Could there be an option to let the scheduler also select songs from subfolders when choosing a folder in the hour template builder?
I’ll explain this with an example.
There’s a root folder called “Dance” which has a subfolder with “floor fillers”.
It may be useful to let the scheduler choose songs from either the root or subfolder when choosing “Dance” as folder to select songs from and only use the subfolder with floor fillers during Friday or Saturday night shows.
What I mean is that I don’t want these floor fillers to be isolated from the rest (they also may appear during regular shows when I select the Dance root folder) but when I specificly want them to be scheduled, I can select the subfolder so that they are meant to be isolated from the rest.
Maybe a checkbox in the options dialog like “fixed item” and “optional item” that enables searching or browsing subfolders.
I usually solve problems like this by making sure that (to use your example) all the ‘floor fillers’ are also in the ‘Dance’ folder. Copy the database items from one folder into the other. That way, you can schedule items from ‘Dance’ without missing out the floor fillers, and schedule item from just the ‘floor fillers’ separately.
I am talking here about database virtual folders, not copying the audio files to more than one place! It does no harm whatever in mAirListDB to have the same track appearing in more than one virtual folder; in fact, it’s often the only way to solve scheduling issues like the one you described.
As an example, a track like Without You by Harry Nilsson might be in your ‘Chart - Number Ones’ folder, your ‘Decade - 1970s’ folder, your ‘Power Ballads’ folder, your ‘Year - 1971’ (year) folder, your ‘Current Oldies Rotation’ folder, and so on, and so on.
To return to your example, it may seem ‘wrong’ or ‘weird’ to have the same item in in both ‘\Dance’ AND in ‘\Dance\floor fillers,’ but it really is the best way to do it. Just remember these are ‘pointers’ to files and not the files themselves!
I could also use an attribute “floor filler”, like some stations have “opener” as a song code for certain songs.
Then I only need 1 “Dance” folder and when creating clocks, I can add an attribute filter “Floor filler” when I let the scheduler find a song in the Dance folder.
But the fastest way to manage a music colletcion is by using folders/categories I believe.
So, I’ll place copies of the “floor filler songs” in a subfolder
(just dragging moves them to that folder, holding CTRL while dragging creates a copy, right?)
[quote=“roskilde96, post:3, topic:8799”]The fastest way to manage a music collection is by using folders/categories I believe.[/quote]I would say so as well, yes.
[quote=“roskilde96”](just dragging moves them to that folder, holding CTRL while dragging creates a copy, right?)[/quote]Also correct.
In this case it is possible that mAirList Mini Scheduler schedules the same song right after eachother other, I think? To use the example of CAD, Harry Nilsson can be scheduled twice when a Power Ballad is scheduled after a Decade 1970’s? How to avoid this?
No, Adriaan: that is why mAirList’s Mini Scheduler enforces Artist Separation, Title Separation and Track Separation.
To quote the manual, section 11.5.3.4: The Mini Scheduler enforces track, title, and artist separation when generating playlists—that is, it will not schedule the same track, title or artist closer together than a specified number of hours (respectively)—and it ‘looks back’ to the hours before those being generated while doing so (note that it does not ‘look forward’ to hours after the hours being scheduled).
Unless you have changed the default settings, the same title will not be scheduled within three hours, and the same artist will not be scheduled within two hours. Also the same track (matching title and matching artist) will not be scheduled within three hours, and if necessary, mAirList will break the title and/or artist rules to avoid breaking the track separation rule.
