Album Shuffle

[wcpothenk]

(Me + all my winamp using friends + some people in other topics, would really like)
A 3rd shuffle state:
"Play Random Albums"

What it should do in my opinion:
-Work as the normal shuffle, play random songs.
-If the song that's been shuffled onto isn't part of a album, just play it.
-If the song that's been shuffled onto is part of a album, go to number one of the album and play the total album in a nice row. When the album's finished playing, start shuffeling again.

In this way:
-You wouldn't have to choose a song or album to listen.
-You can listen both your lose tracks as full cd's.
-The power of the track-sequence wouldn't be lost.

Some people referred to: http://albumlist.sourceforge.net
But as I'm told in other topics it doens't work really smoothly and changes the total winamp interface.

Some other ideas for a shuffle:
http://forums.winamp.com/showthread....=album+shuffle

My question is... why hasn't this option been introduced for ages by now? I can't imagine that half the winamp users don't want this.. So I started a poll with this post.

[Thunder Pussy]

Ha, yeah I agree with you... the first post in that second thread you link to was written by me, actually.

I use Album List to shuffle artists and albums and I don't find it changes the interface (it can be docked inside the Media Library) and it works smoothly. Turn off the option to rescan your directory at startup and it doesn't slow down load time too much.

[Safai]

I'm using Nullsoft Media Player 10 skin with Album List these days...

[wcpothenk]

I use Album List to shuffle artists and albums and I don't find it changes the interface (it can be docked inside the Media Library) and it works smoothly. Turn off the option to rescan your directory at startup and it doesn't slow down load time too much.

Ok I've installed the "Album List" plugin now, but I don't like it that much. Maybe I have to get used to it, but it doesn't work as easy as the winamp interface. And now it doesn't automatically play lose tracks. So I still can't set it to play, and turn my back on it.

A album shuffle function in winamp still would be wày better I think.

[Thunder Pussy]

Different strokes... Because of my directory structure -- \Artist\ folder then filename = arist-year-title the Album List random enqueue works really well for me. That setting's located at Preferences > Album List > Options tab, 'Automatic advance to next album, random' and 'Always sort files by filename.' It will randomly enqueue everything by an artist sorted by year, which I like a lot.

As you say, it might be a matter of getting used to it. The randomly enqueue feature doesn't really require the GUI aspect--I'm more of a minimize/hotkey user--although I like AL's F3 feature quite a bit too. The GUI is customizable enough to suit me.

I think what you want with the loose tracks would require a random mode like Album List's that uses ID3 tag instead of directory structure, and I don't know of any plugin that provides that.

[bettik]

Hey Safai,

Great idea. It works like a charm. Thank you

[RandomCarpet]

@wcpothenk: the Album Shuffle function you suggest is now possible to be realized for Modern skins (Winamp 5.51 Beta introduced some new features that allow that)

What do you want it to do if for example there are 10 songs in the playlist that all have their album tag defined to "Album A", but their track # tag is not defined? Should it play those 10 files in the sequence they are added to the playlist, starting with the first?

[jph6t]

Originally posted by RandomCarpet
@wcpothenk: the Album Shuffle function you suggest is now possible to be realized for Modern skins (Winamp 5.51 Beta introduced some new features that allow that)

It is? How?

Originally posted by RandomCarpet
What do you want it to do if for example there are 10 songs in the playlist that all have their album tag defined to "Album A", but their track # tag is not defined? Should it play those 10 files in the sequence they are added to the playlist, starting with the first?

Might their be an option added to either use RandomCarpet's approach above, OR ...

if the Track # tag is NOT defined, treat that song as a single
(even though other songs in the Playlist share the Album value).
Once this song has finished playing, Winamp *can* shuffle to a new Album.

I make this suggestion, because if the user has NOT populated the Track # in the tag, then in turn I'm making an assumption that the sequence of the songs on that Album is NOT very important (at least as compared to an Album with the Track #s populated). This would be a viable approach for Albums that generated two or three hits,
but aren't particularly listenable from end to end.

[funkatronic]

Originally posted by RandomCarpet
@wcpothenk: the Album Shuffle function you suggest is now possible to be realized for Modern skins (Winamp 5.51 Beta introduced some new features that allow that)

What do you want it to do if for example there are 10 songs in the playlist that all have their album tag defined to "Album A", but their track # tag is not defined? Should it play those 10 files in the sequence they are added to the playlist, starting with the first?

I'm interested in this as well. How would you do this with 5.51?

[paul weller]

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multime...-Shuffle.shtml

there's that too. I too wish for an easy integration of album shuffle.

[thebum]

Originally posted by paul weller
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multime...-Shuffle.shtml

there's that too. I too wish for an easy integration of album shuffle.

There seems to be some stability issues with that plugin, which is sad because it's a function that I'd really like to see added. I pretty much only listen to whole albums rather than single songs and it is a bit annoying to manually have to create my playlists in a seemingly random order every time I want to listen to music. I hope this is a feature that's considered by the devs.

[praise4him]

I was searching with the keyword 'album shuffle'. 'Cause I liked that feature from iPod.
While listening to the tons of music with the shuffle on, sometimes a musician that I like comes up and I wanna keep listening to his/her music. Then I gotta turn off shuffle and place the current song on the top of album. or you can use 'jump to ...' feature, too. But you have to do it MANUALLY.

But I think this feature is NEVER going to be come true.

I ALSO prefer the smaller winamp... But thinking of Dashboard/Remote Media/Online Media.. 'album shuffle' never seems to be waste of space/code.

[praise4him]

There hasn't been any response...
But today I found a plugin named 'album shuffle 2.0' or similar. So there was someone with same thought.

[RockyRacoon]

it doesn't seem like a bad idea to me, but there are plenty of features out there that give similar results. I think I'd just be happy with those.

[adamf9898]

the album list 2 plugin doesnt list all my albums and this really upsets me, 1479 out of 2179 albums only was listed using this plugin, any idea why ?

[holden159]

Sorry guys i have a question for you.
I've just installed album shuffle on winamp, I've enabled it on the option menu but i have no idea how to use it!
Can some one help me?
thanks!