Tutorial: How to create a rolodex-style index using Smart playlists in Mezzmo

[JohnM]

I chose to use the Album Artist field to do this. It worked so well that I extended it to identify sets. So all of the batman movies have batman in the field. Then I create a smart playlist named batman that looks for a video with batman in the field.

[smitbret]

I created the "Rolodex-style" index and it worked great. However, the list produced under each index playlist is an unsorted list of songs. Is there any way I can get a list of individual artist names under the index (and further, albums belonging to that artist under that)?

Like so: Artist Index -> P -> Pink Floyd -> Dark Side of the Moon -> <list of songs in album>

Been almost a year and a half since this was requested and more than a year since we had last heard that playlist functionality would be updated. Any progress on these fronts? As it is, using Smart Playlists for my music library is pointless since it won't categorize by artist and/or album.

[Paul]

Hi smitbret,

Once we get Mezzmo v3.0 released (with new subtitling and URL streaming features), then we will certainly be looking into these and other features.

[smitbret]

Hi smitbret,

Once we get Mezzmo v3.0 released (with new subtitling and URL streaming features), then we will certainly be looking into these and other features.

Cool, I will watch for it, then.

[jbinkley60]

Is there a coming feature that would allow us to strip off words at the beginning like "The" and 'A" so that so many movies don't end up under A and T because the titles begin with A or The ? Right now I have 236 videos that end up under T with over 80% because they start with The. I could go through and edit each title to remove The but I'd prefer to see a simpler approach.

[Paul]

Good idea. We'll add that to the list when we implement our 'rolodex' feature.

[JohnM]

I would suggest that you make it a user configurable list. That way it will be able to work with every language.

[Paul]

That makes sense. Thanks, JohnM.

[Paul]

We have just added 'Group By First Letter' into Active playlists for Mezzmo v3.1. This lets you group your files, genres, artists, albums, etc. by their first letter to create easy-to-browse 'Rolodex'-style playlists. This is useful when you have many files, genres, artists, albums, etc.

How to use 'Group By First Letter' in Active Playlists

1. Click Create Playlist -> Active Playlist to display the Active Playlist dialog.
2. You can use the Group By First Letter keyword to create a 'Rolodex'-style playlist where keywords and files are grouped by their first letter. The Group By First Letter can precede any keyword and this tells Mezzmo to group the results for that keyword into A..Z sub playlists for convenient browsing. Adding Group By First Letter at the end of the keyword hierarchy tells Mezzmo to group the list of files by their first letter.

Example 1:

[+] Group By First Letter

Restrict to[*] Video files

This will list all video files grouped by their first letter (A..Z) of the video files' titles.

Example 2:

[+] Group By First Letter

[+] Artist

[+] Album

Restrict to[*] Music files

This will list all music artists grouped by their first letter (A..Z). Under each grouping will be the albums for each artist. Under each album will be the music tracks for each album.

Example 3:

[+] Group By First Letter

[+] Genre

[+] Group By First Letter

[+] Album

[+] Group By First Letter

Restrict to[*] Music files

This will list all music genres grouped by their first letter (A..Z). Under each grouping will be the albums grouped by their first letter (A..Z). Under each album will be tracks grouped by the track's titles (A..Z).