[request] An Itunes Shuffle Script

Alrighty, my first post. Lets see if I dont make an ass out of myself

I'm not sure if you guys will agree with me, but iTunes shuffle is very annoying to me, and to several other people that I know.

The things I know about iTunes shuffle is that when you hit shuffle, a pre-determined list is created for your Library. I also know that if you turn shuffle off and then back on, the list is changed.

My iTunes tends to shuffle to the same artists repeatedely. Every 4 or 5 songs I can count on an Aphex Twin song. I hardly ever get string of 8 or more songs from different artists. This, to me, seems kind of absurd because the shuffle has over 10000 (ten thousand) songs to choose from.

Now on to the request.

I think that one of these two ideas will work:

1. Create a script/plugin that turns shuffle off and then back on after every song, or every few songs. Maybe the script could be toggleable?

2. Create a script that works like Winamp's randomizer. (For those not familiar, Winamp has a feature where you can tell it to Randomize the list for you. It doesnt require that you turn shuffle on, but instead it just makes a new playlist for you that is randomized.)

I'm not sure if either are feasible options, but the first one sounds like it would be the easiest.

Thanks in advance for any information, help, and/or scripting that goes on.

#159710

Well, I don't know about iTunes, but my iPod (which I imagine works mostly the same) seems to play highly rated songs with the least plays more often than high rated, frequently played tracks, or low rated seldom played tracks.

It may be completely random, but I was in the car for 20 hours over the last week and I recently bought an old beastie Boys album from iTunes music store, I immediately rated it 5 stars and then added it to my iPod. On the first 2 or 3 hours of the journey I heard 90% of the 22 tracks... Which led me to the conclusion that it picks high rated low played tracks to play first.

Perhaps also, it takes the last played date into consideration.

It would be a nice addition to have a few configurable "random" modes. Perhaps one that actually does just pick a song completely at random, or as close as computers can get to random. It would also be great if you could choose random songs from a predetermined genre... Or set of genres.

Yeah, well, whatever, there's a bunch of stuff to think about I guess.

#159918