I got my empeg unit a few days ago. Playlist items (as opposed to track items) do not sort as arranged within Emplode; rather, they sort alphanumerically when viewed on the empeg car's screen. I've got "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart" coming after "Leos Janácek." Rather annoying. I shouldn't have to indicate artists by last name first, and it's inconsistent with Emplode and track sorts anyway.


--
Milo D. Cooper
http://www.milospace.net/

A discussion about that is going on in the Wish-List...

TeeMcBee
Got my Mk2! # 080000143

Basically, the playlists are listed alphabetically on the player so that you can use the buttons on the remote to advance through the letters quickly. They might add an option as to how you want them sorted-emplode ordered or alpha ordered, but I think this way works much better.

For example, I've been listening to Led Zepplin non-stop lately. Instead of pressing the arrow keys or next/prev buttons on the remote constantly in either direction until it gets to the L's, all I have to do is go into playlists and press the 5 button 3 times and I'm right there!

You should also know that the emplode order still applies during playback. This is something I didn't know until I complained about not being able to order my albums chronologically.

So say that I have my Led Zepplin albums. I currently have, in chrono order:
III
IV
Houses of the Holy
Physical Graffiti

But on the empeg it shows up as:
Houses of the Holy
III
IV
Physical Graffiti

But if I were to listen to play the whole Led Zepplin list, the albums would cycle in emplode-order, and therefore would start with III instead of Houses of the Holy.

Hope this helps. The FAQ is very useful but I thought that until the info was up, I'd respond and not keep you waiting.

By the way, this really is, in my opinion, the best way to do it, but I can understand how people would want it differently.

DiGNAN

Oops, sorry. I just realized I've been miss-spelling Led Zeppelin the whole time.

DiGNAN

For example, I've been listening to Led Zepplin non-stop lately. Instead of pressing the arrow keys or next/prev buttons on the remote constantly in either direction until it gets to the L's, all I have to do is go into playlists and press the 5 button 3 times and I'm right there!

What if you want to get to Les Thugs which comes after Lemon Crush which is after Led Zeppelin? You need the arrow keys. Here is a suggestion how the behavior of the shortcuts can be changed to work better with alphabetical lists and work with non-alphabetical lists.

Borislav

Oh no, you have to press one or two arrow keys. It's still a shortcut.
If I just used the arrow keys, I found it takes me 27 button presses to get to my Zep tunes. With the remote it takes 5 presses. So it takes 6 presses to get to the next playlist.

I don't think you're proposed plan is all that great in terms of the alpha shortcuts, but I understand why you want your lists in that order. I don't, though. At least not in the artist list. The album list isn't that hard to figure out either, because you're not going to have that many albums in any one artist's playlist.

Here's the reason I don't like the way you say we can do the alpha shortcuts in your plan: you don't know which letter is next. This way, I know I'm going from J to K to L, and Led Zeppelin is in the L list. It doesn't matter if it's first or not, it's just more convenient. In your plan, it could take me even longer to get to something like Led Zeppelin.

Just imagine that your plan has been implemented, and I keep my artist playlists in the exact same order they are now. Now I have to cycle through every J list and every K list as well. That's not much of a shortcut.

And that's why it doesn't work.

Here's one tip you can try. If you have specific playlists you want close to the > button and you want to use the keys on the player (as you said you do), you can just name those lists with a ~ at the beggining of them. Windows alphabetizes that symbol before "A", but for some reason the empeg puts it at the end. but you still have a short way to go. For instance, I have these playlists just to the left of the > button:
~Other~ --> assorted random songs
~Driving~ --> really cool road songs like Deep Purple's "Highway Star" and Black Sabbath's "Paranoid"
~Jazz~ --> I kept these separate from my multitude of rock albums- just personal preference

*the ~ at the end of the list name is just for appearance *

Try this for some of your stuff and see how you like it.

DiGNAN

you can just name those lists with a ~ at the beggining of them. Windows alphabetizes that symbol before "A", but for some reason the empeg puts it at the end.

I use a hyphen instead of a tilde, and it puts them first on the Empeg menu.

___________
Tony Fabris

Oh no, you have to press one or two arrow keys.

But it is the end of the world! The point is that that all the keys on the remote are the same size and shape so you can't tell which one is which without looking at it. So imagine that you have a J-J-K-K-L-L playlist and you want to go to the second L. Currently you do this:

1. look at the remote
2. put finger on '5'
3. look at the player
4. press '5' three times
5. look at the remote
6. put finger on '>>'
7. look at the player
8. press '>>' once

With the proposed change:

1. look at the remote
2. put finger '5'
3. look at the player
4. press '5' six times

Time it and tell me which one is faster. Now time it again in the dark.

Just imagine that your plan has been implemented, and I keep my artist playlists in the exact same order they are now. Now I have to cycle through every J list and every K list as well. That's not much of a shortcut.

Depends on how you count (see above). I agree, though, if you have a lot of Js and Ks and you always want to get to the first L, the current scheme works better for you.

How would you feel about this: new option per playlist - "display in play order", defaulting to off. Shortcuts in alphabetical lists work as they do now. Shortcuts in play-order lists work in the proposed way. In other words, no surprises if you are used to the current behaviour.

Before you completely reject this, consider how shortcuts work in playlists containing just tunes. Hint - they don't. And I hope you don't suggest we display those in alphabetical order too...

you can just name those lists with a ~ at the beggining of them

Yup, I've considered doing something like that. For a while I had my albums prefixed by the year to keep them in chronological order but scrapped that - it was wasting precious real estate (some names are already too long, see top wish 3). Anyway, why use a hack when we can have it work properly.

Best wishes,
Borislav

I agree with Borislav on this one. It's kinda too bad that this is the only search that works this way.

As a temp fix, if you really had J-J-K-K-L-L playlist, and want to get to the second L, just do:

1. look at the remote *
2. put finger '6'
3. look at the player *
4. press '<<' once

(* Assuming you can't tell where keys are by feel)

Actually, if this is just a J-J-K-K-L-L playlist with no 'M' afterwards, I don't think this would work, as there's no 'M' playlist. I don't have my empeg with me, so I can't check it. However, if this is the case, then just 1 press of the '<<' key would get to the second L.

-Trevor

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Mk 2, Green 12GB 080000349

I'm not sure what you're talking about here. For one, how will your plan eliminate the need to look at the remote?

Anyway, here's how I see my button presses going in order to select Live, which is right after Led Zeppelin.

1) press *
2) press DNPP
3) press 5 - 3 times
4) press >>

I don't see what is so hard about this.
My playlist happens to be J-J-J-K-K-L-L

So what I have to do is press the 5 button and additional 4 times in order to get to Live. But forget about it being this simple if these playlists aren't in this order, say JKLLJKJ, Live being the second L. In that case you would have to look at the player every single time in order to properly see which one you're on.

I'm sorry, but I just don't see what you're proposing as making sense in practical terms.

As for songs in a playlist, why in hell would I suggest that they be in alpha order? that's just stupid. the alph order only applies to playlists because, typically, there are more playlists in any one level than songs. Show me a commercial album that has 65 songs on it (as my first-level has that many playlists) and I'll show you how difficult it is to find a song in there.

Trust me, it makes more sense to order playlists alphabetically. The current method of advancing through these playlists also makes sense.

Here are simple numbers and simple FACTS

FACT- with your method, you basically narrow the playlists down to 3 letters

FACT- with the current method, you basically narrow the playlists down to 1 letter (and you know that ALL the other playlists with the same letter are just to the right of that list)

Trust me, I understand why you want it this way. I'm just trying to show you how it would, without a doubt, cause more button presses and complications.

DiGNAN

Trust me, it makes more sense to order playlists alphabetically. The current method of advancing through these playlists also makes sense.

It makes no sense, from a user interface standpoint, to order playlists alphabetically on the player given the user interface of Emplode. See my post in Wish List a couple of weeks ago for both my reasoning on this issue and a proposed solution (which keeps alphabetical shortcuts intact). I guess I should have posted it to General. :)



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Daniel M. Zimmerman
Mk.2 #060000058, 36GB, Red
Mk.1 #00101, 10GB, Blue

Sorry, but that search idea doesn't keep me happy. it's still not a shortcut in my view. I think it was an okay idea if you like the search function and use it regularly. But I've found that it's nearly impossible to use while driving (this could just be because of my broken display). First you have to cycle through to the "Search by playlist name" and then search through the name.

Ahh. I don't want to think about it too hard right now anyway, since it doesn't exist.

You say you want consistency. Well, technically it is consistent right now. They said they designed it one way, and it works that way. It comes down to personal preference, and I think it's a bit selfish to think that everyone wants it the way you do. The practical way to change this, if you really want it changed, is to provide the option, via emplode, as to how you want to order playlists.

Aside from doing that, I do see why they should change.

DiGNAN

I happen to not like the search functionality on general principle, 'cause it's not available without using the remote. Of course, I don't quite know how I'd make it available from the front panel, but it still seems wrong to me to have remote-only functionality. But I digress; back to the topic at hand.

The suggested search functionality certainly could be a shortcut. I can't really see the difference between "Menu" -> "Playlists" -> punch a bunch of letters and "Search" -> "By Playlist Name" -> punch a bunch of letters, if "By Playlist Name" is the first or second search option. Especially since the bunch of letters is always smaller in the latter (for instance, to get to the 4th playlist which starts with "Z", you'd have to type at most 4 letters, but quite possibly less than that - if the playlists are "Zip", "Zap", "Zoom", and "Zowie", you can get to "Zowie" with "Z","O","W", rather than "Z","Z","Z","Z"). If you can do one without looking at the remote or the screen, you can also do the other without looking at the remote or the screen; being able to do either requires that you already know your playlists pretty well.

Technically, it is most definitely not consistent right now. "They said they designed it one way, and it works that way" isn't grounds for consistency, since the majority of the user population doesn't read this bulletin board, which is the only place they've said this. Look in the User Guide - is there any mention whatsoever of the fact that there are multiple playlist orderings at work? If it were consistent and intuitive, the multiple long threads on this BBS wherein people explain the way it works (such as the one my original message was posted in) wouldn't have been necessary in the first place, because there'd be no need to ask questions like "Why do my playlists show up on the Playlists menu in order X, but play in order Y?", or "Why do my tunes, but not my playlists, show up on the Playlists menu in the order I set in Emplode?"

I agree that it's reasonable to provide users the option of viewing playlists in alphabetical order on the Empeg, preserving the current mode of operation (and I said so quite explicitly in my original message, so I'm not sure why you think my suggestion is impractical). It's not a matter of me selfishly assuming everybody wants it the way I do, it's a matter of it being unintuitive and inconsistent the way it is.

-----
Daniel M. Zimmerman
Mk.2 #060000058, 36GB, Red
Mk.1 #00101, 10GB, Blue

For one, how will your plan eliminate the need to look at the remote?

It won't, it would reduce it. Finding the right key on the remote takes forever and the fewer different keys you need to press, the better.

As for songs in a playlist, why in hell would I suggest that they be in alpha order?

Consistency. I wholeheartedly agree with Daniel on this - displaying items in a playlist in different orders depending on where you are in the player software/emplode is definitely not consistent and this is a Bad Thing.

Show me a commercial album that has 65 songs on it (as my first-level has that many playlists)

Oh dear. Now I understand why you are so much against any change in the way the shortcuts work - the current behaviour works reasonably well given such a flat tree structure. I don't see why people choose to organize their music in this way, it effectively prevents you from navigating your playlists without the remote. But apparently you are not the only one - Tony has also suggested this.

Shall we try to wrap this thread up? I think we can agree that there should be an option to show playlists in play order. Both mine and Daniel's proposals are ways to provide functionality similar to the current alphabetical shortcuts ("it'll break the shortcuts" is the only objection I've seen against providing the "display in play order" option). The current behaviour of the shortcuts can be preserved for playlists ordered alphabetically.

Borislav

I will agree to disagree on this one. As long as they don't simply change the system currently in place, I'll be happy.

I happen to keep my playlist in a "flat" hierarchy because there's no other sensible way to order them. I, unlike other people I've seen, don't have my artists split up by things like "80's" and "90's" playlists. They're all in the same place. I suppose I could put them in new playlists like "A-M" and "N-Z", but that doesn't simplify it much. Believe me when I say that I like being able to press *, DNPP, 5, 5, 5, DNPP, >>, DNPP, DNPP and have "Houses of the Holy" play. That's why, given the option, I would keep it this way and not go with yours. But as I said, it's personal preference.

In other words, they can make it an option if they want.

DiGNAN