Save result list from SmartPlaylist as normal playlist

Yes, finally, after ten years, I have found out how to save the result list from SmartPlaylist as a normal (non-smart) playlist in Music. There, you can rename it, play it, reorder titles, edit it, sync it, delete it.

You will get this feature with v13.2, in the list view options (upper right corner).

Each time you tap "Save as Music playlist" a new playlist is created with the (same) name (e.g.) "SmartPlaylist X - Name of your list" and description "Created: date/time".

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").

Select text size behaviour for list with v6.1

With the next version v6.1 of SmartPlaylist you can now choose:

• Use always the small text size (as before) to see as much text as possible ("min.")  -- This is the default setting for the iPhone / iPod Touch
• Adapt/optimise the text font to get a bigger text size, but only if the text is not truncated ("optim.") -- This will result in a small size for long texts and a large size for short texts
• Always use a large text size ("max.") -- This is now the default setting for the iPad

The actual text size changes according to

• portrait / landscape mode
• row height S / M / L (which can be changed directly in the list view by using the 2-finger "pinch / spread" gesture)

With the smallest row height ("S") there is no difference between the 3 text size settings.

Example iPad with "max.":

Example iPhone with "optim.":

Unfortunately, "optim." needs quite some computer power, so it can at first slow down the scrolling on older devices.

v5.9: New features

Some more options for the list view:

1. Show the row number (#1, #2, #3, ...)
2. Show "Duration / Time to play": For the song now playing it shows how much time is left to play (e.g. 17 seconds in the example below)
3. Make the first line with normal text and the second line with bold text (or both bold, if you wish)
4. The option to show/hide the artwork is now separate from the row height option (S, M, L), meaning you can now also have large rows without artwork
5. The row height and the show/hide artwork can now be changed/toggled both with the pinch/spread gesture, using 2 fingers: "Pinch" reduces the row height (L > M > S) and toggles show/hide artwork at the smalles height (S). "Spread" increases the the row height and again toggles show/hide artwork at the maximum height (L)

To start playing any song in the list or to play/pause the one playing (blue), just press on the row for half a second. Before, you had to tap on the artwork image, but the new method (long press) also works when you don't want to see the artwork.
In the detail view (single song) you can now also press on the artwork for half a second to start playing the selected title or to play/pause it, if it is already the now playing item. (Tap/double tap and pinch/spread still work to enlarge the artwork).
The greatest new feature is the "⇉ Show all titles with same ...", described in the previous post.

Load all titles with same ...

With SmartPlaylist v5.9 you can navigate from a song to all titles with the same ...

• Genre
• Composer
• Groupings
• Artist
• Album

How:

1. Select a title in the detail view (e.g. the song now playing).
2. Tap "⇉". This opens the "⇉ Load all titles with same ..." dialogue.
3. Pick "Genre = GenreOfSelectedTitle" or "Composer = ComposerOfSelectedTitle" or "Groupings = GroupingsOfSelectedTitle" or "Artist = ArtistOfSelectedTitle" or "Album = AlbumOfSelectedTitle"

Tap on"⇉"

Select where you want to go

On the iPad

SmartPlaylist now creates a temporary playlist "T", which works just like the others (A, B, ..., F/G). From here you can jump yet to another temporary playlist using "⇉". To go back to the original (unchanged) playlist:

• In the list view: Tap on the title on top (e.g. "SmartPlaylist T: 39")
• In the rules view: Use "⏎ Search / Generate list" or "↻ Reload last list" or switch to another list (and then back again)

So, this feature allows you to search by example. You can also use it to drill down from a more general result list. I hope you will enjoy the flexibility this approach offers.

Design your own list view

With SmartPlaylistv 5.8 you will be able to configure exactly what information you want to see in the list view. You can select up to 6 different song attributes (3 in the main line, 3 in the sub-line) from the 11 available ones. You can also specify how (with which characters) to separate the different additional infos.
Here is an example:
Line 1: Title & " • " & Duration
Line 2: Artist & "  -- " & Album

... which is configured like this:

With the "⌥"-button you can select from the different available attributes:

  

Some more suggestions (for line 1 or 2), to show what is possible:

• Artist & ": " & Title & " (" & Track# & ")"
• Title & "  / bpm:" & BPM
• Title & " | " & Year & " | " & Duration
• ... 

Note:

• Don't overload it. On old hardware (e.g. iPodTouch2) it is best to just use Title / Artist
• On the iPad there is much more space that can be used
• Rating, PlayCount & LastPlayed can be displayed seperately ("hide" / "as ▯▯▮▮▮" / "as text")

v5.5: Options for list display

Some examples of how you can configure your list display in ⌘ > Settings:

This is the most basic and therefore fastest configuration

With artwork "medium" line 2 is folded into 2 lines, if necessary

With artwork "large" you get up to 4 lines.

Changing the artwork size can be done directly in the list view by using the "pinch" gesture.