[REQ] highlight mode

[Rob_S]

I often find myself wanting to compare what part of my overall library might be attached to any of several playlists.

It would be neat if one could select a playlist in a "Highlight View" such that the full library would remain on display in the centre panel, but all tracks that are actually included in the playlist would be highlighted in text colo,r bold font, or background color. This highlight would remain when the main centre window is filtered or searched.

This way, if I were to search for a particular artist or album or genre, I could see which of those tracks have been added to the currently selected playlist.

Then it would be easy to right click on a non-highlighted track and add to selected playlist, or right-click on a highlighted track, and remove from current playlist.

I'm sure there are uses for this I haven't thought of yet.

Likes, objections, or comments??

[Barry4679]

It sounds an OK idea.
Apologies re faint praise, but I don't ever create manual playlists, so am I never in the mode of thinking that you describe.

It does seem the type of tool that I would wish for, if that was my MM5 Use Case.

I have a similar complaint re a lack of facility in an aligned, under-resourced corner of MM5.
In my case it is managing tracks sync'd to a large location like a phone with lots of storage, or somewhere huge, like Google Drive.

It is a similar situation because it involves swapping in and out tracks, from a very large pool, into a very large container.
It is a drag without a good tool designed for the purpose.

Good luck with your request.

[Rob_S]

Yes indeed, I think this kind of display would be great for side by side comparison with tracks on a device, or memory card, or other external storage.

I use total commander for backups and it does exactly that for other computer files, but only as long as the folder structure matches, and it does not easily connect to android devices.

Anyway, thanks for at least one moderately enthusiastic response!!

[Snofru]

I like the idea! I use MM5 90% for organizing my music and this would definitely help in doing so.

A number of my playlists are organized like everything from the Beatles with at least a 3 star rating. I don't use automatic playlist here, as I want the songs in a special order. Now I change the rating of a few songs from 2 to 3 stars (e.g. while listening on my phone). When I want to update my playlist and I can't remember which songs I have rated differently I would be great to have songs highlighted that are already in the playlist.
This is just the first usecase I thought of, there surely are more.

[Ludek]

Yes, sounds like a nice addition doable via an addon, maybe as part of the addon that Erwin is suggesting here: https://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewt ... p?t=101423

[Ludek]

Hi,
here is the basic implementation of the addon:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/f10xqme565ma0 ... .mmip?dl=0

i.e. new 'Highlight playlist tracks' view element is added (enabled by default) which creates the playlists column.
Selecting a node there highlights titles of the tracks included in the given tracklist.

You can use drag&drop for the non-highlighted tracks to be added to the playlists on the right.

But maybe I could place the playlists column rather on the left next to the Media Tree ?

[Ludek]

Here is updated version:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/f10xqme565ma0 ... .mmip?dl=0

With much better performance, playlist column on the left and tracks highlighted by text color (not the background color).

FYI: I made the "Playlist column" invisible by default, so you need to enable it in the VIEW ELEMENTS like this:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/whe1cmufssury ... 2.png?dl=0

You can use drag&drop for the non-highlighted tracks to be added to the playlist(s) on the left.

[Rob_S]

That was too easy for you!!

At first I thought it wasn't working after a search, but I just had to re-select the playlist.

Now we want a way to remove one or more of the highlighted item(s) from the selected playlist.

[Rob_S]

One other possible improvement (in addition to a way to remove highlighted tracks from the playlist):

I turned highlight mode on while in all tracks - it works - and and then tried a search - the playlist column remained visible, but as above it only highlighted once I re-clicked on the playlist. Ideally the highlights would remain.

So, I reverted to all tracks and turned it off - ie un-checked the "highlight playlist tracks" and the extra column vanished. However, when I ran a search, the playlist column re-appeared, and remained no matter which view I selected. Ideally, unchecking as above would remove the extra playlist column from all views, and all nodes.

[Ludek]

Which kind of search are you using?

For me the highlighted tracks are still highlighted after the search:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ck5kuel6p26rf ... 6.png?dl=0

Re the ability to remove hightlighted tracks: Can you elaborate what do you mean by this?
AFAIK highlighted tracks are those that are part of the playlist so removing them would just leave this playlist empty with no tracks? What's the purpose? Can you give some usecase examples?

[Erwin Hanzl]

Sorry but I have to repeat myself - and that brings us back to my suggestion:

Managing playlists made easy.
For each selected song, the playlists in which the song occurs should be marked with a tick.
1. Remove hook: Remove from specific playlist
2. Add hook: add to specific playlist
3. Furthermore, the possibility to expand the sub-playlists automatically.

[Rob_S]

I used the addin quite a bit today, and it works very well. Most pleased!!

Ok so for the issue of remaining highlighted after a search, maybe that is skin-related, I don't know. When I do a global search within all-tracks, nothing is highlighted until I click on the playlist name again - this is not important.

As to the issue of removal, what I mean is this. I have my playlist highlighted, and say I am adding some tracks to it. Then I encounter an already highlighted track (or tracks) which I would like to remove from this playlist.

It would be nice to have say a Right-click menu item - remove this track (or better yet - remove selected tracks) from the selected playlist. That way I don't have to open the playlist itself, find the title, and then remove it.

Another way to do it would be to have a new front column appear with checkmarks. All highlighted tracks would display a checkmark. Adding a checkmark adds the track to the playlist, removing an existing checkmark removes it.

This could actually work without any highlight as well. A bit like what Irwin is describing, but it only works with the one selected playlist at a time.

[Ludek]

OK, the combination of Erwin's approach and your approach with checkboxes to remove the song would probably work, I am just afraid about the performance. When you select a track it can take seconds (maybe even minutes on large databases) to find all playlists and auto-playlists where this track resides to update the check-marks of the playlists. It is actually as fast as Find More From Same > Playlist > .... to fill whole the list of playlists. But adding a progress task could help to indicate that the calculation has not finished yet (to update all the checkboxes and its states upon selecting another track)

[Rob_S]

No, No, no - Much simpler is my request.

Only remove it from the currently highlighted playlist.

[Ludek]

No, No, no - Much simpler is my request.

Only remove it from the currently highlighted playlist.

OK, here it is: https://www.dropbox.com/s/f10xqme565ma0 ... .mmip?dl=0

The 'Remove from playlist X' is added to right click menu like this:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/u2wzork4u3or4 ... 7.png?dl=0