I've used Amaork 1.4 and love it. The new version I'm using, 2.2.1, seems okay ... but the metaphor has changed. So I switched to Songbird, which is pretty good.

However, I thought I'd give Amarok one more try ONLY if I could get the following to work.

My playlist requirements are very basic. I like to assign ratings to songs -- stars from 1 to 5. In Amaork 1.4 I would create dynamic playlists called "1 star", "2 star", "3 star" and so forth. I would exclude from these playlists things with particular genres, etc.

I cannot figure out how the heck to do that in Amarok 2.2.1. This should be easy -- it took seconds to figure it out in Songbird and iTunes. But in Amarok this seems to be impossible. Instead it gives me some giberish dynamic playlist nonsense that I would never use.

What's up with that?

Please, can someone tell me how to create these basic playlists?

Thank-you.

Well, you shouldn't look in dynamic playlists anyway, since you want a static one

Use the search field in the CollectionBrowser:

You can either type the search term (e.g. rating:3) or do a more complex search with the edit filter dialog (icon next to the search field).

You can then move all the results to the playlist and save it. You can filter by genre/whatever in the playlist later.

And of course, you should run the latest Amarok 2.2.2

That's great, except for a few problems:

1) You cannot search on "rating". At least I don't see that anywhere. You can search on any number of different fields -- album, artist, composer, genre, playcount, score, title, track, and year ... but not rating.

2) In prior versions of Amarok (1.4) and in programs like Songbird and iTunes, you can set these up as dynamic playlists and whenever you add or rate new songs, they are automagically added to the playlist. Since I haven't been able to create one in Amarok 2 I cannot say for sure, but I'm guessing that you would have to re-create the "static" playlist (see point 3 below).

3) You cannot edit saved static playlists, unless there's something I'm not seeing.

Thanks for the help, but it really seems as though Playlists in Amarok 2 have taken a gigantic step backwards. I don't know why the developers think the new implementation of playlists is so great -- they're not. I've spent the day searching the web in regards to this, and I really cannot find anyone embracing the new playlist idiom. Hrmp. Sorry, I'm ranting. I just find this incredibly frustrating.

Mamarok wrote:Well, you shouldn't look in dynamic playlists anyway, since you want a static one

Use the search field in the CollectionBrowser:

You can either type the search term (e.g. rating:3) or do a more complex search with the edit filter dialog (icon next to the search field).

You can then move all the results to the playlist and save it. You can filter by genre/whatever in the playlist later.

And of course, you should run the latest Amarok 2.2.2

For starters, you can save ANY playlist. It doesn't matter if it's static or dynamically generated. Click the disk icon below the playlist, and choose a name, otherwise it will be saved as the date and time.

It appears you CAN search by rating, by typing 'rating: 5' or such, but the results seem wrong. The tracks it pulled up for me had no stars at all. No rating, and no score. So I'll ask the developers about this. The same search in the edit filter dialog gives identical results for me. Leaving no space gets me zero results.

As for editing, from within Amarok and in the playlist, you can right-click on any track to remove it from the list. To add anything, you should be able to drag any tracks into it you want. You can also change the order by dragging tracks up and down in the list.

Also, remember that playlists are just text files -- PlaylistName.m3u, for instance -- which can be edited with any text editor.

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, I know you can save the playlist, but once it's saved you cannot edit it again. Oh, sure, you can drag and drop files, etc, like you mention below -- but you cannot load the query that generated the playlist and tweak the parameters of the search; you have to re-create it. At least, I have found no way to load the actual search query and modify it once I've saved it. It seems that only the results are saved, and the actual query itself is lost. This is not the same behaviour as in Amarok 1.4.

When you type "rating: 5", or whatever, it seems to return any track with the word "rating:" or "5" in it. "rating:5" (no space) returns nothing. So, it doesn't seem that Amarok 2* understands that the word "rating" is an actual searchable attribute.

Thanks.

valoriez wrote:For starters, you can save ANY playlist. It doesn't matter if it's static or dynamically generated. Click the disk icon below the playlist, and choose a name, otherwise it will be saved as the date and time.

It appears you CAN search by rating, by typing 'rating: 5' or such, but the results seem wrong. The tracks it pulled up for me had no stars at all. No rating, and no score. So I'll ask the developers about this. The same search in the edit filter dialog gives identical results for me. Leaving no space gets me zero results, same as you.

As for editing, from within Amarok and in the playlist, you can right-click on any track to remove it from the list. To add anything, you should be able to drag any tracks into it you want. You can also change the order by dragging tracks up and down in the list.

Also, remember that playlists are just text files -- PlaylistName.m3u, for instance -- which can be edited with any text editor.

I can verify that a search for 'rating' gets me no matches. 'rating:' seems to get ALL tracks. 'rating:5' -- no matches. 'rating: 5' gets all tracks numbered 5.

My tracks are named "track artist - track # - track name.filetype".

Amarok 2.2.2 in Ubuntu, with KDE, Xine backend.

I just upgraded to Amarok 2.2.2 (was at 2.2.1) and now "rating" shows up in as a searchable attribute. In 2.2.1 it wasn't, and wasn't even listed in the "Simple Search" dropdown in the edit filter dialogue box.

The search operation doesn't seem to realize the "equality" operator. It works fine with "<" and ">". Also, the edit filter doesn't let you use decimal points, even though you can assign ratings like "4 and a half stars".

Furthermore, clicking "OK" in the edit filter closes the dialogue box without actually performing the query (when "rating", amongst others is selected -- works fine when other attributes, like "artist" are being used).

Very oddball behaviour.

In Amarok 2.2.1 typing "rating: 5" returned anything with either "rating:" or "5" in the name or tags. However, in Amarok 2.2.2, it doesn't appear to do anything -- it just lists all my tracks.

Did you try with rating:=5? Keep in mind that the 5 stars are actually ratings from 1 to 10, each half star is a step.

I clearly remember having told you to use Amarok 2.2.2, didn't I?

Mamarok wrote:Did you try with rating:=5? Keep in mind that the 5 stars are actually ratings from 1 to 10, each half star is a step.

I clearly remember having told you to use Amarok 2.2.2, didn't I?

Thanks, Mamarok for the key fact I forgot - the stars are ratings from 1 to 10. What works for me perfectly in 2.2.2 is the search: rating:9 - no space, no = sign. At least, a random check of all tracks thus selected are actually rated 4.5 stars, or 9.

We need to get useful stuff like this into the Handbook!

Thank you, Mamarok and bugz for raising the issue.

Valorie

I tried it with "rating:10" and that picks up my 5 stars, etc. Important bit of information.

So, that's one problem down. The next problem is being able to modify my playlist by loading and modifying the original parameters of the query. It's a lot of "make work" to have to re-create the query every-single-time-over-and-over-over whenever I add or modify my tracks.

Thanks.

Mamarok wrote:Did you try with rating:=5? Keep in mind that the 5 stars are actually ratings from 1 to 10, each half star is a step.

I clearly remember having told you to use Amarok 2.2.2, didn't I?

Notice how I conveniently ignored that statement.

Mamarok wrote:I clearly remember having told you to use Amarok 2.2.2, didn't I?

bugz wrote:I tried it with "rating:10" and that picks up my 5 stars, etc. Important bit of information.

So, that's one problem down. The next problem is being able to modify my playlist by loading and modifying the original parameters of the query. It's a lot of "make work" to have to re-create the query every-single-time-over-and-over-over whenever I add or modify my tracks.

Thanks.

Mamarok wrote:Did you try with rating:=5? Keep in mind that the 5 stars are actually ratings from 1 to 10, each half star is a step.

I clearly remember having told you to use Amarok 2.2.2, didn't I?

One person has said that they bookmarked their favorite searches, which worked for them. Having never used the bookmark function, I can only pass along the observation.

Hi,

I tried that, but there's no way to load the query into a query editor. You can go into "manage bookmarks", but then you have to edit the query in the URL, which is less than user-friendly especially since it doesn't understand symbols like "=" and ">", etc.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

valoriez wrote:
One person has said that they bookmarked their favorite searches, which worked for them. Having never used the bookmark function, I can only pass along the observation.

Sorry, but if you bookmark a query, let's say "rating:<5", and you reload this bookmark, you'll have this expression in the search field, where it can easily be edited.
Although I can't see what's so hard to type in such a simple query.
Or why not making bookmarks for rating:10 called '5 Stars', rating:8 called '4 Stars' and so on.
I've some bookmarks for more complex queries.
Btw. Would be a nice idea to share them.

Regards
m0nk

Hello,

I thought that, or something similar, should be happening. But it's not.

For kicks, I just installed Amarok 2.2.2 on my FreeBSD 8 box and the behaviour you describe below is what happens. However, the same version of Amarok on my Fedora 11 box does not display the query in the search field if I load a bookmark, although it does return the correct list of results.

Odd.

The query I gave as an example -- rating:<5 -- was just an example. In Amarok 1.4 I had longer queries with lots of AND / OR stuff going on. I can edit all that in the search field -- but Amarok 1.4 had a decent query editor GUI which Amarok 2 lacks. Not a big deal for me -- I can edit the search field -- but it does take away from the user-frienddliness of it all.

My problem is loading the query back into the search field. That just isn't happening on my Fedora 11 system, and that's the one I use day-to-day.

Thanks for the reply though.

Dieter Schroeder wrote:Sorry, but if you bookmark a query, let's say "rating:<5", and you reload this bookmark, you'll have this expression in the search field, where it can easily be edited.
Although I can't see what's so hard to type in such a simple query.
Or why not making bookmarks for rating:10 called '5 Stars', rating:8 called '4 Stars' and so on.
I've some bookmarks for more complex queries.
Btw. Would be a nice idea to share them.