Wayne's dashboard

Hi Jim,

I've been a fan of Songbird for quite some time now: http://wayne.mondochrome.ca/2006/02/0...

But while I follow it closely and try out just about every release, I'm waiting for 1.0 before moving away from iTunes completely. (Which by the way, anything you can do to speed that up... ;)

I'll admit that when I first used iTunes and saw the check boxes I was doubtful to their use. But then I started to rely on them more and more to make things work the way I wanted.

But I still hate that I have to resort to that.

Like I said, I want my software to take care of the little things for me.

I saw a post earlier suggesting having Songbird switch playlists based on time of day and at the heart of it the idea is somewhat similar to what I'd like to see.

I'm going to try and let my thoughts percolate a little bit and see if I can make a more detailed (or at least clearer) feature suggestion that could accomplish everything.

Thanks for all the hard work,
Wayne

Good to hear, I look forward to when Songbird takes flight!

Too bad I can't code it myself.

What you have to realize, is that I'm *exceptionally* lazy.
I like it when software takes care of all the little things for me.

Also, I often don't always explain myself clearly, but hey, let's give it another go.

Right now, in the middle of August when I hit play on "Highest Rated" I'd like to hear stuff like DJ Shadow, John Lennon, Boards of Canada and maybe just a little Wham!

And while I've also given Elvis Presley's Blue Christmas and, once again, Wham!'s Last Christmas a full 5 stars, it's not the sort of thing you really want to listen to while it's hot outside.

I could add "genre is not Christmas" to the Highest Rated playlist for most of the year and just remove it for when December rolls around. But what about all the other playlists? My "Music of the 70's" playlist would have to be updated as well to keep a Carpenters Christmas album out of it. But then I'd have to edit that one as well during the Christmas season. And repeat for each smart list I have.

To a lesser extent, "Comedy" or "Spoken Word" albums have the same sort thing going on. I could give a Robin Williams or Dennis Leary routine 5-stars but I don't want that showing up in Highest Rated. Maybe somebody out there might like going from The Beatles to Dennis Leary swearing, I don't know. Granted, this is a much easier problem to solve, as you'd only have to set "genre is not Comedy" once, but you'd have to set it for each smart playlist, or maybe chain playlists. Both which are a little inelegant and might not be straight forward enough for your target audience.

In essence, I'd just like Songbird to be a little smarter. Give it a little situational awareness. "Hey, he's playing music! I'll skip the comedy tracks." "Oh look! It's Christmastime! Let's add those tracks back into the mix!"

In other words, take care of all the little things for me. :)

Right now in iTunes, I just uncheck all the Christmas, Comedy, Etc.. tracks and select "Checked Songs Only" or whatever it's called in the Smart Playlist and I'm good. Come Christmas, I just re-check the Christmas songs and everything just works all the playlists get the Christmas songs. I'd like to make Songbird even simpler then that. :)

If I'm still not making any sense to you, pretend none of this ever happened. :)

And by the way, Songbird 0.7 is *amazing*. I can not wait for 1.0.

True, that can be done, but what about all the other playlists?

Highest Rated?
Music from the 70's?
Etc...

There's got to be a better option then adding "genre is not Christmas" to each one.

Plus there are other genre's someone might not want to play in a general list like spoken word tracks, or comedy routines.

I might give "No Cure for Cancer" 5 stars, but that's not what I really want to come up when I hit play on Highest Rated.

I'm not sure what the best technical solution to this might be but it should be pretty straight forward to the user.

EX:

"These following genre's will be excluded from smart lists or random plays: <type>"

Date ranges could also be included for seasonal music, set Christmas music to be included during December or something.

Perhaps someone who knows how to code can whip up a plugin?

I mean, how hard could it be? ;-)</type>