With the newly released 3.7.1 version of Plexamp, I noticed the shuffle button will be completely disabled (grayed out) when playing an album depending on how it’s started.
For example, it will be disabled if you start it by pressing the big ‘play’ button on top:
But it will be correctly enabled if the album is started using the play button from this menu on one of the songs:
Why was this changed? Is this new behavior intended?
Oh, OK. Thanks for the response. I guess it’s possible I didn’t notice this behavior until today.
So if I understand correctly, shuffle is disabled on an explicit queue, is this correct? And pressing the big ‘play’ button at the top for an album creates an explicit queue. Why does the shuffle functionality have to be disabled in this case?
I also noticed the shuffle functionality isn’t disabled if I press that big ‘play’ button at the top anywhere else in the app, like when in a playlist or on the main page of an artist, for example. What is the difference in these cases?
I am also having a hard time understanding how and why the shuffle is being used here.
In my case I am trying to listen to two albums, with the songs shuffled together. No matter what reasonable action I’ve tried, there is no way to shuffle their songs without building a playlist every time.
I can add the first album by clicking on the first song or the play button, which allows the shuffle button, but when I add even one song from another album, the shuffle button is grayed out. Selecting a song individually, “play next”, “add to queue”, they all immediately disable the shuffle button. If I choose the play button it clears the first album. None of these are good. I can add both albums to a playlist and then shuffle THAT, but that doesn’t make intuitive sense and it’s a bunch of unnecessary steps.
To be honest, I don’t see why the shuffle option should be disabled at all. What purpose does disabling it serve? Anyone that wants to listen to an album in track order simply won’t engage the shuffle button. Plex displays warning when an action will clear the current queue, why doesn’t it just do that here instead of hampering the users ability to listen how they want?
I’ve also asked for an option to provide a “Mix Builder” of some type to shuffle a handful of disparate albums. Equivalent to loading up an old time 5-disc CD player and selecting the shuffle function. Elan has indicated this function might be added in a future release. At least it’s on their list of possible enhancements (hopefully near the top
