Seeing some strange behavior in using the “Add to Queue” features, on both Windows (3.4.7) and iOS (3.4.7).
Steps to reproduce:
Open Plexamp, select an album or playlist (both display this issue)
Play the selected item
Observe the queue
Navigate to something else - the key is to select a single track
Add the item to the queue
Expected outcome:
Album is playing in order (1-2-3-4-5-etc.)
Track is expected to be added to the queue, at the end (1-2-3-4-5-etc-A)
Track is instead inserted next (1-A-2-3-4-5-etc.)
Is my understanding of “queue” incorrect here? When selecting an album or playlist, I believe this should populate the queue with the items from said album/playlist. Therefore, adding an item to the queue should put it at the end.
Perhaps related is that the queue behavior itself is quite strange and may be a separate report: selecting an album or playlist seems to be very different than selecting the first track of the album or playlist.
I am happy to provide additional feedback or testing.
Thanks for the link- really appreciate it, and I didn’t think to look in the support documentation first.
That said… while I get it, the more I think about it, the more confusing it gets, especially for music (and, Plexamp, I’ll get to that later). The behavior of implicit/explicit queues begins to muddy up the expectations of “add to queue” because it’s not “add to explicit queue.” It’s not made clear in any player’s UI if the queue is implicit or explicit, so while yes- a click on track 1 may fill up the queue with the rest of the album, maybe that isn’t the desired behavior- there seems to be no way to specify “just play one track.”
And after a queue is filled up implicitly, there is no way to easily change it. In the Plex web UI you can manually delete the items that have filled up the queue, but in Plexamp there are no such controls. While I understand that the UI of Plexamp is streamlined, this lack of control creates a bit of frustration when you forget if the queue is implicit or explicit.
While now fully knowing implicit/explicit queuing does help explain what I should expect, I’m still left not sure how to feel about it.
Maybe there should be a way to control implicit/explicit queuing (as a setting per Library?)
Maybe there should be a way to give feedback to the user that the queue is filled with implicit/explicit items (an icon or other identifier)
Plexamp’s UI could use a way to edit the queue like Plex Web (hamburger icon for rearrange and “x” for delete?)
For items, maybe there should be separate Add to Queue vs Add to Implicit Queue vs Add to Explicit Queue choices
For items, maybe there should be a Play vs Play Only - which would not fill the implicit queue
Forgive me if these have been discussed previously, but they are just what has come to mind. If there is a way to submit feature requests (either as a post in a different area of the forums, or an altogether alternate method) I’d be more than happy to do so.
I can’t speak for design decisions regarding separate actions for implicit/explicit queue behaviour, aside from saying that I think the added complexity of that doesn’t really align with Plexamp’s goal of being simple and somewhat opinionated. That’s probably more of a conversation to have with the devs though.
On the other hand, I thought I’d just chime in and try to answer a couple of your points:
Plexamp’s UI could use a way to edit the queue
This actually exists already you can swipe sideways (right to left) on items in the queue to remove them, and you can long-press on items, followed by drag and drop to reorder them.
For items, maybe there should be a Play vs Play Only
If there’s nothing playing or in the queue (e.g. playback is stopped), you can use the context menu on any track and select “play next” to play that one track without queuing anything else.
Hopefully with those two points above, you’ve at least got some of what you’re after!
Thanks for the tip, this doesn’t work in Plexamp on non-touch devices like Windows, however. It is neat it works in touch devices, but there’s no feedback that it should be an option!
This is handy but also a weird workaround. It again involves knowing the precise state of the play queue, and it still does not help when trying to select a single track. An example:
Exit Plexamp if it is running (i.e. “clear queue”)
Try to select a single track (i.e. track 2 of any album with 3 or more tracks)
Here, there is no way to prevent the implicit queue from being created. Instead, you can do something like this:
Exit Plexamp if it is running (i.e. “clear queue”)
Select the last track of any album
There is no implicit queue created (although this is not true- it’s there if you look at “Back To”… it’s just that you are at the “end” of an implicit queue)
Select any single track and use “Play Next” to select this track (and only this track!)
“Add to Queue” now behaves as expected (again since the implicit queue is basically empty)
Skip to the track you just added- there is no implicit queue behavior
This workaround then creates no implicit queue. I see no easy way to do this otherwise!
The more I think about it, the more I really want a way to control the queue behavior- either disable implicit queuing, or let me edit/clear the implicit queue so there is no confusion to where “add to queue” will place the track.
doesn’t work in Plexamp on non-touch devices like Windows
If you’re on a laptop with a touchpad, it works well with that, as well as touchscreen laptop/tablet-like devices, though I agree it’s still clunky and unexpected on non-mobile platforms.
Exit Plexamp if it is running
Exiting Plexamp doesn’t actually clear the queue, so what you’re describing is expected, as Plexamp keeps the queue around when you reopen the app. To clear the queue, long press the play/pause button (in the main player, or the mini player).
The long-presses are a neat implementation but I find it’s like the “swipe” a bit weird and unexpected! You are right about the queue persisting through exiting the application (which I expect on mobile but didn’t expect on desktop, this is becoming a trend).
You guys have been helpful thank you and if it’s all documented somewhere I apologize- it’s just counterintuitive in most instances, which is I think a little unfortunate. I think I’m going to select someone’s reply for the “solution” just to close this out I think. Really appreciate all the help.
you can swipe sideways (right to left) on items in the queue to remove them, and you can long-press on items, followed by drag and drop to reorder them.