Mechanism for scheduling and controlling the number of tracks played from a particular of different playlists

[my64]

A mechanism for scheduling and controlling the number of tracks played from a particular grouping of different playlists is needed.
This is needed so that it would be possible to visually see the percentage ratio of played tracks from one playlist with respect to the others and on the basis of this information to set the time values for changing the playback of the current list to another, depending on the specified percentages or time cycles within a certain time interval. It is desirable to have a convenient graphical representation of a pie or line histogram in order to clearly see these ratios, the places of intersection of some cycles with others in order to further adjust the time intervals.
There was an idea to combine the ability to work with playlists in one special action and display a list of playlists in one window for convenience otherwise the event log gets bloated quickly and is not so easy to perceive information.
If required I can describe the idea in detail with examples, what would be a great support tool for playlist scheduling, adjustments and interaction with multiple playlists, not just individual playlists, as this way more comfortable working with multiple playlists and delegating various conditions for automation and achieving the required distribution of certain styles of music as well as precise scheduling of the playback program.

 

[djsoft]

It's only for the case when playlists are used as track sources - a fairly specific case. You can use the Report Viewer to see the play count for each track: https://manual.djsoft.net/radioboss/en/report_generator.htm

Playlist Generator allows specifying priority rules, that is you can lower the priority for tracks that play the most: https://manual.djsoft.net/radioboss/en/plgen-cat3.htm

 

[my64]

It's only for the case when playlists are used as track sources - a fairly specific case. You can use the Report Viewer to see the play count for each track: https://manual.djsoft.net/radioboss/en/report_generator.htm

Playlist Generator allows specifying priority rules, that is you can lower the priority for tracks that play the most: https://manual.djsoft.net/radioboss/en/plgen-cat3.htm

Thank you for your reply.
The problem is that I want to see an analysis of data, how the tracks are distributed in the generated list in the future to build proportions between a number of tracks from different playlists or categories with certain criteria. There is no clear, visual representation of the data for one or another criteria to analyze and adjust the proportions of the tracks being played back in the future.
Now it is not very convenient to do this and it is not clear the logic of the randomizer in conjunction with various filters and limiters.

Specific example:
Let's say I have several categories in the preset playlist generator.
Categories:
POP (from pop.m3u8)
RAP (from rap.m3u8)
METAL (from metal.m3u8)
ROCK (from rock.m3u8)
CLASSIC (from classic.m3u8)

I need to set the percentage of frequency of adding tracks from a category to the playlist for playback, say in 1 hour.

POP 50%
RAP 25%
METAL 15%
ROCK 7%
CLASSIC 3%

How do I provide this distribution to generate the planned playlist? What should I focus on, how can I see how the various limiters and filters will affect the graph?

 

[djsoft]

Some customers use the TrackList feature to achieve this. Add to the main playlist window multiple Track List items and enable "Shuffle" playback:
(Track List) Pop
(Track List) Pop
(Track List) Pop
(Track List) Pop
(Track List) Pop
(Track List) Rap
(Track List) Rap
(Track List) Rap
(Track List) Metal
(Track List) Metal
(Track List) Rock
(Track List) Classic

This is an example, you can have more Track List items to make a finer percentage control. In the example above, the "Pop" item is included 5 times out of 12, that is Pop has a probability of 42%, Rap is 25% and so on.

 

[my64]

Thank you for your comprehensive comment.
Indeed, the presented method is partially a way out, but it is fatally inconvenient. In this case there is no playlist control, I don't know what's playing next or exactly what time the contents of the playlist will come to an end. What's more, I have a lot of redundant tasks in my schedule just to make a playlist that meets my criteria.
I didn't just put my post in the requests section for a reason, so that you would consider and let me know if you would implement what I'm talking about or not, and I'm talking about the following:

By refining the playlist generator in this way, you can make it more convenient and flexible, reduce the number of unnecessary tasks in the schedule and excessive number of playlists. For example, having one playlist and running the schedule once an hour, I have less application crashes.
At the moment it is completely unclear how the generator works with categories especially if there are more than two categories. For example from the first two categories it adds tracks to the playlist, but from the following ones it doesn't, even if you don't put restrictions. Totally unpredictable behavior. Can't see the proportional distribution of categories in the time slot, etc.
I'd really like to be able to visually display what happens when I generate a playlist if I change, say, the total time, number of categories, and percentage of categories. Then when I click the 'Generate' button, a playlist is generated based on those proportions get shuffled and then added on schedule to the main playlist.
I hope the screenshots clearly show what is so lacking in the application.

 

[djsoft]

Indeed, the presented method is partially a way out, but it is fatally inconvenient. In this case there is no playlist control, I don't know what's playing next or exactly what time the contents of the playlist will come to an end

The playlist will never end because it uses Shuffle playback mode, so it will play forever. It also always evaluated the next track, so you know current and next tracks.

For example from the first two categories it adds tracks to the playlist, but from the following ones it doesn't, even if you don't put restrictions. Totally unpredictable behavior.

The only way why this happens is if the category is empty, or all tracks from it were filtered out. You should check the Logs to see if there are any error messages.

I'd really like to be able to visually display what happens when I generate a playlist if I change, say, the total time, number of categories, and percentage of categories. Then when I click the 'Generate' button, a playlist is generated based on those proportions get shuffled and then added on schedule to the main playlist.

The idea is understood, and it sounds interesting. One of the problems is what is the percentage - is it from a total number of tracks, or based on duration?

 

[my64]

The playlist will never end because it uses Shuffle playback mode, so it will play forever. It also always evaluated the next track, so you know current and next tracks.

I don't use Shuffle mode as I need to know not only what the next track is, but a couple of hours ahead of what's going to happen.

The only way why this happens is if the category is empty, or all tracks from it were filtered out. You should check the Logs to see if there are any error messages.

I checked the log during manual generation - there were no errors, and if there were, I loosened the criterion to disallow repetitions and there were no more errors.

The idea is understood, and it sounds interesting. One of the problems is what is the percentage - is it from a total number of tracks, or based on duration?

100% = user-defined duration.
I roughly sketched out what I would like to see:

 

[my64]

In layman's terms:

https://imgur.com/a/xFcpelJ

 

[djsoft]

I don't use Shuffle mode as I need to know not only what the next track is, but a couple of hours ahead of what's going to happen.

In this case, I don't see any real solution within the current feature set. We plan on adding the "percentage" support for Playlist Generator, but at this point, I can't tell when this is going to happen. Currently this feature sits in the queue for about 3 years. I'll schedule it for the next major update (6.1).

Your sketch is very good. I've added it to our bug tracker as an UI example.