[zl9600]

I have been trying to figure out the best way to get the "Autofill" feature from the Shuffle software to work for a Nano. I have created a smart playlist and all, but that falls way short as it does not shuffle music around unless you change the music in the playlist it references, and only then does it attempt (in how I've made it work, at least) to change only that song, not refill the entire thing with a random mix.

Wondering if anyone has created an automator workaround or otherwise to mimic what the Shuffle has on it's software... the "Autofill"? It was such a slick feature, and now that the Shuffle seems headed for the history books, seems it would be great to have for Nano, etc....

[iLikebeer]

Not sure about an autofill, but have you tried using more than 1 smart playlist that you change occasionally?

Maybe try using a few with different combos of "unrated music", "least played", or some of the others that change whenever you rate a song or after synching the ipod back up. Do that with 3 or 4 playlists that always get synched up and occassionally change some parameters if it starts to get stale again.

Is there anyway to do this with regular size iPods? It doesn't matter too much, but I've been having to leave some music behind as I've outgrown the 30GB.

[mdc]

While I had a 4gig Nano I made a smart playlist like this.



Then you can get a little more into it, but making it only select songs that are greater than 3 stars for example, or make it only look in certain playlists to select songs from. And finally you can select all the songs in the smart playlist, press delete and it automatically randomly fills the playlist for you.

I set my nano up to only sync this playlist.

[zl9600]

i have nearly the same thing, however i set up a playlist containing songs i wanted to have on my nano for the stuff i use it for, skiing and working out (i don't want to get 'carmen' in the middle of a workout!). however, it just does not update very well.

i want it to randomize. i realize that might be a domain for apple's shuffle only at this point, i had hoped someone had figured out how a little haxie get it so when you plugged your nano in, it would fill up with random songs. the playlist doesn't update for me. same music although there are about 10 g worth of songs in the playlist, even when i delete the nano and start over.

must be doing something wrong if it's working for you, though. will check again.

[iLikebeer]

Look at the 2nd checkbox option on the smart playlist. "Limit to however many songs you want chosen by random" Have you tried that? What do you mean it doesn't update very well. You have to have either changed a rating for a song or the play count get updated A LOT for there to be any significant changes. The easiest way is just to add as much randomness as possible. If you mean your ipod doesn't update after you change around the playlists, in the file menu of update, click on "Update iPod" and it'll update again with any changes you've made since first connected this session.

Try this if you haven't ranked much or any of your music.
Make a playlist that includes your entire library. Shuffle that playlist. All the songs should be out of order now (sometimes it's finicky.) Now click on the first song and scroll down part way and shift click on another song. A large section of songs should be highlighted blue. Now control click on one and select a rating for it. Continue to do this with the rest of the songs using different ratings.

Now most of your songs should be rated unless you left some blank. Now you have an extra smart playlist option that you can use to further seperate your music. Add music rated 3 or whatever. Since the music was out of order, you won't get your entire Neil Young collection of 267 songs or whatever like that. You can also choose songs less than 3 minutes. There really are millions of quick ways to update a smart playlist if you just want random music. Just start clicking on different options and it'll be different and only takes a few seconds.