Manage your Playlists

Introduction

The Playlist Browser is a view in Helium Music Manager which allows you to manage your Smart Playlists, Playlists and Webradio Channels.

The view contains three root nodes:

• My Smart Playlists
  Expanding this root will show all your Smart Playlists.

• My Playlists
  Expanding this root will show all your Playlists.

• My Radio Channels
  Expanding this root will show all your Webradio Channels.

The image to the right shows what the Playlist Browser looks like.

Tasks

• Creating new Smart Playlists
• Creating Playlists and adding songs to a Playlist
• Playing a Smart Playlist or a Playlist
• Organizing your Smart Playlists and Playlists in folders

Creating new Smart Playlists

Smart playlists are a more dynamic type of playlist. A smart playlist is based on one or more expressions that need to be fulfilled instead of a static list of items. To create a new smart playlist you define these expressions using the Smart Playlist editor in Helium Music Manager.

Select the My Smart Playlists root, rightclick and select New Smart Playlist... from the context menu to create a new Smart Playlist.

The Smart Playlist editor allows you to control the expressions that need to be fulfilled for the Smart Playlist. You can use as many expressions as you like, but generally you will not need more than three or four.

For each Smart Playlist you have the possibility to use something called a Limiter.
A limiter enables you to limit the results for a specific expression. Examples of limiters are:

• Limit to 25 songs
• Limit to 40 minutes
• Limit to 70 Megabytes

Each limiter allows you to control how the results should be selected. Examples of a controlled selection are:

• By highest rating
• By least recently played
• By most played
• Random

Creating Playlists and adding songs to a Playlist

In short, playlists are static lists of songs, available in your database. If you are aware of the term M3U/PLS playlists, we can say that Playlists in Helium Music Manager are almost the same as these. There are no limitations to how many Playlists you have in your database, although you cannot store lists with duplicate names.

Select the My Playlists root, rightclick and select New Playlist... from the context menu to create a new Playlist.

Give your Playlist a name and optionally a comment. As mentioned above, you cannot have Playlists with duplicate names. If you are giving your new Playlist a name that already exists, the New Playlist dialog will indicate this to you.

Click OK to save your Playlist.

Adding songs to a Playlist

There are several methods available to add songs to a Playlist. The most common are listed below:

• Right click the Playlist you would like to add files to and select Add Files... or Add Directories from the context menu. Select the files/directories that you would like to add to the Playlist.
• Select the files you would like to add to a Playlist in the Track List. Click Playlists | Add To Playlist in the main menu and select the Playlist that the files should be added to.
• Select the files you would like to add to a Playlist in the Track List. Right click in the Track List and click Playlists | Add to Playlist and then select the Playlist the files should be added to from the context menu.

Playing a Smart Playlist or a Playlist

Playing a Smart Playlist or a Playlist is very simple. The most common methods are described below:

• Select the Smart Playlist/Playlist you would like to replay in the Left Sidebar. Either right click and click Play from the context menu or click the Play button from the bottom toolbar
• Double click the Smart Playlist/Playlist you would like to play
• Use drag and drop to drag a playlist or a smart playlist to the Active Playlist. This is a quick way to enqueue the playlists contents.

Organizing your Smart Playlists and Playlists in folders

Helium Music Manager allows you to organize both Smart Playlists and Playlists in folders. The functionality is the same for both playlist types with the main difference being that Smart Playlists are arranged in folders on your disc (Smart Playlists are stored as files on your disc) and playlists are stored in database folders.

More information about organizing your Smart Playlists/Playlists in folders can be found in Helium Music Managers help file.