Is there a plugin for VLC that makes playlist management not suck?

[eishiya@mastodon.art]

Is there a plugin for VLC that makes playlist management not suck?

I find myself doing most of my music-listening in iTunes of all things just because it lets me easily browse/search my entire collection and add things to any of my several playlists as I listen, and quickly switch between playlists when I want to. Vanilla VLC basically only knows about one playlist at a time (technically 2 - your "Media Library" is another playlist).

[xenophora@mastodon.art]

@eishiya The most recent iteration of iTunes I could get leaves a lot to be desired. Yet I still stand by my man like Tammy Wynette because... yeah. Just look outside at what else there is to choose from. :/

[ralfmaximus@mastodon.social]

@eishiya

Might I suggest Aimp? It's a free music-only player that supports playlists. It's been my go-to mp3 player for years.
https://aimp.ru/

[eishiya@mastodon.art]

@xenophora I don't bother updating mine. I'd be using an even older version if I could!

I'd really prefer to move everything into one player though. VLC is good for all my needs, *except* (multiple) playlists ;o;

[xenophora@mastodon.art]

@eishiya

When I still wrote fanfic, I had a playlist for each one, completed or WIP. I haven't redone them because I don't need to be dragged back into writing fanfic again. :D But JFC, I'm pretty sure there was a point in the Oughts where nothing else was gonna' save my miserable life. :D

[eishiya@mastodon.art]

@ralfmaximus I specifically asked for a VLC plugin xP I'm looking to consolidate into fewer players.

I may be temped though - I couldn't find any screenshots of how Aimp handles playlists. Lots of players (including VLC) have "playlist support", the question is whether it suits my needs xP

[eishiya@mastodon.art]

@xenophora That's basically what my playlists are like, except instead of fanfic it's my comic/game projects.

WinAmp, VLC, etc were/are all are *workable* in that they could be used to manage playlists, and they can save their one current playlist to a file to load as needed, but iTunes removes a lot of the friction by letting you keep multiple playlists loaded at once.
For a while I also used its dynamic/rule-based playlist feature, but nowadays I'm back to static playlists.

[dona@mastodon.art]

@eishiya tbh I'd switch to foobar2000 at this point. It keeps your lists in the sidebar just like iTunes does, and you can browse by folder too if needed. I don't think there's anything as robust for VLC.

[ralfmaximus@mastodon.social]

@eishiya

As far as the UI: I screenshotted it for ya, using my own Aimp install.

Basically, from the main player you click the + symbol on the right, it asks for the name for your new playlist, then creates a new session-window where you can add tracks manually. Either by right-clicking for options, or dragging the files into the list.

There's also a Music Library module I don't use, which also hooks into the playlist mechanic.

[eishiya@mastodon.art]

@dona Foobar2000 is Windows-only. (Edit: Not quite; see replies.)

I'm also hoping to consolidate into fewer players, as well - would rather not have a whole separate player for music like I do now. Seems that might not be an option ;o;

[dona@mastodon.art]

@eishiya Oh nooo, I was so sure they supported like... all of the platforms. :( I'm sorry.

I feel ya on that, it's annoying to have so many separate programs for everything.

[eishiya@mastodon.art]

@dona I'm generally in favour of having a bunch of different programs that each do one or a few tasks very well, but this is one of my few exceptions - I want to do all my media stuff in one place because it's fundamentally similar and mutually exclusive (I'm not going to watch a movie and listen to music at the same time).

The other big exception is I want to be able to do all the work on my comic pages, including lettering, in one program, because switching software kills the flow.

[only_ohm@mas.to]

@eishiya

I think what I'd do is manage the playlists outside of VLC, by creating a directory for each playlist, in the underlying OS's filesystem, containing symlinks (Linux)/shortcuts (Windows) to the tracks I want in the playlist, and then use the "Open directory" option from VLC's "Media" menu to play the playlist. That may or may not be suitable for your needs.

[eishiya@mastodon.art]

@only_ohm That doesn't really make things easier, alas. Since it still requires another program (a file manager in this case), I might as well use another player that provides better context menus for these tasks xP

[eishiya@mastodon.art]

@only_ohm Maybe I could look into adding context menus to all music files that pull a subdirectory list from a playlist directory and add options to create shortcuts in those subdirectories. But at that point I might as well write this apparently-missing playlist plugin and have a better UI.

[eishiya@mastodon.art]

@dona Seems I was mistaken about it being Windows-only - I clicked a download link and it took me to the Windows page, I didn't notice that others were available in the side menu. No Linux version, in any case.

[dona@mastodon.art]

@eishiya Booooo :(