sorting podcasts

MP3 players All other MP3 players
1

On my Fuze podcasts tended to sort properly (meaning: oldest-to-newest), if took some basic precautions from within MediaMonkey. On the Fuze+, however, everything’s bolloxed-up: it apparently insists upon sorting individual podcasts within a series BY TITLE! This is completely useless.

(As is displaying an ICON next to each podcast: this would tend to be the SAME icon for each podcast within a series – for those few series for which I HAVE an icon, usually I’m just seeing the colored boxes. This takes valuable room from the episode title display.)

Anyway, there’s a chance I may be able to fix the sorting problem: does anyone have a suggestion? Thanks!

2

As far as I can tell the Fuze+ sorts podcasts in increasing alphabetical order by track title, so I wrote a script in mediamonkey to prepend all titles with a zeropadded track # in order to make the podcasts show up this way.  If necessary, first use the “auto incriment track #s” script already provided by mediamonkey (if you sort by date then the track #s will be in the right order) then use the following script to prepend the track #s to the title.

’ This script prepends the zeropadded track number onto the selected track title.

Sub PrependZeropaddedTrackNoToTitle
  ’ Define variables
  Dim list, itm, i, tmp, paddString

  ’ Get list of selected tracks from MediaMonkey
  Set list = SDB.CurrentSongList
  If list.Count=0 Then
    Exit Sub
  End If

  Set UI = SDB.UI

  ’ Create the window to be shown
  Set Form = UI.NewForm
  Form.Common.SetRect 0, 0, 400, 180
  Form.FormPosition = 4   ’ Screen Center
  Form.BorderStyle = 3    ’ Dialog
  Form.Caption = SDB.Localize(“Prepend Track #s to Title”)

  Set Lbl = UI.NewLabel( Form)
  Lbl.Common.SetRect 10,15,370,40
  Lbl.AutoSize = False
  Lbl.Multiline = True
  Lbl.Caption = SDB.LocalizedFormat( “This will prepend the zeropadded track # onto the title.  Proceed for the %d selected tracks?”, list.Count, 0, 0)     ’ TODO:  Localize

  Set Lbl = UI.NewLabel( Form)
  Lbl.Common.SetRect 10,65,280,20
  Lbl.Caption = SDB.Localize(“Paddlevel:”)

  Set SE = UI.NewSpinEdit( Form)
  SE.Common.SetRect Lbl.Common.Left+Lbl.Common.Width+10, 61, 50, 20
  SE.MinValue = 1
  SE.MaxValue = 5
  SE.Value = 2

  Set Btn = UI.NewButton( Form)
  Btn.Caption = SDB.Localize(“OK”)
  Btn.Common.SetRect 115,100,75,25
  Btn.ModalResult = 1
  Btn.Default = true

  Set Btn = UI.NewButton( Form)
  Btn.Caption = SDB.Localize(“Cancel”)
  Btn.Common.SetRect 220,100,75,25
  Btn.ModalResult = 2
  Btn.Cancel = true

  for i = 0 to SE.value
    paddString = paddString & “0”
  next  

  if Form.ShowModal=1 then
   ’ Process all selected tracks
    For i=0 To list.count-1
      Set itm = list.Item(i)
      ’ Prepend the #
      tmp = itm.Title
      itm.Title = Right(paddString & itm.TrackOrder, SE.value) & " " & tmp
    Next
    list.UpdateAll
  end if
End Sub

3

Thanks! I’ve not tried scripting with MediaMonkey yet, but I’ll give it a go. I’ve a lot of different podcast subscriptions, and would very much want to avoid manual intervention when I can. This adds another step, but I guess it’s what I’ll have to do unless / until this is fixed in firmware.

4

I’ve been porting the podcasts over with Windows Media Player, in MTP mode.  Podcast sort order is maintained from the WiMP sync list.  On the PC, I can drag the order around at will, then simply send it over.

One funky issue is that the podcast files are pulled from the list, but the Fuze+ retains the files on the device.  I have to clean up old files later.

One more interesting thing: the Playlist node allows a separate method of accessing the podcasts as well.  The Fuze (original version) automatically pulled any files with the genre set as Podcast to the Podcast folder.  If you try to find them under the playlist node on the Fuze, it would display <empty>.  I like the hierarchy on the Fuze+ better, it’s more flexible.

Bob  :stuck_out_tongue:

5

I forgot to mention, it seems that as of the 02.36.03 firmware, regular music is bookmarked per track just like stuff found under the podcast section was with the previous fimware, so if you use the previously mentioned Auto-Incriment Track #s script to get track #s put onto the podcast tracks (they usually don’t have them upon download) and just list them in the music section of the device (make sure the genre is not tagged podcast or it will be listed there instead) you can _almost_ listen to podcasts just as before, but they will be in “track order.”  I think the only feature you will potentially miss out on is being able to adjust the play speed if you do this.