[REQ] Auto-Playlists Inherit Referenced Playlist Track Order & Allow Duplicate Tracks

[manalive]

(Original Title: Auto-Playlist Ordering Issue?)

I am trying to create an auto-playlist that includes one or more playlists and then subtracts another playlist.

That part is easy and works. The problem is that whenever I reference multiple playlists, their contents are not sorted according to the order they were in the playlists. There is no sort option for playlist order, and removing all sort rules leaves them sorted by what appears to be by album.

I'm not sure if this is a bug or a feature request, but it seems to me that:
In the absence of a sort order, tracks on auto-playlists that reference other playlists should be ordered by their position in the source playlist(s).

I am open to alternative solutions, but that seems like the natural way it should work.

Thank you for your help and suggestions!

(extended and unnecessary explanation of use case follows)

If this seems like a strange workflow, the explanation is that I use audiobooks heavily for educational coursework where readings are staggered like this:

Curriculum 1, Year 4, Term 1, Week 1
- History Book 1, Chapters 1-3
- History Book 2, Chapter 1
- Science Book 1, Chapter 1
- Poetry Book 1, Tracks 1, 15, 21, 38

Curriculum 1, Year 4, Term 1, Week 2
- History Book 1, Chapters 4-6
- History Book 2, Chapters 2-3
- Science Book 1, Chapter 2
- Poetry Book 1, Tracks 7, 18, 20, 95

I can't use "Played #" to mark them off because multiple students are going through the readings, and each reading has associated work that must be checked.

So the current idea is that I create a playlist for each student to track _completed_ tracks, and then their "to do" playlist is an auto-playlist that takes a master list (or all of the individual week lists) and subtracts the completed list.

[Lowlander]

Each AutoPlaylist has its own sorting. When using the Playlist Criteria it works like any other Criteria, just getting a list of files.

The problem you face with trying to inherit sorting is that a file will always appear once, but could be inherited several times from different Playlists, as well as any other Criteria present.

So you may be best of with the individual Playlists using Played# as a Criteria removing files off them, if you can't get a good sort set on the parent Playlist.

[manalive]

Thank you for your reply!

Each AutoPlaylist has its own sorting. When using the Playlist Criteria it works like any other Criteria, just getting a list of files.

Understood!

The problem you face with trying to inherit sorting is that a file will always appear once, but could be inherited several times from different Playlists, as well as any other Criteria present.

For my use case, I only want it to appear once, but I would imagine playlists that are for memorization or repeat listening users would prefer duplicates to be preserved in their order if such an option was enabled on the auto-playlist.

So you may be best of with the individual Playlists using Played# as a Criteria removing files off them, if you can't get a good sort set on the parent Playlist.

But played # is stored on the track, not on the playlist, so one student removes it for everyone, no?

I guess this would not be a bug considering the current design, so....

• Feature Request: Auto-playlists should inherit track order from referenced playlists unless sort order is specified.
  Feature Request: Allow option to include duplicate entries on referenced playlists in auto-playlists (removal via Playlist IS NOT filter should remove all instances.)