Interesting, Unique Feature request

[Stupifier]

This feature applies to those that rate their Music extensively.

Situation/Problem:
You have many songs on your iPod with all sorts of ratings. Plenty of times, I only want to play the 5-star songs of any particular artist. Currently, to do this, you would have to just manually pick each song to play that is 5-star. You can't just find the artist...and have an area where just all the 5-star songs of that artist are listed.

Possible solutions that kinda suck
all these solutions involve implementing a way for ml_iPod to recognize 5-star songs and link them somewhere. I'm pretty sure this is within the scope of programming in ml_iPod

1. I first looked into maybe just giving all 5-star songs identified an automatic '5-Star' entry in the composer field of the ID3 tag. This didn't really work as the flow of menu's for composer is Composer--->Album--->Song. Meaning, this would sort 5-Star songs by Album...interesting, but not as useful.

2. The other option was to somehow create craploads of smart playlists yielding 5-star songs from each artist. This is rediculous as it bloats your playlist menu largely.

Interesting Solution
Another option....and I have no clue if this is possible. It probably isn't but I'll ask. Can a feature be implemented where a single mp3 can be listed in two different albums????

If the feature can be implemented, than this would be the BEST way to accomplish the original problem above. All identified 5-star songs would than be given an extra Album of '5-Star Songs' or whatever. This way, by going through the Album or Artist menu, the 5-star songs can be localized by artist.
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Frankly, I don't know of any other iPod sync'ing program that implements any unique, useful, and interesting features. Most just emulate iTunes and stop there. ml_iPod has continually gone beyond the capabilities of iTunes and others with cool features. Thats why I use ml_iPod. Hopefully, this request is within the limits of programming the iPod can accept from ml_iPod.

[abu]

I don't think that we can do that. Every song has one entry in the database, and each entry can have no more than one album entry

I can think of a very complicated way to achieve the desired result, but that would cost several hours or days for implementing. It would mean to create something like symbolic links (if you know that Unix term) between a database entry and a second fake entry, which points to the same MP3 file. It is very complicated because you have to handle all operations in a special way then: Deleting a song, renaming it, updating covers etc.
I don't even know if it worked in the end. So, you could add this to the feature request list at SF, to insure that it gets tracked. But I doubt that I will find so much time for a feature that only a couple of people will really use

[Stupifier]

Yea, I kinda figured the popularity of this feature would be minimal as not many rate their music. I'll add it to the feature request list for sure though. As I continually ask for these weird features, I admire your honesty about the workload. I AM NOT looking for anyone to be overworking themselves. I just enjoy contemplating interesting iPod ideas.

Update: Feature request officially made

[abu]

I really appreciate these ideas! Some of them could already be incorporated into ml_iPod, while others probably will never be done. That's live...

[Stupifier]

Thanks

[caro02]

Hi Abu & Stupifier,

Stupifier you're not the only one interested by this kind of feature !
I would use it, not only for creating "virtual" 5* albums, but also for tracks that I have in a album and also in a compilation : I have some compilations (soundtracks or others) with sometimes more than half of the tracks that I also have in an album : I want to be able to listen to both the complete album AND the complete compil, so I have the track twice in my ipod...

But I understand perfectly that this is too much work for the few people interested.

I profit of this post (as my first) to thank you, Abu, for the really great job you're doing with mlipod : it's a real pleasure to use it instead of this *&%*@ itunes, with a lot more possibilities to do exactly what I want with my ipod !

[Stupifier]

Caro, I know EXACTLY what you mean! I have actually thought about this identical problem many times in the past. Having duplicate song entries between compilations (soundtracks) and albums is inefficient and bloats the iPod.

For whatever reason, I did not realize that this suggested feature would have the capability of solving your issue as well. Very nice insight Caro.

I would definately use this feature to solve both of my issues just like Caro. Also, I especially like your naming of my Feature request......."Virtual 5-Star Albums". That makes perfect sense.

[podgey]

the ability to add album art to a playlist, thats how i arrange my albums

[abu]

Originally posted by podgey
the ability to add album art to a playlist, thats how i arrange my albums

Yes, sad that Apple doesn't support this in the iPod. No way to do it