New feature: Search and sort by Date Added

So finally, you can search and sort by Date Added in SmartPlaylist v7.1 (should be out before Christmas).

Search with the rule "Added":

Mix and sort with "Added":

Look up "Added":

Also coming: Search by Date Added !!!

Seems like there now is a way to get a song's Date Added! Will offer this as a rule (Added x days/weeks/months/years ago).

Finally!

New feature: Quick Search in list

The next version of SmartPlaylist (v7.1) will feature a quick search in the list view similar to the one in iTunes:

SmartPlaylist searches the following text fields: genre, composer, grouping, artist album-artist, album-name, title and comments.
It also uses the given amount of "*" to filter by minimum rating.
In the above example the original list W was filtered with "alasd ***", leaving 44 songs (out of the complete list) with at least 3 stars and with "alasd" in one of the text fields.

Another example: "boar key" will find songs with "Keyboard" in the title or album-name, etc.

In SmartPlaylist's help (Menu > Help) you can learn about some additional features:
If only 1 specific text field should be used for the search, prefix "G:" (genre), „C:“ (composer), „GR:“ (grouping), „A:“ (artist), "AA:“ (album-artist), "AT:" (album-title), "T:" (title) or „CM:" (comments).
Example: "G:jaz ***" gets all items with a rating of at least 3, whose genre contains "jaz".


By the way: You can now load all your songs with "Load" without entering any rules (before there was a message "Please enter search rules").

Update because of iOS 7.0.3

iOS 7.0.3 necessitates a small update to shift the playback position indicator in "Now Playing" back by 6 pixels to its proper place.
Plus: SmartPlaylist will now maintain its own shuffle mode to prevent unwanted changes when the Music app interferes (especially when using album shuffle).

==> SmartPlaylist v7.0.1, out in about 7 days.

Preview at iOS 7 version (iPhone)

UPDATE: Released on 21.10.2013
The iOS 7 version for the iPhone is now ready. Unfortunately it is not possible to make an iPhone-only update, I must also update the iPad version. This will take me another week or two.

Basically it is just a new look (you like it or you don't), but it is also a simplified user interface. All the functions are still there, but some in a more simplified manner. The playback control now only offers the shuffle and repeat modes, plus the speed control (+ or -), because you can now use the iOS' Control Centre to play/pause/skip, etc.

NOT 100% compatible with iOS7

Beware: SmartPlaylist is NOT 100% compatible with iOS7 (thank you, Apple!). Currently, I don't have the motivation to invest hours and days again, just to make it work as before.
So, just stay with iOS6.

UPDATE: Be patient. I am now working on a new version adapted to iOS 7.

UPDATE2: I'm actually quite happy now that I had to rework my app for iOS 7. Seeing an app still in the old iOS 6 style makes me shudder (so ugly).

Slow down or speed up playback (without changing the pitch)

In the latest version of SmartPlaylist (v6.3) you can change the speed of the music playback. You can slow down to 0.5x or 0.8x or speed up to 1.2x, 1.5x or even 2x. The pitch of the song is not changed by this.
This can be easily and quickly done in the playback control of SmartPlaylist, which can be accessed from anywhere, at any time with "♬":

You can use this new feature

• just for fun
• to scan for a specific playback position
• for quickly going through MP3-lectures at 1.5x or 2x playback speed
• to play along at a slower speed for practice

Limitations:

• This only works with iOS 6 (not iOS 5)
• On the iPhone / iPod the control is only available in portrait mode, but not in landscape mode (there is not enough space in the pop-up). On the iPad it is available in both modes.

How to bring the beautiful cover artwork to the front (wallpaper)

In the iPhone Music player you only ever see your beautiful cover artwork in square format on about half of the screen.

When you you start up SmartPlaylist you can tap "⌥" (Options) and select "➜ Now Playing" ...

 ... to jump  directly to the song which is now playing on the iPhone:

Here, you simply double-tap on the artwork to enlarge it to full screen:

With one finger you can move the artwork left or right until you get the desired frame. Now you press the home button and the on/off button on top at the same time to take a picture of what you see on the screen (you will get a white flash when this happens).
Then you go to the iPhone settings and select "Brightness & Wallpaper". You will find your full screen artwork picture in your Camera Roll.

So, with just a few taps you get a wallpaper from the artwork in your music library.

How to use the Music Browser

Short introduction

The Music Browser lets you pick the desired genres, composers, etc. step by step, instead of typing the values into the search fields. In the standard configuration of SmartPlaylist you can first select one or more genres, then you get the list of all the composers in the selected genres, then the list of the groupings for the selected composers, then the artists, then the albums, until you get the list of all the titles in the selected albums.

It works similar to the Column Browser in iTunes. You can also select one, many or all on each level.

Getting ready

SmartPlaylist B is playing ("B▷") and we don't want to interrupt it while we prepare and refine a new playlist in tab A. So we scroll to the bottom of the rules page (start view) and set "✲ Show only" for A. This means that the results of the query for list A will be only displayed, but not loaded into the playback queue of the Music player, i.e. B keeps on playing in the background.

• Hint: You can see the current song now playing and skip to the next song in list B using the playback control with "♬".

In this "Show only" mode, the "Enter" and "Show" keys are shown as "*⏎" / "*➤" instead of "⏎" / "➤".

Now we set up the Music Browser starting with a tap on "⌘" (command menu) and selecting "Settings".

In the settings page we scroll to the bottom to select only some of the available browsing levels. As we only want to work with artists and their titles, we deactivate the other levels (composer, groupings, albums).

• Note: Genre cannot be deactivated, i.e. the Music Browser always starts with selecting the genre(s).

We navigate back to "Rules" (upper left). With our simple configuration the Music Browser is now "reduced" to Genre > Artist > Title.

Browsing the media library

1. Selecting the genres

Now we start the Music Browser with the blue/white ">" on the right. SmartPlaylist must first read all the songs in your library in order to build up and cache the required data. This is only done once after launching SmartPlaylist.

• Note: Unfortunately, SmartPlaylist is not aware of changes in your music library (due to downloads or sync). To reload all the data you must use ⌘  > "Empty cache after sync" or re-launch SmartPlaylist.
• Note: After certain actions (e.g. changing the "Music Browser: Show / hide") SmartPlaylist reloads the data automatically.

First we get the list of all the genres. You can scroll around and pick the desired items with a tap. The number of selected items is indicated on top.

You can also search for specific items or see only the selected or un-selected items by using the search bar at the top of the list. Here we search for "Folk" by typing "fol":

• Hint: You can use "*" as a wildcard for any characters. "*folk" will only show entries which end with "folk" (e.g. "Ethno-Folk"). "rock*roll" will give you "Rock & Roll", "Rock'n'Roll", etc.. "*" will show all entries.

When you switch from "All" to "Not selected" and "Selected" SmartPlaylist automatically inserts just "*" to show all the selected or not-selected items.
So now we have picked three genres and navigate to all the artists in these genres with "Artists➤".

2. Picking artists

We can now select the artists. If we want all the artists, we do not select any or tap "All" at the bottom.
Again, we can search the list or filter only the selected or not-selected artists, as shown above.
If some artists are missing, then we can navigate back to "Genres" and add more.
Then we move on to "Titles➤".

3. Picking the songs

In the third step we now get the list of all songs by the selected artists. Again, we pick what we like. For now we want all the songs, so we don't select any (or use "All") and finish the selection with "OK⏎".

4. Result: Search rules

The Music Browser replaces all the rules above it (Genre, Composer, Grouping, Artist, Album, Title) with the selection made in the browser and confirmed with "OK⏎".

• Note: The search type is changed to "is equal to" instead of "contains", in order to select only exactly what was picked in the browser.

All the other rules below it are not changed.
We have selected some genres and some artists, but not (yet) any particular songs. Therefore we get (only) two rules, one for genres and one for artists:

As you can see, the Music Browser only fills in the rules, which we could also type in directly (using " OR "). But picking many artists from a list is much more convenient than typing them in. In our example we have selected 14 artists, which makes quite a list:

5. Get the playlist

We could now adapt the rules or add more rules (rating, etc.).
As always, we launch the query with "⏎", or rather "*⏎" in our case and get the result list.

• Note: As list A is not in the queue for playback now, but only shown on the screen (remember: "Show only"), it is indicated as "*A" on top. You cannot play songs from this list by pressing on them in the list.

Once we are satisfied with the list (content, sorting), we switch back to the "▷Load for playback" mode and tap "⏎" to listen to this new smart playlist.

iTunes 11 bug: Play count gone

Don't like iTunes 11. Apart from the unasked-for GUI revision, which made some features just disappear  (I mean, Apple knows what we want, so they don't have to ask, do they), it also brought some bugs.
The latest bug I observe is that the play count ("Plays") for some songs just disappears, i.e. the last played date is still there, but there is no play count anymore. Sometimes it's 17 songs without play count, then again there are 92 titles where the play count has just gone.
Maybe this happens when I sync, I don't know.
I have reported this bug to Apple. Please do the same (https://bugreport.apple.com) if you also have this very annoying problem.