Yes, that automatic splitting features has been added meanwhile, and I can confirm that it’s working (did some tests today).
There are various reasons why the scheduler breaks the separation rules. Usually it’s that there’s not enough songs in your folders to satisfy all rules.
Some days ago someone asked me why the scheduler doesn’t stop processing when he notices that he cannot satisfy all rules. I wrote a reply that explains how the scheduler works inside, and why the rules may be broken from time to time. Here’s what I wrote:
Why doesn’t the Mini Scheduler refuse to build the playlists?
The answer pretty simple: Because all separation rules are, by
definition, “soft”. In other words: Better break a separation rule
rather than play nothing at all. By the means of the penalty settings in
the configuration, you can define which rule is more important than the
others.
To understand this better, let me explain how the scheduler works:
For each “random item from folder” entry in the template, the scheduler
takes the list of songs in that folder and sorts them by the last time
they were used (oldest first). Then it goes through that list and
calculates a “penalty score” for each song, which works like this:
First calculate the number of hours that the track, the title and the
artist were last played. Then compare these numbers to the separation
settings in the configuration.
If all three values are above the configured separation, the song has a
penalty score of “0”, which is the best value, and the song is a
“perfect choice” for this slot.
If a value is below the separation, the scheduler will add penalty
points to the score: the penalty set in the configuration, multiplied by
the number of hours that the artist/track/title is early.
Example: Artist separation is 4 hours with a penalty of 2. But the
artist has been played only one 1 ago, which is 3 hours earlier than
configured. So the artist penalty for that song is 3 (hours early) * 2
(artist penalty in config) = 6 points.
The same calculation is made for the track and the title, and the three
penalties are added to the total penalty score of that song.
If there is one ore more songs with a score of 0 (no separation
violated), the scheduler will pick one of those songs.
If all songs have a score of > 0, that means that at least one rule was
broken. But according to the “better break than nothing” principle, we
have to pick a song, so the scheduler will take the one with the
lowest score.
As you see, the separation rules can always be broken if necessary, and
you can use the penalty settings to adjust the importance of the
particular rule.
As you add more music to your library, the scheduler will be able to
stick to the rules better.