So this means that it'll only get songs from the current playlist right? So what If I'm listening to my 'Greatest Hits' playlist, which is the top 2 songs from every album that I have - the '2' key will only get songs from the current playlist - not from the rest of the empeg.

Correct. But keep in mind that your initial example was based on shuffling the whole unit (you even said "down down down"), so my replies were based on that idea.

I do, however, like the idea that the Tweak Order functions could pull from the entire unit instead of just the current playlist. I think I even entered this as a wish list item (or maybe I considered it a bug). This would be neat, and then you could pound on the "2" or the "3" key no matter which playlist you were in and your problem is solved.

Sorry, I should have been more clear - my structure is: Root -> Artist -> Album Name -> Songs

Well then it's perfect already. When 1.1 comes out, make sure those artist trees are ordered first in the root directory (view/details, sort by ascending position, then make sure the artist trees start at the top of the list), and then pressing "0" will drop you into the sequential playlist (the entire unit) in the middle of that artist's catalog.

However, I can see how the '0' would drop me back to the album playlist, but not to the artist playlist - is this possible too - how does it know what level to go to?

I think you're misunderstanding how the shuffle works.

If you're playing the whole unit, it takes the entire playlist, all of the trees, and flattens them into a single list of songs, from start to finish, in order, and plays that list.

When you shuffle, it takes that flattened list, de-dupes it, and shuffles it. When you un-shuffle, it takes the original, flattened, un-duped, sequntial list (the one it had before shuffling), and puts that back into place "around" the current song you're listening to.

So not only will un-shuffling drop you back into that artist's catalog, it drops you back into the entire list of the whole unit, which you can traverse with the >>| and |<< buttons as always.

The only fly in the ointment (the fact that the presence of "mood" or "greatest hits" playlists with duplicate songs will intermittently confuse this behavior) will be fixed in 1.1 and then this will work perfectly.

As you pointed out elsewhere in the thread, "but what if I'm listening to the last song from the last album by that artist and I un-shuffle?".

Well, that's what the |<< button is for.

I know what your next question is: "But what if I don't want to have to press the previous track button fifty times?" Okay, then leave it in shuffle mode and press the "2" key to get a random song by that artist. I have to say, though, that most of the time when I hear a given song by an artist, my instinct is to want to hear the next song on that album. For example, when I'm listening to a Pink Floyd album, since their songs run into each other so smoothly, I usually just want to hear the rest of the album at that point. So I think that behavior is the correct behavior.

Then you say, "but what if I'm in the middle of a customized playlist that doesn't contain that whole artist's catalog?"

Now you're starting to get into the area of complexity versus capability in user interface design. Right now, there is a really simple user interface that allows you to select any playlist (including your artist trees) from the main menu, so why don't you just do that? Any feature allowing you to say "play this current artist's catalog please", although do-able, would, from a user interface point of view, be just as complicated as just picking the artist playlist from the main menu. There has to be a "simplicity" line drawn somewhere. (Although doing this from a voice recognition interface would rock.)

Keep in mind that we're talking about a device that's intended to be used in the car that has only has a limited number of buttons- but you're asking it to perform complex operations on a vast database of song information. There's only just so much you can do while keeping the user interface simple enough to be usable. Beyond that, you need a high-rez screen and a full keyboard, so you might as well just go plug your laptop into your car stereo.

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Tony Fabris