20]

Why not add a new view in the ML called 'Top Rated' and set it to Rating>Equal or Above>3. Then just double click a song in it and have the shuffle on, and booya.

[theAXeffect]

another possibility would be to have 5 different views, one with rating above 1, one with rating above 2 and so on, then you doubleclick on each list and there you have your playlist with 5 times the 5 star-songs and so on.
that would be exactly what i want from a shuffle-function.
but i just don't wanna click so often just to hear some songs...

[katemonster]

Originally posted by Sammy20
Why not add a new view in the ML called 'Top Rated' and set it to Rating>Equal or Above>3. Then just double click a song in it and have the shuffle on, and booya.

That's not weighted. I have 3 times as many 3-star as 5-star songs, but I do not want to hear 3-star songs 3 times as often. I want to hear 5-star songs 3 times as often. This is the only thing keeping me from switching back from big bloated scary iTunes to Winamp.

[neo3331]

I know the problem you guys have. I have a playlist with 15.000 files and rated them nearly all while hearing (Tipp: Global Hotkeys). Living in the placebo-thought, the playlist is as intelligent to see my rating, I was happy up to the time although I rated every single Hip Hop sh** with 1 star, it was played. I searched and searched the plugins, was nearly at the point of searching for a better media player but the i found a discussion in the developer section, where shaneh (in this form: thanks for your work, hope it's ok to post a copy in here) and some other plugin-writers had a scripting-engine for winamp (attached to this comment). It is easy to use and so I've got my rating-system now. I know, that it's a very bad workaraound, but it works and thats the important thing about it.
So if you want to do it like me, install the attached plugin and then insert the a script, that looks like this:

code:


Sub Application_ChangedTrack

 if (playlist(playlist.position).rating = 0) Then

  Randomize

  Rand1 = INT(10 * Rnd)

  if (1 <> Rand1) then

   Skip

   Application_ChangedTrack

  end if

 end if



 if (playlist(playlist.position).rating = 1) Then

  Skip

 end if



 if (playlist(playlist.position).rating = 2) Then

  Randomize

  Rand1 = INT(200 * Rnd)

  if (1 <> Rand1) then

   Skip

   Application_ChangedTrack

  end if

 end if



 if (playlist(playlist.position).rating = 3) Then

  Randomize

  Rand1 = INT(10 * Rnd)

  if (1 <> Rand1) then

   Skip

   Application_ChangedTrack

  end if

 end if



 if (playlist(playlist.position).rating = 4) Then

  Randomize

  Rand1 = INT(2 * Rnd)

  if (1 <> Rand1) then

   Skip

   Application_ChangedTrack

  end if

 end if

End Sub

Hope this could help some of you.

P.S.: Please don't laugh about my English - I'm from Germany

[neo3331]

And here's the Attachement I talked about

[shaneh]

That plugin is actually ActiveWinamp, which has been published and is available here:
http://www.winamp.com/plugins/details.php?id=143299

Im hoping to upgrade it somewhat at a later stage. But trying to do the implementation in ActiveWinamp gives you an idea of the complexity in doing a practical weighted shuffle. The best way is probably to turn shuffle off then order the playlist entries based on weighting using playcounts and ratings and last played etc statistics using AW.

I will hopefully make some kind of party shuffle thing for winamp using songs pulled from the library. I already use a small script to populate my playlist with a selection of recent songs:

Randomize
mlq = medialibrary.runqueryarray("type = 0 AND lastplay > [4 weeks ago] AND lastplay < [1 day ago]")
num = CInt(InputBox("Number of items"))
tracks = 0
do while (tracks<num)
Rand = Int(ubound(mlq) * Rnd+1)
mlq(Rand).enqueue
tracks=tracks+1
Loop
quit



This doesnt work too well with people that like to put their entire song collection in their playlist then use the JTFE to queue songs. Which I think is a weird way of doing things, the ML is there to act as a library, and the playlist there to act as a queue. It seems crazy how so many people use their playlist as effectively their library, but oh well.

[neo3331]

I'm one of these people, that use the playlist as file-db, just because thats the easiest way to access all files without creating playlists. I just want to hear music and don't want to study the whole programm. To shuffle through your whole collection gives me the kind of randomization, I need. It's like a radio-programm, but with the opportunity to skip songs you really hate/don't like. It's most comfortable to type a global hotkey, if you don't like a song doesn't matter if you play a game or do your business. To realize this with the library, the interface between these components isn't that good. But I really have no idea how to optimize this, so I will do it the way I do now in future.

[DrO]

well put neo3331, as well some habits are hard to break - i've solely been using the playlist for everything for the last 6 years and despite trying, it's still the simplest way for me to deal with my collection over using the ml. i must just be old skool

-daz

[Oneiromancer]

I'm very interested in this kind of functionality as well. Anyone have news about progress on this type of weighted shuffling? It doesn't really make much sense to make a separate playlist...it should be done on the fly with your current playlist based on the ratings. Unfortunately it seems like the randomizer plugins out there make their own playlists for you to open in Winamp.

Ideally one would have the ability to set the relative weightings of the various ratings (like being able to set a certain rating's weight to 0). I'd probably weight my 5 stars only a little higher than my 4 stars, for example, because there aren't that many and I wouldn't want to hear them too often.

Game on,

The Oneiromancer

[ARG]

There are many topics about this subject, so I dont have a good sight on solutions. But I think nobody made something realy working yet to make us all happy.
I hope somebody will do so realy soon.

I was thinking: if it is hard to make a plugin...(due to algorithm etc.) You can also make a playlist generator. It should make playlists where ***** rated songs are listed 5x and **** rated song listed 4x and *** songs.....
That way you will have statisticly more *****rated songs played. You could also list them more often to make them even more played.
This special playlist will not be your real playlist, your real playlist will be normal. And you can add edit and remove from it. But every time you change something, the tool I'm talking about should generate that special playlist with the rating system.

[oatmeal25]

(rating >=5) OR lastplay <= [2 weeks ago] OR (rating > 2 AND lastplay <= [1 weeks ago]) OR (rating <= 2 AND lastplay <= [16 weeks ago])

of course this means jack because the playlist is static after you press play.

[pete.h]

On expanding the concept of the "Weighted smart playlist"... How about having sliders next to each criteria in a standard smartview definition, where each slider represents the % number of songs that are in the resulting list? This way, we could weight not just by Rating, but by any field! Sure, there may not be enough songs in a particular criteria to make up the correct percentages, but it could repeat songs in the shortfalled category?

Next extension to that would be to guarantee hearing a song from a criteria every xx number of minutes. Then, say, radio stations that have to play a station id announcement every 15mins could schedule announcements from the "Announcements" genre to meet regulatory requirements....or to be guaranteed to hear "Winamp whips the lama's ass" at least once every hour?

[koesper]

*bump*
Why isnt this built yet, this would be sooooo coool!

Found a lot of treads requesting this functionality, but this tread seems to be the most worked-out version.

see the rest of the links here:

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread....postid=2248938
http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=2248938

[DrO]

Originally posted by koesper
Why isnt this built yet, this would be sooooo coool!

maybe because those who can code aren't interested/don't have the time and those who want it the most can't code. and the other option of just general lazyness waiting for someone else to do it i guess, heh

-daz

[koesper]

Originally posted by DrO
maybe because those who can code aren't interested/don't have the time and those who want it the most can't code. and the other option of just general lazyness waiting for someone else to do it i guess, heh

-daz

Okay okay, you are completely right.
I should have "demanded" it like that, it just looks to me as if this widely requested feature just hasnt been noticed by the developers. I found threads with zero replies about this topic in the feature-request list for winamp 2!

It just feels like something that should be high upon the official wishlist. If i were a real programmer i'd build it, but i don't think i can build it with only html and css... so that kinda rules me out... :-(

[DrO]

it's all about individual priorities and things like this just don't fit into the general winamp todo list from the higher powers (which overrule anything else). plus to others this sort of thing would be a pointless investment in time so it's trying to find the balance for what everyone wants and is told to do really, heh

-daz

[tonygamble]

There's a similar thread running in tandem with this one.

The ability to prioritise selections in a so called 'random' playlist.

StationPlaylist Creator does it in precisely the way you want. I'm not posting the URL as they don't seem to be getting activated so quickly by the moderators at the moment.

Tony

[merket]

You guys want these since 2004!?!?!?!

C'mon winamp!!! Don't let us beg here... I wish these issues are revised and reconsidered again...

[tonygamble]

Merket,

And what did you think of StationPlaylist Creator?

I assume that, as you are so keen to have this facility, you will have followed the pointer.

Tony