Smart Playlists are somewhat lazy

[s73nm (Sven M.)]

I very much like the concept of smart playlists. Unfortunately, it appears that smart playlists that use the inverted “ Played in the last …” focus parameter are only updated to remove tracks form the playlist; they are not updated to add tracks to the playlist.

For example:
I have a smart playlist that should show tracks that were added but not played recently. E.g add in the last 3 months, but not played in the last month, or added in the last year and not played in 3 months.

After initial creation/manual refresh, tracks are removed from the smart playlist when they are played, as would be expected. However, the tracks are never added again, unless on manually edits the focus of the smart playlists and toggles the “Played in the last…” parameter from inverted to regular and back to inverted.

There’s more reports of users complaining about smart playlist not updating as expected in the following topic, but the above is something I’ve been systematically experiencing for several weeks / months.

When does Roon refresh Smart Playlists?

I have several smart playlists in Roon that are time-based. I.e. using focus filters “Added in the last…” and “Not Played in the Last…”. I’m noticing that the number of tracks in these playlists aren’t always updated to reflect the correct values. An example is the playlist in this screenshot. Supposedly there are 429 tracks that were added in the last 3 months, but not played in the last month. However, when clicking Edit Focus, that number drops significantly, to 116. [image] Even when cli…

[Stan_Jones]

Is there something that Smart Playlists will do that Bookmarks won’t do? (Other than wiork in Arc.) I know some things that Bookmarks will do that Smart Paylists won’t, so I don’t understand why roon expended programming energy to create a less useful function. The main failure of Smart Playlists for me is that it will only shuffle tracks, not classical works as a whole. Bookmarks will do that. In my experience Bookmarks properly adds new material according to its criteria and re-adds material that had been excluded by a time criteria

[s73nm (Sven M.)]

@Stan_Jones

Is there something that Smart Playlists will do that Bookmarks won’t do?

Smart Playlists can become more powerful than bookmarks when combining them with tags. An example is explained in the following topic:

Power tip: Use smart playlist with tags

When I read that smart playlists were finally coming to Roon, I was excited. It was probably the feature I missed most after switching from Apple Music to Roon… When I started seeing forum posts that suggested that smart playlists seemed to be nothing more than a different way to store a bookmark, I was somewhat disappointed… So tonight I updated Roon and stared exploring smart lists myself. After only 30 minutes of exploring, I must say that besides the availability in ARC that has been menti…

[Stan_Jones]

I don’t undersdtand what you mean by Smart Playlists can combine with tags? You seem to imply that bookmarks can’t, but I do that all the time. What do you do with Smart Playlists and Tags that you cannot do with Booksmarks and Tags?

[s73nm (Sven M.)]

@Stan_Jones

You seem to imply that bookmarks can’t, but I do that all the time. What do you do with Smart Playlists and Tags that you cannot do with Booksmarks and Tags?

A bookmark can filter on tags. A smart playlist can filter on tags, but can also be assigned to a tag. Doing this will dynamically assigns the tag to the tracks or albums that match the filter of the SPL, and removes it when they no longer match the filter. You can then create other smart playlist (or bookmarks) to use these assigned tags in combination with other filters, thereby allowing you to have advanced combinations of focus filters that are not possible in a single bookmark.