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Ilja · Apr 24, 2004, 12:25 PM

iTunes really rocks, but I miss one thing, especially usefull on parties or something like that:

a certain kind of playlist where you can queue songs, when a song has ended it disappears from the playlist (fifo: first in first out). So you can dynamically determine which song appears next. Just drag albums/songs to the list and they'll be queued up, when they are played they will be removed.

I notice this absence while playing songs on parties, it's a real pain in the ass to construct a playlist in some fixed order dynamically.

Krypton · Apr 24, 2004, 01:19 PM

That's a good idea, you should request it.

Thilo Elliott (spelling?) of these forums constructed something similar a while ago using Applescript studio.

iOliverC · Apr 24, 2004, 01:30 PM

I've been thinking the same thing for ages. An idea would be you could control + click on a song and it gets added to a queue of sorts. So that song in the library is played next.

cpac · Apr 25, 2004, 02:32 PM

I know it's not ideal - but why not create a playlist for the party or whatever, naming it like "Drag songs here for the party" or something - then double click it so it is it's own new window, and let people go at it?

drive-thru · Apr 26, 2004, 09:32 AM

I have a playlist called .:. Queue .:. (the .:. makes it stay at the top of the list of playlists) so I can drag songs there if I want to and it's easy to find and empty.

Amorya · Apr 26, 2004, 07:32 PM

I'd like a queue too. I think there should be a toggle button next to the shuffle button for queue on/off. If it's on, double-clicking a song adds it to the queue. If off, it behaves like it does now, i.e. double clicking plays.

The queue should show up in the sources pane too, allowing manual editing.

Once a queued song has been played, it disappears from the queue.

If no songs are left in the queue, it pauses. If play is clicked while no songs are in the queue, it plays as it normally would... i.e. treating the library as just a different playlist to the queue.

Amorya

MartiNZ · Apr 26, 2004, 08:16 PM

Yeah, or it could even just keep playing from where it left off before being overruled by the queue. I actually provided feedback for iTunes back when we had version 3, if not 2, for exactly this feature, except that I didn't explain it as well.

Basically my thinking on it is that I often suddenly think of a song I want to listen to in the middle of another one, but by the time it is over I have forgotten about it. The queue idea developed here is a nice extension of that

.

AKcrab · Apr 26, 2004, 08:50 PM

Originally posted by Amorya:
I'd like a queue too. I think there should be a toggle button next to the shuffle button for queue on/off. If it's on, double-clicking a song adds it to the queue. If off, it behaves like it does now, i.e. double clicking plays.

That would be absolutely kick ass.

cpac · Apr 26, 2004, 10:20 PM

Originally posted by AKcrab:
That would be absolutely kick ass.

Agreed.

I had a hard time picturing how it would really be useful, (as opposed to a playlist) but that makes the most sense.

It'd be like a self-expiring smart playlist, but with the added bonus of having double-clicked songs queue up...

Josh Reid · Apr 27, 2004, 12:18 PM

Maybe we'll see this in a surprise release of iTunes 5 tomorrow? I mean, iTunes 4 was released with the iTMS, and they've never gone longer than a year with iTunes 1, 2, or 3....

It would make sense considering they have a similar On-The-Go playlist feature for the iPod. Why not have it in iTunes also?

-Josh

Amorya · Apr 28, 2004, 04:50 AM

WEll, party shuffle can be used as a queue.

Select Party Shuffle to display 0 upcoming songs. Start it playing, then drag any songs you want to queue from the library onto its icon. They're automatically removed after playing. If there's nothing in the queue, it adds things randomly.

Not as good as an option to double-click to add, and not very intuitive, but it works.

Amorya

RevEvs · Apr 28, 2004, 07:15 AM

these a contextual menu item that lets you add stuff to the queue also.

Josh Reid · Apr 28, 2004, 08:38 AM

Originally posted by Josh Reid:
Maybe we'll see this in a surprise release of iTunes 5 tomorrow? I mean, iTunes 4 was released with the iTMS, and they've never gone longer than a year with iTunes 1, 2, or 3....

It would make sense considering they have a similar On-The-Go playlist feature for the iPod. Why not have it in iTunes also?

-Josh

So...I sort of called it! (And why can it be called a surprise release? B/c none of the rumor sites have mentioned an iTunes update at all recently, AFAIK.)

Hello & Happy Birthday to me!

-Josh