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Shuffle a playlist?

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Shuffle a playlist?

Hey, I can't seem to find any button on Spotify saying SHUFFLE - how do you random play your tracks / playlists?

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If you just hilight all the songs then drag and drop them into starred tracks you can star them all at once.


@jdevries3133 wrote:

If you just hilight all the songs then drag and drop them into starred tracks you can star them all at once.


Hey there.

 

Thanks for this. It's a valuable content.

I have a slightly more techncal question under the same general topic.

 

I am using the spotify developer "play button" in multiple tracks mode to genrate a spotify playlist within an iframe on my site.

 

https://developer.spotify.com/technologies/widgets/spotify-play-button/

 

This technique allows me to assemble playsists on my own site using only front end code to query the spotify search api for track ids and then simpy pass the track ids in through the iframe url like so:  

 

iframe src="embed[dot]spotify[dot]com/?uri=spotify:trackset:PREFEREDTITLE:5Z7ygHQo02SUrFmcgpwsKW,1x6ACsKV4UdWS2FMuPFUiT,4bi73jCM02fMpkI11Lqmfe" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true"

 

This allows my users to quickly generate a playlist on my site and listen to it (or at least sample it) without having to have the spotify client necessarily installed. For users who DO have the spotify desktop client installed, the playlist will appear in thier desktop client. My collegues and I have noticed that the shuffle button in hte spotify client is ALWAYS disabled for any playlists built using this "play button multiple tracks" technique, HOWEVER the "repeat" button and menu item is enabled. Im very curious if this is some kind of intentional limitation imposed by technical or design restraints, or if there is any simple way to "enable shuffle" on one of these semi-dynamically-genreated playlists. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Note: 

I  have searched the entire API / SDK docs and realize there are ways with libspotify to generate a "playlist" object on behalf of a user, add tracks to it, etc. I kind of understand that a list of songs in a play button is not necessarily a "playlist" object and I understand if things look very similar but funtion differently. I will eventually get to a more robust implementation of the API's, oauth etc, on my backend to be able to fully manipulate real "playlsit" objects, what I am after right now is an answer regarding the "Multiple track play button". Why limit users from being able to shuffle these? Is it simply a matter of maintaining sync between the iframe and the desktop client in terms of track order, etc?

 

My best solution to this problem has been to provide my own "shuffle" button that simply destroys the iframe, shuffles the local array of tracks and then re-implodes them into the query string and instantiates a new iframe. For RDIO I am at least able to tell the player what track it should progress to next. I am trying to make the spotify experience as good as the rdio experiece for my users and I just hate telling users and stakeholders "oh, well spotify only allows you to shuffle playlists that have a certain kind of origin but that differentiation is more technical than visual so it's hard to really tell, but if you can't shuffle it you probably better copy and paste all the tracks from the fake playlist into a real one". Nobody likes that response. 

Much appreciated, please let me know if I should be starting a new thread or using a different forum, etc. 

Jose,

Developer at a small music discovery startup.

@jozecuervo - I think the issue you are experiencing is related to how Spotify deals with those links, since it doesn't appear to be a playlist in the client, you can't shuffle it. Trackset's have a preset order controlled by the creator. 

 

If you want to suggest it as a change, best place to suggest it is over on the Ideas Exchange:

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/idb-p/ideaexchange

 

As a work around, creating a playlist will allow the user to decide.

Peter
Spotify Community Mentor and Troubleshooter

Spotify Last.FM Twitter LinkedIn Meet Peter Rock Star Jam 2014


If this post was helpful, please add kudos below!

Brilliant thanks. I would never have spotted that. Problem solved. Thanks 😊

Hello i dont know if anyone has realised this yet but on the desktop webplayer the shuffle button is shown when you put the cursor over the album cover on the top right corner of the screen. Shows both repeat and shuffle button. 

 

Hope this helps. 

Thank you! It used to be visible and close to the play button, which makes sense.

 

I must say, quite an odd new placement for those functions.

It is something that has been passed over to the web guys, the volume bar is a personal annoyance of mine on the web player too!

Peter
Spotify Community Mentor and Troubleshooter

Spotify Last.FM Twitter LinkedIn Meet Peter Rock Star Jam 2014


If this post was helpful, please add kudos below!

Just FYI,

 

My account or computer or OS or whatever, hides the Repeat/Shuffle bar at the top of the playlist window (upper right hand screen).  It took me forever to figure this out!

Hi. Does anyone know how to highlight all tracks so you can star them all in one go on the iPad Air? Hope you can help. Thanks

From a playlist or from an album/artist page?

Peter
Spotify Community Mentor and Troubleshooter

Spotify Last.FM Twitter LinkedIn Meet Peter Rock Star Jam 2014


If this post was helpful, please add kudos below!

Hi peter. From an album or artist page. I did it somehow today but don't know how I did it. What I would really like to do is download the whole album or playlist in one go instead of adding tracks individually to my playlist. Hope you can help

Hi peter. From an album or artist page. I did it somehow today but don't know how I did it. What I would really like to do is download the whole album or playlist in one go instead of adding tracks individually to my playlist. Hope you can help

I got an email saying you have replied but I can't find it lol

Sorry ignore last message. The message was not from you. I have not been on forums before and having a bit of trouble cos I don't really know what I am doing arrrrgh!! Lol
Marked as solution

@kjm322 - Sounds like the web player, you are right it is pretty tricky to find. That feedback has been passed over to the web guys. 😉 

 

@Caz59 - You can star an entire album on iPad by pressing the "+" icon at the top of the album page. There is no easy way to star an entire playlist or artist page I'm afraid. 

Peter
Spotify Community Mentor and Troubleshooter

Spotify Last.FM Twitter LinkedIn Meet Peter Rock Star Jam 2014


If this post was helpful, please add kudos below!

Brilliant peter thanks for your reply. Much appreciated!!

You are very welcome!! 🙂

Enjoy your music!

Peter
Spotify Community Mentor and Troubleshooter

Spotify Last.FM Twitter LinkedIn Meet Peter Rock Star Jam 2014


If this post was helpful, please add kudos below!

Not sure if it will shuffle a playlist or not, but on the web player (haven't tried this on the desktop player yet), when you are playing a track, hover over the album art work on the top right of the screen and you should see two buttons appear. One button says "Repeat" and the other one says "Shuffle". Hopefully this helps!

If you don't like the randomization of Spotify maybe this is a solution for you:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Desktop-Linux-Mac-and/Shuffle-repeats-songs-too-often/m-p/2741...

 

It randomizes all or part of a playlist of choice.

 

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