Re: [Bug-gnupod] Playlist sorting on an iPod Classic

[Adrian Ulrich]

Hi,

> In my GNUtunesDB, my playlists were named after the artist or band  
> name. They were sorted the right way: that is if I have a playlist  
> named "The Beatles", it's with other 'B' letters not 'T'. But now, all  
> my "The something" playlists are among T's

The 2007-iPods seem to enforce playlist sorting:

The 'old' iPods just display the playlists in the order as they are found
within the iTunesDB, this made it possible to sort them as desired.
(You couldn't do this with iTunes, but with GNUpod).

The 2007 Models do not care about the order: They just sort it.
I don't know if there is some way to disable this 'feature'.


> But then, I've got the same thing with playlist entries.
> All my playlist are of the form:
> <add artist="XYZ" album="ABC" />
> <add artist="XYZ" album="DEF" />
> 
> Trouble is, on the ipod, in the playlist, albums are in order (ie I'll  
> get album ABC before DEF) but tracks within an album are not (I get  
> ABC tracks randomized and then DEF tracks) .

Yes, that's because GNUpod doesn't sort the entries.
Using this syntax it will add:
 - Everything that matches XYZ/ABC as found in memory
 - Everything that matches XYZ/DEF as found in memory.

Using the 'sortby' command won't help either because it runs after the playlist
has been assembled (= Sorts everything).

So the only way would be to use
 <add id=..


..or you could try using a Smart-Playlist: 
(http://www.blinkenlights.ch/gnupod/mkspl.html)

<smartplaylist name="Test 321" checkrule="spl" liveupdate="1" 
limititem="minute" limitval="" limitsort="album" matchany="0" >
  <spl action="CONTAINS" field="artist" string="XYZ" />
</smartplaylist>

This would add all albums where artist =~ /XYZ/, and sort them by album name.
The iPod seems to sort the Album contents itself by Track-Id.



Regards,
 Adrian