Australia
I've been using mepo for a long time, and one of my biggest peaves is when I've got my music playing on shuffle and some short intro/talking/etc track comes on in the mix. Preferably I want these files still available so that they play when on 'album play' - those intro's etc are essential then. Currently I'm zipping these files up so they dont play, and unzipping them manually if I want to listen to the album. And before anyone suggests it, I haven't got the time to go an make playlists manually excluding all these files - we are talking hundreds of albums here.
So would it be possible to introduce a simple setting for 'skip tracks whilst shuffling', which checks for a certain metadata tag in the file and skips that file when found? It seems itunes has such a setting, but I don't have anything Apple and thus can't check what tag they are using (it would make sense to use the same tag to keep things compatible).
Edit: Well a couple of minutes after posting this, I found the ipod uses the tag IPOD_SKIP_WHEN_SHUFFLING (source).
Edit2: A winamp thread suggests to "add a "[SS]" to the comment field (SS=skip when shuffleing)" for winamp to skip it.
Edit3: It seems foobar2000 has a plugin that gives it this feature (and more), and it does so via a SKIP tag on the files. This would probably be the way to go, as their tag value can also contain a start and end time (a fantastic idea I hadn't thought of, useful for when what would normally be the last track of a CD has extended silence before a bonus track starts).
I imagine this would be quite easy to code (from a theoretical POV). If the skip on shuffle setting is enabled, check the file SKIP tag (perhaps only a non empty tag?). If it exists, try to parse it as a time range, and play that range. If the parsing fails, skip the track entirely. If the file doesn't have a skip tag, perhaps check for the ipod tag. If that doesn't exist either, play the file in it's entirety.
So would it be possible to introduce a simple setting for 'skip tracks whilst shuffling', which checks for a certain metadata tag in the file and skips that file when found? It seems itunes has such a setting, but I don't have anything Apple and thus can't check what tag they are using (it would make sense to use the same tag to keep things compatible).
Edit: Well a couple of minutes after posting this, I found the ipod uses the tag IPOD_SKIP_WHEN_SHUFFLING (source).
Edit2: A winamp thread suggests to "add a "[SS]" to the comment field (SS=skip when shuffleing)" for winamp to skip it.
Edit3: It seems foobar2000 has a plugin that gives it this feature (and more), and it does so via a SKIP tag on the files. This would probably be the way to go, as their tag value can also contain a start and end time (a fantastic idea I hadn't thought of, useful for when what would normally be the last track of a CD has extended silence before a bonus track starts).
I imagine this would be quite easy to code (from a theoretical POV). If the skip on shuffle setting is enabled, check the file SKIP tag (perhaps only a non empty tag?). If it exists, try to parse it as a time range, and play that range. If the parsing fails, skip the track entirely. If the file doesn't have a skip tag, perhaps check for the ipod tag. If that doesn't exist either, play the file in it's entirety.
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