Multiple saved playback states

[OxygenCobalt]

Thinking about adding the ability to persist and switch between several playback states at once.

Normally I might play all my songs on shuffle, but then want to play a specific artist when doing a mentally-intensive task. I'd want to go back to the prior playback state eventually, but #404 would make that impossible as the saved state would get overwritten, preventing me from falling back to it.

I might benefit then from something like Musicolet's ability to track several playback states at once. However, not sure how to do this intuitively since this is a bit of an edge-case. Ideally, the current behavior should be the default, and this functionality would be somewhat hidden.

[KraXen72]

this is basically just saving a queue to a playlist. good idea but no need to decouple these two ideas imo

[OxygenCobalt]

Oh, so that's why that button exists in so many music players. However, my idea is a lot deeper where I want to retain the queue and exact position. That wouldn't occur with just saving to a playlist.

[KraXen72]

i can see how they are different, but, just for my curiosity, when exactly do you need to save the specific time a song stopped playing?

[OxygenCobalt]

It's personal preference, mostly. I want to start right back to where I left off, instead of having to start new playback from a playlist and then jump forward to where I left off. This is what I mean by that this is a kind of edge-case feature that I'm unsure about implementing.

[KraXen72]

oh okay yeah, i get that. honestly by the time i get back to listen to music after a break, unless the song has like >10minutes i'd just play it from the start. but i get why it could be useful for longer songs/spoken word

[OxygenCobalt]

Going to go ahead with this. This issue is really annoying, and it would also be a good place to put "Save current queue to playlist" functionality.

[ildar]

this discussion reminds me what I wished a long time ago: Playlists with positions. So that if I switch from listening of a playlist, the app saves this position (of that playlist) and when I'm back to it, it goes from where I stopped last time

[etyarews]

What would be the UX plan for this? I do quite like the idea, but I fail to see a proper intuitive way to use this without bringing some issues with other features

[OxygenCobalt]

My idea @etyarews is roughly:

• A new button to open the playback state is added alongside the equalizer button.
• The button will open a dialog containing a list of all current playback states, sorted by the last time they were used.
• If you click on a playback state, Auxio will immediately switch to it.
• Each playback state item would also have a delete button, and there would be an additional "New" item that creates a playback state from the current state.
• There would probably be some pruning system for "dead" playback states to avoid Auxio consuming excessive amounts of space, but I'm not sure how that would exactly play out. Perhaps all playback states that haven't been used in a week would be removed.

[etyarews]

Hmm, my first thought would be to merge it with Playlists as there is a bit of overlap between the two (i.e. list of songs).

I'd advise for Auxio to keep track of how many songs were played for a given playback state. If only one song was played, then it can be basically nuked without care.

[OxygenCobalt]

Hmm, my first thought would be to merge it with Playlists as there is a bit of overlap between the two (i.e. list of songs).

There's not really that much overlap. Yes, there's the queue list, but there is also position, repeat mode, shuffle state, etc. that is not encoded in playlists.

I'd advise for Auxio to keep track of how many songs were played for a given playback state. If only one song was played, then it can be basically nuked without care.

That's a good idea. Might not fully solve the problem though. I'll continue thinking about it.

[etyarews]

Hmm, just to clarify: I mean that playback stats would be inside the Playlist tab, but would be under a sub category, like a subheader divider.

Playstates could also be a vertical list of cards or something different, like "continue where you left off" type of deal.

[OxygenCobalt]

Hmm, just to clarify: I mean that playback stats would be inside the Playlist tab, but would be under a sub category, like a subheader divider.

Yeah, that still feels very disjoint. In addition, this feature is arguably a little power user-y and I don't want to force it onto users by having it front-and-center like that.

Playstates could also be a vertical list of cards or something different, like "continue where you left off" type of deal.

Eh, that veers into "For You" page territory, which I personally don't like.

[KraXen72]

i think you should save this data for playlists, but don't do anything with it by default (and keep only the latest).

Then, you'd have a toggle for power-users under the 'save playback state' button in settings (if they are there they probably want that), which would enable a new tab like playlists, but for playback states. When they enable it, it would suggest creating a playback state from one of their recently listened playlists / from any playlists that they've played in the past & has the data.

When turned off again, the most recent playback states (applicable) would get applied to playlists, and 'hidden' again.

[OxygenCobalt]

I don't fully understand, but I actually like the idea of having an enable toggle. It avoids useless playback states from piling up unless someone is already aware of the feature.

[KraXen72]

• if the toggle is off: auxio only keeps 1 playback state internally for each playlist. nothing else like custom queues
• if user turns on toggle: auxio suggests to "import" these internal playback states into a new tab with playback states
• if toggle is on: user can save (from queue view) & resume playback states (up to x recent (autosaved) / manually saved)
• if user turns off toggle: auxio looks at saved & recent playbacks states, and assigns each playlist a playback state internally if applicable, so the cycle can continue

this is just an idea so far, but i think it could work. one might think hiding a toggle in settings is bad UX, but if the user is so lazy as to not even go into settings, they most likely don't care about playback states.

[etyarews]

Basically, Playlists are semi-fused with Playback. Meaning that each playlist also has a playback state alongside it, and users selecting a playlist can "continue from where they've left off", or they can start the playlist again from the beginning.

That is, IMO, a better solution. Randomly playing songs doesn't save a playback state on this mode, but playing from a playlist does. A toggle in the settings would expose the current list of playback states saved and uncouple it from the playlists, allowing more playback states, but still allowing basic users to have something similar.

[OxygenCobalt]

Hm. A little interesting, but I don't know how that could be integrated into the UI @KraXen72 @etyarews. In addition, a good amount people will want to pick up where they left off on an artist or album too, so limiting it to a playlist is not the best default.

[etyarews]

I don't think there is much to think about integrating into the UI. When the user toggles "advanced playback states" or whatever it is going to be called, a new tab on the home screen appears and that is that. When it doesn't, any time they play something that could continue from an existing playback state, a bottom menu appears asking if they want to pick up they left off or if they want to start from the beginning.

Basically, any interaction other than playing a song directly on the "Songs" tab should create a playback state automatically. And then you can remove unused playback states with a couple of rules, like for instance:

Automatic Playback states are automatically removed if there are more than 10 states saved AND they are older than 2 weeks.

[OxygenCobalt]

Thanks for the extensive feature description. I'll keep this in mind when working on this.

[brighteyed]

Just discovered Auxio while searching for an offline player for podcasts and audiobooks and I'm impressed with its very smooth UI/UX. For my use case I could add all podcast's episodes into a playlist and toggle something like Autosave state mode for this playlist. This would allow me to switch between such "advanced" playlists and resume playback where I left off.

[KraXen72]

@brighteyed maybe unrelated, but you might wanna check out the open source AntennaPod podcast player.

[brighteyed]

@brighteyed maybe unrelated, but you might wanna check out the open source AntennaPod podcast player.

Thanks for the suggestion! I've found AntennaPod quite feature rich for podcasts. Will try to use it for audiobooks as well since it supports local folders.

[OxygenCobalt]

I also agree with @KraXen72 @brighteyed. Generally I attempt to optimize features for music and not podcasts or audiobooks. Not that you can't use Auxio with such, it's just going to be sub-par compared to an app designed for podcasts/audiobooks like AntennaPod.