Latest WACUP public preview for x86 & x64 is build #21136 (March 9th 2025) (x86 & x64 changelogs)
Latest restricted WACUP beta release is build #21136 (March 9th 2025) (x86 & x64 changelogs)


NOTE: Beta testers are added in a limited & subjective manner as I can only support so many people as part of the beta test program to keep it useful for my needs.

Unless I think you're going to be helpful, not all requests will be accepted but might still be later on. Remember that beta testing is to help me & the limitations currently works for my needs for this project.

Author Topic: Better Playlist Changes Management  (Read 782 times)

thisisbbc

  • Music Hoarder Since '97
  • Beta Tester
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 22
    • View Profile
Better Playlist Changes Management
« on: July 23, 2024, 07:38:23 AM »
Original thread title: Remember Playlist Custom Order

--

Howdy,

Today I have encountered something rather frustrating and hopefully this can be addressed so my clumsy fingers aren't causing me any more headaches lol...

I was ordering songs in a pretty big playlist and had been working on it for some time, then I misclicked on the 'Title' header and the playlist was automatically ordered alphabetically. I tried 'Alt + Z' but unfortunately this had no effect. All my work evaporated 😅 (EDIT: Actually realized since I did not load a different playlist I still had the correct order in the Playlist Editor pane. I was able to save it again with the proper song order. Still, I think some improvements can be made to how playlist changes are handled.)

Would it be possible to implement a 'Sort list by hand' or something that Wacup could remember so that if we change sorting it can be reverted to our custom sorting?

The above seems overly complex and there may be a simpler approach...

Alternatively, and maybe a simpler solution, an undo button - or better yet a functional 'Alt + Z' - could work so that we can restore the playlist to a previous state in case of changes.

I noticed that if I go into a playlist, then change the position of a song, a 'Save' button appears indicating that the change(s) are not (yet) permanent and have to be saved. This is not the case when you re-order the playlist by clicking on the 'Title' header (probably something that should also trigger the 'Save' button to be displayed). Also, if you don't click on the 'Save' button and move to a different playlist, the changes are automatically saved. This is a bit clunky, I like the 'Save' button idea but it seems redundant if you don't need to click on it to save your changes.

I'm not sure what would be the best solution. I may prefer to be forced to click the 'Save' button to confirm changes. Maybe moving to a different playlist after making changes that are not saved would display a popup 'Your playlist order has changed, what would you like to do?' Save/Cancel. Maybe a checkbox 'Don't ask me again' for users that don't want to bother with this every time. Just thinking out loud.

Let me know what you think :)

-B
« Last Edit: July 23, 2024, 08:27:15 AM by thisisbbc »
"Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world.
Today I am wise, so I am changing myself."
~ Rumi

dro

  • Admin / WACUP Developer
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4894
    • View Profile
    • WACUP (Winamp Community Update Project)
Re: Better Playlist Changes Management
« Reply #1 on: July 23, 2024, 09:40:15 AM »
If a library playlist has been modified via wacup then in the playlists root node list or on the right-click for the specific playlist node if set to show the playlists as children of it, a revert to last backup playlist option exists as a one-level undo for such instances.

The save button showing is to nudge things otherwise closing wacup / changing to another view is going to trigger that save automatically otherwise the changes would be lost. There's a debate over should it prompt or not but when it did prompt, that then triggered crashes from the user not responding to the prompt & so auto-save + the one level backup was introduced to avoid the prompt issue.

Some actions also will do a hard-save immediately as that's just how the actions have been implemented from the playlist core vs being done by the view itself (which the likes of sorting falls under which I get is visually confusing) & really the save probably shouldn't be there to make it more like the main playlist & is from how I started out trying to make some of the plug-ins fully mimic the winamp one that they were trying to replace.

Should I have multi-level undo &/or adding the undo action to the view like the main playlist, yes. Should the save button be removed, probably yes. Should there be a prompt / forcing the user to interact, am probably going to say no as that often can't be relied upon to be responded to in a timely manner.

-dro