Browsing and organizing USB media library is very tedious

[WiiM Team]

I have my music library on a USB medium connected to my WiiM Ultra and have some trouble getting used to work with the USB library using the WiiM Home App. There are some features I miss. At least some of them should be easy to implement:

- Add option to sort albums by artist+year
- Add menu for adding entire albums to playlist
- Allow multi-selection of songs in order to add them to a playlist
- Also allow multi-selection of songs in playlists in order to remove them from the playlist

I regularly update some of my playlists so that they always contain my currently most-liked albums. This is a very tedious task with current WiiM Home App.

Hi Wosi,

Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions.

We plan to implement features #1 and #2 first, which will enable customers to sort albums by artist and year and add entire albums to playlists. These features are scheduled for release around the middle of this month.

Next, we will work on features #3 and #4, with a planned release at the end of this month.

Additionally, we are developing an alphabet index to make it easier to jump to related content, including entries with special characters. This will help improve music discovery.

Let me know if you’d like further refinements!

 

[simbun]

Additionally, we are developing an alphabet index to make it easier to jump to related content, including entries with special characters. This will help improve music discovery.

Given list items don't wrap and that we're already losing a lot of screen estate due to the bookmarking functionality, is it possible for the jumplist to appear only when scrolling?



Given that some lists won't be in order (or will be distributed across very few leading characters e.g. Album list prefixed with original release date) a scrollbar might be the better option (as in BubbleUPnP).

 

[Wosi]

Hi Wosi,

Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions.

We plan to implement features #1 and #2 first, which will enable customers to sort albums by artist and year and add entire albums to playlists. These features are scheduled for release around the middle of this month.

Next, we will work on features #3 and #4, with a planned release at the end of this month.

Additionally, we are developing an alphabet index to make it easier to jump to related content, including entries with special characters. This will help improve music discovery.

Let me know if you’d like further refinements!

Thank you very much! This very good news!

However, I noticed another issue with my large playlist (I'm not sure if it belongs here or if it should be a separate thread):
There are around ~1800 songs from ~60 different artists on the playlist (loaded from a .m3u file). I played it in randomized order for several hours. After a while I noticed there were songs from only ~10 different artists being played. I looked up the queue and found songs from these ~10 artists exclusively. In other words ~50 artists didn't make it into the queue. I assume my playlist exceeds the maximum number of songs allowed in the queue which results in bad UX.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

Like ... playlists?

See my other comments. Playlists are great for each individual purpose, but you just end up with a huge and unwieldy list of playlists, more difficult to navigate than the Strait of Malacca.

 

[harkpabst]

See my other comments. Playlists are great for each individual purpose, but you just end up with a huge and unwieldy list of playlists, more difficult to navigate than the Strait of Malacca.

I'm not a playlist guy anyway.

 

[Burnside]

Thank you very much! This very good news!

However, I noticed another issue with my large playlist (I'm not sure if it belongs here or if it should be a separate thread):
There are around ~1800 songs from ~60 different artists on the playlist (loaded from a .m3u file). I played it in randomized order for several hours. After a while I noticed there were songs from only ~10 different artists being played. I looked up the queue and found songs from these ~10 artists exclusively. In other words ~50 artists didn't make it into the queue. I assume my playlist exceeds the maximum number of songs allowed in the queue which results in bad UX.

That’s unfortunately not that uncommon on devices with relatively limited memory. There are programmatic methods to get round that but depending on the file access methods available on the device, it can be quite a hard nut to crack. Having said that, it’s not an impossible nut to crack…

Raise a ticket direct to WiiM and ask if they might consider improving their shuffle mechanism.

 

[Burnside]

See my other comments. Playlists are great for each individual purpose, but you just end up with a huge and unwieldy list of playlists, more difficult to navigate than the Strait of Malacca.

I do use a lot of playlists, either groups of tracks I like (I have a large playlist called “good stuff” for example that I keep adding to), or tracks I’ve Shazammed, set lists from gigs I’ve attended, tracks from holidays I’ve taken, tracks I likedon Radio Paradise, favourite playlists for the car etc etc. I have no difficulty navigating the list of playlists I have…

Plus, the use of Alexa and Amazon Music gives me umpteen ways to ask for music depending on the mood I’m in.

 

[simbun]

See my other comments. Playlists are great for each individual purpose, but you just end up with a huge and unwieldy list of playlists, more difficult to navigate than the Strait of Malacca.

Whilst I would appreciate better playlist navigation (rather than a single big list), unless you have hundreds I'm sure using a sensible naming convention would be sufficient, that or just use folder view to browse your playlists (not sure if all servers support that).

Any option has to be better than copying tracks to form a new album/playlist.

 

[Hazenhart]

Thank you very much! This very good news!

However, I noticed another issue with my large playlist (I'm not sure if it belongs here or if it should be a separate thread):
There are around ~1800 songs from ~60 different artists on the playlist (loaded from a .m3u file). I played it in randomized order for several hours. After a while I noticed there were songs from only ~10 different artists being played. I looked up the queue and found songs from these ~10 artists exclusively. In other words ~50 artists didn't make it into the queue. I assume my playlist exceeds the maximum number of songs allowed in the queue which results in bad UX.

This is a known problem that I have raised a ticket for quite some time ago. In my experience it appears that "shuffle" randomizes well enough, the problem is that the WiiM Home App grabs the first and only the first ~500 entries in whatever list you're attempting to shuffle from and randomizes them. So if it's a list sorted by artist, it will tend to have all of only a few artists. If it's sorted by tracks it will have mostly tracks with titles starting with numbers, and the first few letters of the alphabet. Of course it all depends on the size of your library or list. Regardless, any list of tracks larger than 500 tracks won't include all the tracks in the shuffle.
Does my experience match the technical truth, @WiiM Team ?

 

[Wosi]

This is a known problem that I have raised a ticket for quite some time ago. In my experience it appears that "shuffle" randomizes well enough, the problem is that the WiiM Home App grabs the first and only the first ~500 entries in whatever list you're attempting to shuffle from and randomizes them. So if it's a list sorted by artist, it will tend to have all of only a few artists. If it's sorted by tracks it will have mostly tracks with titles starting with numbers, and the first few letters of the alphabet. Of course it all depends on the size of your library or list. Regardless, any list of tracks larger than 500 tracks won't include all the tracks in the shuffle.
Does my experience match the technical truth, @WiiM Team ?

Your assumption matches with mine. That's why I ended up with this workaround:
- sorting the playlist by track number
- scrolling to a random item in the playlist and press play
- turn on shuffle mode

This way I see more or less the same number of songs per album in the queue.

 

[WiiM Team]

Thank you very much! This very good news!

However, I noticed another issue with my large playlist (I'm not sure if it belongs here or if it should be a separate thread):
There are around ~1800 songs from ~60 different artists on the playlist (loaded from a .m3u file). I played it in randomized order for several hours. After a while I noticed there were songs from only ~10 different artists being played. I looked up the queue and found songs from these ~10 artists exclusively. In other words ~50 artists didn't make it into the queue. I assume my playlist exceeds the maximum number of songs allowed in the queue which results in bad UX.

Hi Wosi,

You are correct in your assumption. Our team will prioritize this issue and thoroughly review the limitation. Being able to play the entire playlist is indeed very important.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

Whilst I would appreciate better playlist navigation (rather than a single big list), unless you have hundreds I'm sure using a sensible naming convention would be sufficient, that or just use folder view to browse your playlists (not sure if all servers support that).

Any option has to be better than copying tracks to form a new album/playlist.

There it is, right there. “Anything is better than duplicates” as if it were handed down on tablets of stone. I’ve already explained very clearly how it’s a non-issue.

If you can see a flaw in my reasoning, please feel free to bring that up, that’s a proper discussion. But to just keep parroting a point without offering any justification doesn’t get anyone anywhere.

On Amazon Music I have 95 playlists, sorted into 6 groups by playlist. It’s just too unwieldy.

That aside, I agree. If it were possible to split playlists into groups, that really would be getting somewhere.

But there’s still be one issue. WiiM’s library regularly glitches, necessitating the deletion of cache, which can set you back to square one with playlists.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

I think a keyword here is ‘view’. It’s not just the ability to create, then search for something. It’s the ability to find and see it where you want it to be.

One example, I mentioned SDEs. You can create these in a playlist, for sure. But then if I have an artists with 5 albums, and 3 are SDEs which I’ve created in playlists, they’re in two separate places.

Twenty first century issues, I know. But having Hothouse Flowers first three albums in the same place, the first a self-created SDE, with the second and third just being the album, is hugely more convenient, and a better, slicker view, than having the three vanilla albums in one place and an SDE of the first in the middle of 100 Playlists.

In addition, I do try to keep everything down to a size I can comfortably navigate on my phone. So for artists, I could have them all in a huge long list of folders, one per artist. Or I could have these placed in folders by letter - so an A folder for ABBA, ABC, Aerosmith, a B folder for Beatles, Beach Boys, etc. but that’s a list of 26 folders. So break that down into 6 or 8, starting with A-C, or whatever.

It just keeps each page neat and manageable. No one likes having to scroll through lists of hundreds and hundred of artists or albums.

 

[simbun]

There it is, right there. “Anything is better than duplicates” as if it were handed down on tablets of stone. I’ve already explained very clearly how it’s a non-issue.

If you can see a flaw in my reasoning, please feel free to bring that up, that’s a proper discussion. But to just keep parroting a point without offering any justification doesn’t get anyone anywhere.

The negatives of this approach are increased disk usage and maintenance (correcting metadata), and the process itself is a "little" cumbersome:

• Unplug the USB
• Locate the files and copy them to a new folder
• Rename/retag so that they appear in the correct order
• Plug back into Ultra
• Reindex

It may be a non-issue for you, but that doesn't make it any less crazy.

One example, I mentioned SDEs. You can create these in a playlist, for sure. But then if I have an artists with 5 albums, and 3 are SDEs which I’ve created in playlists, they’re in two separate places.

Twenty first century issues, I know. But having Hothouse Flowers first three albums in the same place, the first a self-created SDE, with the second and third just being the album, is hugely more convenient, and a better, slicker view, than having the three vanilla albums in one place and an SDE of the first in the middle of 100 Playlists.

After suggesting to browse playlists "by folder" I tested MiniDLNA and it doesn't allow you to do that. I haven't tested other servers as it's not really something I look for, but the free version of MinimServer does display playlists in folder view although they are sorted after other folders, but that might be something the author is willing to address.

I do understand your pain with playlists, but the mere thought of having duplicates in my collection gives me hives


Would be good to hear about other servers that present playlists with a richer navigation.

 

[slartibartfast]

I think a keyword here is ‘view’. It’s not just the ability to create, then search for something. It’s the ability to find and see it where you want it to be.

One example, I mentioned SDEs. You can create these in a playlist, for sure. But then if I have an artists with 5 albums, and 3 are SDEs which I’ve created in playlists, they’re in two separate places.

Twenty first century issues, I know. But having Hothouse Flowers first three albums in the same place, the first a self-created SDE, with the second and third just being the album, is hugely more convenient, and a better, slicker view, than having the three vanilla albums in one place and an SDE of the first in the middle of 100 Playlists.

In addition, I do try to keep everything down to a size I can comfortably navigate on my phone. So for artists, I could have them all in a huge long list of folders, one per artist. Or I could have these placed in folders by letter - so an A folder for ABBA, ABC, Aerosmith, a B folder for Beatles, Beach Boys, etc. but that’s a list of 26 folders. So break that down into 6 or 8, starting with A-C, or whatever.

It just keeps each page neat and manageable. No one likes having to scroll through lists of hundreds and hundred of artists or albums.

For single disc SDEs your could just tag them as if they were two discs, the original album and bonus tracks.

 

[simbun]

For single disc SDEs your could just tag them as if they were two discs, the original album and bonus tracks.

I think he's creating his own SDEs.

 

[rccarguy]

The best method would be if Wiim can sideload LMS, that would be great. WIth only 512MB of RAM though probably pushing it too far.

 

[slartibartfast]

I think he's creating his own SDEs.

Maybe I just don't know what SDEs are . I was assuming Super Deluxe Editions.

 

[Burnside]

Maybe I just don't know what SDEs are . I was assuming Super Deluxe Editions.

Yeah, I had to google it too…

 

[rccarguy]

Unless the built in USB scanner has seperate all artists and album artists, like lMS it's not worth it for a large collection. All artists is a complete mess on mine, but album artists is manageable and scrollable.