Requesting your input on M3U playlist support for X3, X5

[Joe Bloggs]

We are gathering requirements for what will hopefully be upcoming support for M3U playlists on the X3 and X5. We would like to hear your input on required features, specifically which existing player(s) you consider to have the best M3U support.

Update 5 June 2014:

After receiving the feedback from users here and considering what the devs consider achievable, here's a rough outline of what future M3U support on the X5 may look like:

-Playlists in X5 could reference the method in Rockbox. When new songs are added to a playlist, the system automatically generates a “playlists” folder into which playlist files are stored. Playlist files generated by the X5 would be in m3u8 format.
-Playlists in the “playlists” folder can be viewed in a separate “playlists” menu.
-It is recommended that the “playlists” folder be generated within the internal storage of the X5 (disadvantage being not being able to delete playlists by connecting to the computer).

-Regarding UI operation, we would add an “add to playlist” option to the quick menu in Now Playing (“[+]” icon), which would pop up a dialog prompting addition to an existing or new playlist.
-“Playlists” menu would show in the main menu; upon entering said menu, all playlists generated by the X5 would be shown, along with an “add new playlist” option.
-The X5-generated playlists would be named “playlist1”, “playlist2”, etc. (no naming required or possible)

*When playlists generated on the computer are copied to the player, they may be browsed and played from any folder location in “browse files”, but not added to the media library. M3U and M3U8 files with ANSI or UTF-8 (with or without BOM) codings should be supported.

Please let us know what you think of this plan!

 

[Tom1206]

If we can chose the name of the playlist (very important if we have many, not just "playlist 1", " playlist 2", ...), and add/remove song directly from the player, it can be perfect for me.

 

[uzi2]

I would like like a "play next" or enqueue feature for single files and complete folders, giving the ability to browse whilst playing and choose music to build up a playlist.

 

[reihead]

This is a very interesting subject...
 
It would be great to "sync" playlists (M3U format) we have on our PC. But also it would be great to create playlist on the go.
 
I love to create playlist on the go, even when most of the time is a pain to input the name for it. Every player I have used (mostly Creative ones) has this option and allows you to input the name of the playlist with a onscreen keyboard, which is a pain to navigate. That being said, I can't think of a better way to input the name.
 
Now I think it will be handy if the name for the playlist have a default text already in place on the input text box, meaning that when I chose to create or save the playlist, instead of a blank input field, a default text shows already in the input field. This default text may be the date (mm-dd-yy), or "playlist XYZ". Even better, if in the settings, there is an option to set a default text would be great and suit whatever naming schema the user wants.
 
As details on how to input text on the player, I think the X5 has enough buttons and the wheel to make a good implementation. When I say good, I just mean good, and not excellent, excellent would be a touch based input which is obviously out of the question. 
 
I would see a screen with the a-z letters and some basic buttons (backspace, clear and enter), which is scrollable with the wheel. One of the buttons has to be used to go back to the previous screen. Now there are 3 more buttons available to use, one can be used to change the screen from a-z to other characters (numbers and . ; )
 
The second button can be used to toggle the start/end of the input text. The last of the 3 buttons available can be used to OK the name of the playlist. Of course the wheel center button will select the character or action.
 
Some examples of well known devices with similar problem...
 
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2007/05/xbl_spring_update_07---14.jpg
 
http://uk.playstation.com/media/123930/pspsyssoftware_fullosk_en.jpg
 
https://support.us.playstation.com/euf/assets/KCimages/kbid_3836/10.jpg
 
These examples show how complicated can be to input text, I would recommend something more simple... like
 

 
 
 
Some examples of implementations where the old school cellphone input is used, I would advise against this methods
 
http://www9.pcmag.com/media/images/143673-sony-playstation-3-predictive-input.jpg
 
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2012/11/images/InputMethods_Fig7.jpg
 
 
 
A few questions to keep in mind...
 
- There will be an option to rename the playlist (either sync or created on the go)?
 
- If a file that is part of one or more playlist is deleted from the player, what would be the behavior? Some players continue to play the next file on the playlist, other players update the playlists when a DB update is trigger, I think the later will be too much trouble and an extensive task.
 
- Once a playlist is saved, will be possible to edit it on the player? Adding or removing more songs?
 
IMHO, these three questions fall under advanced playlist support and I don't see them as a must have. I'm happy with basic playlist management and I'm aware of how laborious can be to input text on a non-touch device.
 
Sorry for the long post and thanks to Fiio for listening to us (the users).

 

[Flomet]

As you know not everybody is on a PC, please keep in mind that a lot of us are on Mac's

So it would be nice to sync with Mac's should the user wish to do so.

I am very impressed with the Fiio team asking what the user wants, it would be nice if other manufactures followed suit.

Thank you Joe for the first class service you give the end user

 

[dulty]

All great suggestions. One of my favourite playlist features is the ability to add a track I am listening to to an existing or new playlist. So while I have playlists I have created on my Mac and synced to the device, I always have at least one 'ad-hoc' playlist, like pop, chill, metal etc. that have my current favourites. 
 
Itunes/iphone 'sync playlists' feature is great, but since we don't have an application on the computer I suppose this is impossible...

 

[Francisk]

Yes X3 really need a playlist update with the ability to save multiple playlist with it's own name and an easy way to add or remove files. At this day and age, this function should be available from the initial release of X3. It seems strange that X3 comes with such a primitive way to create playlist.

 

[Nicolas2305]

X5 owner here.
 
Here are the actions you need to think about when using text input for the playlist name:

1. navigate through characters
   1. Upper case alphabet (ABCD...)
   2. Lower case alphabet (abcd...)
   3. Numbers (1234...)
   4. Symbols (-_.,'()...)
   5. Or any other character for other languages.
2. select character
3. erase/backspace
4. navigate backward
5. navigate forward
6. Accept plylist name
7. Go back/cancel

 
As you can see, the X5 don't have enough buttons to support all those actions (assuming we keep volume controls for the track currently playing). I suggest that navigation (forward/back) are "nice to have" operations and can be left out to the profit of all other operations.
 
Here's my button mapping suggestion for the X5

1. Scroll wheel: browse characers (through a list of all characters)
2. Center button: select character
3. Upper left button: back/cancel
4. Upper right button: Accept/apply
5. Lower left button: backspace
6. Lower right button: ??? I think some kind of alphabet toggle could be used on that button. Pressing it would cycle through Upper case letters, Lower case, numbers, symbols. This can be also used for different purposes for more complex asian alphabets (Chinese, Japanse, Korean, etc.)

 
 
As for playlist operations I have the following in mind but I may be forgetting something:

1. List playlists
2. Read playlists
3. Remove playlists
4. Edit playlists
   1. Rename playlists
   2. Remove song from playlist (do not remove from device? ask the user?)
   3. Reorder songs in a playlist
5. Add song to playlist (at the end)
6. Set "Now playing" as a playlist

 
This also bring something else. The ability to manage the "Now Playing". I think that if you consider using a system playlist for the "Now playing" and implement all the operations above (except renaming of course) you will largely improve your player user friendlyness.
 
The usual "Now playing" features are:

1. See list of songs
2. Add song next to the currently playing song
3. Add song at the end of the list

 
If you implement those and then allow to save the "Now playing" as a playlist you do 2 hits with one stone. You have better management of "Now playing" and you also have playlist creation right on the device.
 
That's my opinion and I know I'm not the only X5 user so there will probably be better ideas out there of more heavy users.

 

[AuxIn]

regarding all the wishes here (+ the time it will need to realize), 
I would be happy with a simple read/play m3u ability asap

 
and if you can store/export the "favorites" later, I wouldn´t mind to rename them on pc/mac

 

[reihead]

As you know not everybody is on a PC, please keep in mind that a lot of us are on Mac's

So it would be nice to sync with Mac's should the user wish to do so.

I am very impressed with the Fiio team asking what the user wants, it would be nice if other manufactures followed suit.

Thank you Joe for the first class service you give the end user

 
I'm old school, when I say PC, I mean Personal Computer, regarding of the OS in use. Don't forget the linux users as well.

 

[Flomet]

I'm old school, when I say PC, I mean Personal Computer, regarding of the OS in use. Don't forget the linux users as well.

Yes you are right, as I've never had a Linux system the thought did not occur to me.

I'm also old school and found in general that when people mention Personal Computer it normally refers to windows (that I'm glad I left behind years ago).

 

[nafran]

In addition to being able to use playlist files generated on the computer, some kind of implementation like the on-the-go playlists on ipods would be great. being able to add single tracks, entire albums or entire artists with a single step would be great, instead of having to add each track manually like the current Favorites playlist.

 

[KefkaticFanatic]

The only device I readily know of at the moment that did simple .m3u support that I've used would be the old Zune players

They had the same sort of easily create and save playlist like other people mentioned, plus you could just sync playlists with the software to the device.  I've been using MusicBee for all of my syncing to the microSD, and it will properly sync over a .m3u playlist to a device, so that IF it would have support (like some of my Android mediaplayers), then it would pick up the playlist and it referenced the media on the card properly.

 

[defguy]

  The only device I readily know of at the moment that did simple .m3u support that I've used would be the old Zune players

They had the same sort of easily create and save playlist like other people mentioned, plus you could just sync playlists with the software to the device.  I've been using MusicBee for all of my syncing to the microSD, and it will properly sync over a .m3u playlist to a device, so that IF it would have support (like some of my Android mediaplayers), then it would pick up the playlist and it referenced the media on the card properly.

   The playlist options on my 80 gb Zune player were nearly ideal, I liked adding entire albums to the now playing list fur multiple hour road trips.  

 

[Age8E]

Support for both pre-made playlists transferred from PC as well as a feature to create, name and save playlists on-the-go is all I'm really looking for, and for those playlists to support any mix of file types. I don't know how feasible it is to allow playlists that draw from both cards, but that'd be nice too, if possible.