Magical musical singing ponycorn

August 5, 2012 11:03 AM

Hey, how about some way to re-order the songs in playlists on MeFi Music?

So I was trying to assemble a personalized mix of some of the awesome OK Computer covers the other day, with the tracks in the same order as the original album, and it was way more complicated and frustrating than I anticipated! Not only could I not re-order the tracks after adding them, but tracks also showed up in reverse chronological order, with the last track I add appearing first on the list. This is kind of weird and confusing.

In my brain, here's how the process should work: "Hey, I like that one, I'll add it to the list." *click* [later] "OK, let's put these in the right order." FIN

Here's how it ends up working: "Hey, I like that one, but I can't add it yet. I'll remember it for later." [scroll down huge list and forget where I was, repeat several times, give up]

Would it be possible to add some re-ordering functionality without a massive overhaul of how playlists work?

posted by speicus to Feature Requests at 11:03 AM (10 comments total)

Thanks for the suggestion. We can think about it. We haven't touched playlists since Music launched in 2006. It might be a good time to think about how we might update them.
posted by pb (staff) at 12:23 PM on August 5, 2012

I agree.
posted by John Cohen at 12:48 PM on August 5, 2012

Yes please!
posted by iamkimiam at 1:08 PM on August 5, 2012

One thing to keep in mind is that any playlist feature here on the site is going to pale in comparison to a desktop app that is designed for managing music. So if you already use iTunes, you can think of the Playlists here on the site as an easy way to download the music so you can work with it in iTunes.

At the bottom of every playlist page is a Podcast Feed link. You can subscribe to the playlist in iTunes which will download the tracks to your computer. Then you can create a new playlist in iTunes, drag the tracks over, and sort in the myriad ways iTunes offers.
posted by pb (staff) at 1:21 PM on August 5, 2012

It looks like you guys are already using jquery to do some stuff on the site. Check out jquery ui, specifically the sortable functionality. I recently discovered this and it is super easy. I bet all you need is something like:

#('.jplayer_playlist_current').sortable({
  axis: 'y',
  revert: true,
  stop: function(event, ui) {
    saveNewOrder(); //some ajax call to read & store the new order
  }
});

posted by axiom at 1:24 PM on August 5, 2012

That should be $('.jplayer_playlist_current'), obviously.
posted by axiom at 1:29 PM on August 5, 2012

saveNewOrder(); //some ajax call to read & store the new order

But what if the playlist is entirely Joy Division covers?
posted by Pronoiac at 2:02 PM on August 5, 2012

Meh, it's all Factory Records.
posted by axiom at 2:04 PM on August 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Hey, just a note (since this seems a decent place to put it): None of the songs are working for me right now, there's some sort of weird buffering problem where it will only load about the first four seconds or so, and the songs aren't preloading when they're paused.

I've been getting stutters with my connection all morning, so hopefully I can try it in another couple hours and see if it works.
posted by klangklangston at 2:07 PM on August 5, 2012

Sounds like a local network issue. Everything is checking out ok on this end.
posted by pb (staff) at 2:43 PM on August 5, 2012