I prefer to rate my music collection on a 5-star scale. However, the best time for me to actually sit down and rate music is while driving using CarPlay. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s even possible to implement a 5-star rating system on CarPlay due to Apple’s constraints. As a result, it always defaults to the One-Star Method, which essentially functions as a Like/Dislike system.
I think I’ve figured out a way to use both the Like/Dislike system and the 5-star scale simultaneously. Currently, when I “Like” a track, it’s rated as 5 stars; when I “Dislike” it, it’s rated as 1 star. I “Like” a song if I want to keep it in my library and “Dislike” it if I don’t. (That said, I don’t actually delete my disliked songs because I tend to forget and end up re-adding them later.)
I’ve considered using 2-, 3-, and 4-star ratings (or even half-stars) for more nuanced ratings. The issue is that Plex uses these ratings to determine playback preferences. In this case, a 4-star rating would indicate a song I love, while 5 stars would simply mean a song I want to keep in my library. This creates a mismatch in how I’d like to use the system.
The solution is to create a custom setting that maps Likes/Dislikes to the 5-star scale. For example, I’d set all disliked songs to a half-star rating in Plex and all liked songs to 3.5 stars. This approach would allow me to listen to all unrated songs and first decide whether I want to keep them in my library. Later, when I’m not driving and after I’ve listened to the song multiple times, I could assign it a more specific 1-5 star rating.
Using 3.5 stars for songs I just want in my library works well because, when Plex determines what to play, it would still prioritize the 4- and 5-star songs that I’ve explicitly marked as favorites.
Have you considered an alternative approach that doesn’t depend on twisting the core functionality of Plexamp? If you need that kind of distinction, why not use the add-to feature to reflect the keep/don‘t keep model of yours using a set of track collections?
You could even create a smart collection of tracks that you categorized differently at different times (advanced filter for tracks in both collections).
Thank you for the suggestion, but I don’t think collections address the specific challenge I’m describing. The issue lies in how the Like/Dislike system operates in CarPlay, which is inherently tied to the 1-star method. CarPlay doesn’t allow for nuanced ratings, so I have to work within its limitations while still aiming to maintain a 5-star rating system in Plexamp.
The goal of my feature request is to provide a way to map Likes and Dislikes to customizable star ratings, allowing users to better align their use of CarPlay’s binary system with a more detailed rating scale.
For example, if I could map “Like” to 3 stars (instead of 5 stars) and “Dislike” to 1 star (or even a half-star), it would allow me to use the Like/Dislike system in CarPlay as a temporary, broad sorting mechanism while driving. This way, I can quickly indicate whether a song is worth keeping in my library without overcommitting to a 5-star rating. Later, when I have more time, I could refine these ratings further to reflect how much I actually enjoy the track.
Collections don’t solve this problem because they’re not tied to the CarPlay interface, nor do they integrate with Plexamp’s playback preferences, which rely heavily on star ratings. By enabling this mapping feature, I could make the most of CarPlay’s simple interface without losing the granularity of a 5-star system for playback prioritization and library organization.
