Random Album Feature [#20054]

[MyVikes]

I'd like to float a new feature idea. This stems from an application I wrote over 20 years ago and still use on my Android phone today. At one time it was actually an app on the Play Store. The original idea was to make starting of the next album on my phone as hands off as possible when driving and to also cycle through my downloaded albums without repeating them.

The feature I would like to suggest is that of an auto-start random album. The overall feature list below would be ideal but don't need them all be available to make even #1 useful:

1. Single click to auto start a random album. My app uses the "Next" button, that is if the current track is the last track on the album it selects and starts an album. This pre-dated Android Auto. But there should also be a button/icon in the app, which in an Android Auto scenario would allow another alternative besides only at the end of the album.
2. Keep track of albums that have been played and not include them in #1. This would include randomly select albums as well as those specifically played.
3. Allow for the reset of previously played albums, see #2. This is of course required if #2 is implemented.
4. Allow for a persisted filter on genre as a filter for #1. Therefore, if you're in a Jazz or Hard Rock mood you can set one or more genre in the filter and only albums matching that criteria will be selected.
5. A view/screen that allows one to see what albums have been played and what albums have not.

[MyVikes]

Hello again, I'm wondering if there is any potential for these features in a future release before I start working to add Android Auto compatibility to my own app. Any insight to that would be appreciated. Thx

[rusty]

Thanks for the feedback! Shuffling by album is an MMW feature that we hope to add to MMA.

1. Basic functionality could be that in any 'Albums' tab (e.g. Music > Albums, Music > Genres > GenreName > Albums), the 'Play shuffled' button would change to a Play shuffled (by Album).

2. All albums would be included in the Playing list, so until you reset the playing list, you'd continue hearing tracks that haven't played recently. In the future, we plan to add support for auto-playlists, at which point there could be a playlist for tracks not heard recently + an album view of those tracks, which could meet this requirement.

3./5. MMW / MMA don't track play history by album atm (play history is by track) and i don't see this changing. It could be possible to show the last-played date for a track on an album, but this is a pretty niche case I think.

4. I doubt that we'd implement MMW style filters in MMA (too complex for a mobile UI), but the approach described in 1. could meet this requirement.

So short term: I like the idea and think that implementing 1. could be a good start. Tracked at https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=20054

-Rusty

[MyVikes]

First off, I want to say MMW is an awesome app and although I use MMA now, I feel I'm ask risk if driving. Your suggested changes in the Issues Detail miss the mark on a couple points as they still require interaction with the display and therefore probably would not be of value to me. In doing some reading I believe Google limits somewhat can be done display wise but not clear about that either.

#1 Please note I say "My app uses the "Next" button...." which of course randomly selects an album after the last track has played so my hands never leave the steering wheel. Also, in my app I don't need to be in any specific context, i.e., "Albums tab, etc. Any screen navigation at all is what I'm trying to avoid and is where the biggest risk is incurred.

An onscreen button is of secondary importance but if it existed would have to be on the current playing screen and has the main benefit that IF I didn't care to listen to the randomly selected album, I wouldn't have to skip tracks to get to the last track. BUT perhaps a "long click" of the next button would also randomly select another album. Again, the benefit of not taking my hands off the steering wheel is the objective.

Safer driving while loving my music is the objective!

#2-5 would be very nice to have but #2 is key because I don't want to hear an album repeat until I've played them all OR reset the played list.

I have my own Android Content Provider where I have the attributes for tracking this but didn't know if MMA did or not.

And on another different note but "related" I did think of two other another features my app does.

#6 Announces the album artist and album info (title and year) at the start of an album. Enabling this is controllable in setting page. I added this as my passengers almost always asked me "who is this playing?". This feature is less valuable than when I added it with displays being common now and particularly with AA but was cool back in the day.

#7 Equalizer is configurable per BT device. I found this more practical than the typical genre specific configuration most music apps utilize. This I find to still be very useful.

I get that these may seem very niche, and my app has evolved over 20 years, but I've got to believe there might be some other users of MMA that would like these features and even just #1 as I've defined it would be awesome as a start.

Thank you again for your consideration of these feature enhancements!