[How to do instruction] MP3 Playlist Creation

[pants]

Forgive my ignorance, but I'm having trouble creating a playlist for my mp3 files.

I've copied them to /var/lib/mpd/music/SDCARD. I'm aware the playlist are stored /var/lib/mpd/playlists.  I just have Default Playlist.m3u in that directory currently. The file is blank though.  I removed the radio stations that were added by default on a new Moode 4.2 build on my PiZeroW as my application will never require radio stations.

When I use my browser on Windows PC, the Music tab shows my Music Library. I can right click the library and I'm given Add, Play, Clear/Play as options. If I choose add, all of my 100+ mp3 files show up in the Playback tab and I can play them without issue.

After I shutdown the Playback tab has been cleared. How do I make it permanent? My pi is used in the car with a DAC connecting Moode to my stock stereo's AUX port.   I've set Auto-Shuffle to ON, and Autoplay after start to ON. The idea is when I start the car Moode starts up and plays, and when I return to the car the playlist continues to shuffle.

I've checked online a bit and it seems I can create a m3u playlist using a text editor, but I'm not sure of the syntax Moode requires and would honestly prefer a more automated solution. Some mp3 file names are so long and I'm not that good at typing.  I'll make tons of mistakes for sure.  Even if I did make a playlist manually, does it reside in the playlist directory, or the same directory as the mp3 files?

Thanks in advance,
Andy

[Tim Curtis]

The main Playlist is permanent unless you manually clear it. There is no setting, MPD automatically saves it to its state file.

[pants]

After a little playing around I think I have it working to my liking. I used SSH, went to /var/lib/mpd/music/SDCARD and then used ls to list the name of all my MP3s. I copied them all to the default playlist file Default Playlist.m3u in /var/lib/mpd/playlists. Then I added /SDCARD/ to the beginning of each MP3 file name and saved the playlist.

I tested it several times after shutdown and so far it seems to be working.

I previously had Moode 4.1 and it seemed that when I added a song to the playlist it stayed permanently. Not sure why it would not this time around. I had to build 4.2 several times before it would work. I followed what FizzyTea did here:  http://moodeaudio.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=307. I built Moode 4.2 on a Pi3. I then slotted my sd card into the pi zero w and have a working Moode player v4.2.

Maybe its just my build but over the last few days I rebuilt Moode 4.2 about 6 times until I got it working to my liking.

It's a great project, I love it.  Keep up the fantastic work.

[Nili59]

Hi to all,
not sure whether I'm in the right place here - and as the thread is already from 2018, there might be a (better) solution for playlist handling as mentioned before. So, if anyone knows ... please point me to the right place (thank you in advance!).

Problem Description:
M3U playlists.
In my understanding the m3u playlist e.g of an album belongs into the same place as were the music files exists. And a lot of music collectors are organizing there x*1000 music files into folders, e.g. <category>/<first character>/<artist>/<album>/files 1 ..n
Tagging-Software like puddletag or mp3tag can write typically a m3u file which contains beside some # data a list of music files to be played exactly in this sequence.

It is quite cumbersome, if we attach via SMB a big NAS structure with 100reds of LPs/CDs - each of them with a local album related m3u - and as a user to be force to copy them over to /var/lib/mpd/playlists to be a file like 'Artist_Album.m3u'.
It will be more convenient to re-use the existing m3u file. Either to display this in the filemode and in case of selection queue this in (or add an entry in the library selector to show (and use) the local m3u files... or copy/refresh them into the /var/lib/mpd/playlists by a requested re-scan. With the danger that with a huge NAS the SD card might get an overflow ;-(.

What do you think?
I may post this also as a feature request later.

Otherwise - I was very happy that moode was so easy to setup - in contradiction to other mediaplayers. Great work so far.

[TheOldPresbyope]

I'm not sure I understand your concern. There does not need to be a .m3u file in each album directory. Once MPD has indexed the collection, You can select and play an entire album from the Library view without any. As it happens, almost none of the albums on my NAS have an associated .m3u file.

Practically, maintenance of a scheme such as you suggest would seem nightmarish. AFAIK the .m3u file created by the usual tagging program references tracks simply by their base fllenames. To make them work in the MPD playlists directory, every file reference in every .m3u file would have to edited to reference the file with respect to the root of the MPD music directory, typically NAS/... .

Hence, an entry in the .m3u file in the directory for my never-released demo tape might be

Code:

1.Kent Begs Forgiveness.flac

and would have to become something like the following in a .m3u file in moOde's playlists directory

Code:

NAS/OMV/Post Modern/Kent/DemoTape/1.Kent Begs Forgiveness.flac

It's doable, but a lot of bookkeeping as files and directories move around during library maintenance.

Then again, perhaps I'm misunderstanding your issue.

Regards,
Kent

[Tim Curtis]

The tracks in an Album are sorted and listed by the "Track" tag which I assume would be the desired sequence for listening. There is no need for a separate m3u playlist file to define the natural track order for an Album.

Is there a usage scenario for having an Album m3u file?

[Nili59]

Hi Tim, hi TheOldPresbyope,
first thank you for a very fast reaction.

As possibly using the moode player wrong, I was wondering on how I can play a full album. Everything is fine, if I queue in a single music file (track). But how to let play the full album?
We should assume that I'm tagging my music.

Let me tell on one my typical workflow.
With the "Library" pull-down I go to NAS, and then to Folder. Next selections would be within Folder View something like Artist, Album. From here i see the numbered tracks of the album. Top row of the listing is not an track. If I hit "add" and then "play" it starts to play. Maybe that is the way I can play the album . Screen from here is not reflecting the progression through the album by displaying the title information (I can see the skips because the play time information changes.
But I can see the information in the right way if I can manage to change the display to the "played title mode" by activating the function (pressing the computer-screen symbol).

Finally ... I think I can live with this behaviour .. and it will serve me ok.

Thank you very much for the help, your postings triggered me such, that I looked to the usability concept from a slightly different angle.

Best Regards, Thorsten

P.S 1. Other family members have other workflows, They will start mostly from the Browse/ Artist screen. And now I learnt the next trick. Clicking the Album (Cover) and enableing Play plays the full album. Great. I was a bit of stupid the last days, sorry...

[Tim Curtis]

Info on how to navigate the WebUI and what the buttons and active areas do is in Menu > Quick help