Shuffle Implemented Incorrectly

[bradsh]

Winamp for PC shuffles playlists by shuffling the whole playlist and then allowing you to traverse it. This means that when you go back to hear a song, you don't lose your forward history. This is the way it should be, which is why Apple implemented shuffle the exact same way in their iPod. If you want to generate a new shuffle list, you manually start playing a new song by selecting a new song in the list.

Winamp for Android does shuffle the WRONG way, the same way the default android music app does it. It creates a pool of "unheard songs" and then builds a list of songs as you go. There is no problem with this except it FORGETS songs when you go to the previous song.

This is extremely annoying. I was hoping Winamp would be the one player to get this right, since it got it right on the PC so many years ago.

There need be only one change: do not forget songs in the list when user clicks "previous" in shuffle mode.

[captainnapalm]

My understanding on an issue such as this is that this is due to the Android Music APIs. Basically, Winamp is just piggybacking on the existing APIs at this point. I'm not sure if/when they plan to implement features that are not currently supported by the API.

[nycebo]

I don't think so because Doubletwist allowed me to go back and repeat a song that I listened to on shuffle. But curiously, when that song ended, the next song was different than what it had originally been.

[bradsh]

If I had to guess, they probably started the project with the open source android music player, and thus inherited this bug.

*******n player on the market, and also Queek shuffler do this correctly, so it has nothing to do with APIs. I currently use *******n for everything, but I would love to use winamp on my phone just like I use winamp every day... but only if Winamp is going to behave like Winamp.

I have actually looked through the source code of the default open source Android music player and found the code at fault -- the original programmer somehow thought this was appropriate behavior and intentionally coded it that way. Why he thought this was desirable behavior I cannot speculate, and COUNTLESS programs have inherited this behavior as a result of using the Android Music Player as a base of code.

However, again, this is not an API issue. Apps handle shuffling themselves. It's a pretty easy fix too. If I recall, the playlist "array" has the last element popped off when the user hits "previous", and the song is returned to the "unclaimed pool of songs" that are randomly selected from when the next song is needed. From a programming aspect, it shouldn't be difficult to fix at all.

The only question is... is anyone listening?

[captainnapalm]

I don't think so because Doubletwist allowed me to go back and repeat a song that I listened to on shuffle. But curiously, when that song ended, the next song was different than what it had originally been.

Yes, with the default music player, doubletwist and winamp I can go back to the previous song without a problem, however it's like you said, the next track is different than what it was before. This is 'wrong', per se. It just doesn't create a "shuffle playlist", rather it is always choosing a random track for the next track.

[bradsh]

much to my dismay this was not fixed in the recent update. do the developers even read this forum?

[bradsh]

Just checked and this still has not been fixed.

[PsychoEddie]

The current implementation of shuffle, isn't in fact shuffle, it's Random. Please add a shuffle feature as it is implemented in the pc version of winamp where a playlist is built and as songs are played they are removed from the playlist. The current android implementation of Random seems to rotate through the same fifty songs.