Implement an actual shuffle function

[RoninTheOrigina]

Yes, you read that right.  The "shuffle" function in Spotify is nothing more than a randomizer.  There's a difference?  YES.

RANDOM - Play one song.  The next song can be ANY song in your playlist.  Including the one you just listened to.  Though I've never had this specifically happen, I literally just heard the same song that I heard 2 songs ago.  This is how Spotify's "shuffle" currently functions.

SHUFFLE - Take your entire list, shuffle them (like cards), and play the first song in the shuffle.  Once finished, move that song off the pile.  Once the pile is depleted, shuffle the deck again and start over (maybe pop a message up).

I know enough about programming (not much) to know that shuffling is probably a bit harder than random, but come on.  I may be in the minority, but I don't have a lot of little playlists.  I have one list with nearly a thousand songs in it, because I like all the music, and am rarely not in the mood for one of those songs.  But what I can't stand is hearing the same song over and over again.  I think there may even be songs in my list I haven't heard yet, while I've heard others 4-5 times.

I know it may not matter much, but I would probably lay down the money for at least a year subscription if this feature was implemented.

EDIT: Another user pointed out that I can see what all is queued up in my shuffle by clicking the Play Queue link, and that Spotify supposedly sets up a rolling shuffle of 50 songs.  It would be nice if this range could be expanded to say 50-100% of your playlist.

EDIT 4/6/12: I just dealt with the same song 16 tracks later.  The song played the first time yesterday afternoon.  I went home, listened for a bit on my home PC (just a few songs), then started listening again this morning.  If the list recycles itself after a day, or if you log in from another computer, I see that as an area for improvement.

[user-removed]

I will. You can throttle your web server connections down so you don't overload your resources.

[Tobraham]

Unfortunately I don't own the server so I
don't have any control over it.

Thanks for testing my app. It's at www.riograndemud.com/shufflefly

It should be pretty self explanatory but hit me up if you have any questions, comments, suggestions at ts@riograndemud.com

[user-removed]

Ok it worked for me. You may want to remind the user that they need to avoid using the shuffle button to play the list etc. This is a decent solution to the problem. Choosing the length of the playlist is handy. I would also like the option to take all songs of an existing playlist to shuffle the whole thing.

[Tobraham]

Good ideas. I could essentially make a last option after the 8-hour option to just shuffle the whole darn list. That would be super easy to do. I'll make those changes!

[user-removed]

Cool. Spotify should show you some love because you're helping them retain their customers...

[freakymrq]

@Tobraham

Not too shabby:

https://play.spotify.com/user/freakymrq/playlist/70tfLPKwNCT5dqn95COl5i

That's from a 600 song EDM playlist

[Tobraham]

Awesome! Nice list as well.

[KieranHawker]

I have quite a few large playlists (over 2000 songs) that I leave playing for long periods of time.

Lately the shuffle function seems to have become a bit useless, it only shuffles within artists of the same starting letter (for example, any artist that starts with the letter A). This can be really annoying as I have to come back to it just to change to a different letter when it starts repeating.

Leading on to another point in which out of a playlist of 2000 songs, I wouldn't expect there to be much repetition within one day which is not the case. I can have the same song come up two or three times in an hour, something that happens even on smaller playlists.

[RockieRat]

Shuffle was working 'okay' after I cleared off a bunch on songs and added some new stuff. But yesterday, there seemed to be a fluke: songs on shuffle started to repeat exactly after six-hours. Same songs, same order. 

[agl89xs20]

@Tobraham, Shufflefly looks good, I like to have playlists more than 8 hours though. The one in particular that I would like to randomize has 362 songs in it currently, and is likely to expand over time - but I dont want to lose any tracks from this list. 

Based on an average of 3 minutes per song, this would calculate it at 18-19 hours of music.

Is this something that is possible? If so then I'd be a massive advocate of your system!

Thanks