Feature parity with Apple Music Smart Playlists

[joshqou]

Hi. I'm a very heavy user of smart playlists in iTunes (now Music), which is why I've stuck with it despite all of the silly changes Apple has made over the years.

While OwnTone has a 'basic' implementation of smart playlists, similar in functionality to Rhythmbox, it's missing quite a few rules.

Supported rules in Apple Music 1.5.6.11

iTunes Rule	Source	Is Useful	OwnTone Equivalent
Album	file	✔	album
All	n/a	✔	a and b and c and d
Album Artist	file	✔	album_artist
Album Artwork	file	✔
Album Favourite / Suggest Less	player	✔
Album Rating	player	✔
Any	n/a	✔	a or b or c or d
Artist	file	✔	artist
Bit Rate	file	✔
BPM	file	✔
Category	file
Cloud Status	file	✔	data_kind is file
Comments	file		comment
Compilation	file	✔	compilation
Composer	file		composer
Date Added	file	✔	time_added
Date Modified	file		time_modified
Description	file		description
Disc Number	file	✔	disc
Favourite / Suggest Less	player	✔
Genre	file	✔	genre
Grouping	file	✔	grouping
Kind	file	✔	data_kind
Last Played	file		time_played
Last Skipped	file		time_skipped
Location	file		path
Media Kind	file		media_kind
Movement Name	file
Movement Number	file
Playlist	player	✔
Plays	player	✔	play_count
Purchased	file
Rating	player	✔	rating
Sample Rate	file
Size	file	✔	file_size
Skips	player	✔	skip_count
Sort Album	file
Sort Album Artist	file
Sort Artist	file
Sort Composer	file
Sort Show	file
Sort Title	file
Ticked	player
Time	file	✔
Title	file	✔	title
Track Number	file	✔
Video Rating	file
Work	file
Year	file	✔	year

The primary omission, at least for my uses, is Playlist, which allows smart playlists to pull data from regular playlists or other smart playlists. This lets you create very complex and reusable filter chains with fairly simple rules. i.e:

# In iTunes, `Playlist` is an `is/is not` rule, however it is
# evaluated more like a `contains` `does not contain` rule.

"Good Songs" {
  rating is >= 2
}

"Excluded Songs" {
  genre is "Heavy Metal"
  or playlists includes "Manual Exclusions"
}

"Shuffle Playlist" {
  playlists includes "Good Songs"
  and not playlists includes "Excluded Songs"
}

Apple's support doc for smart playlists can be found here

From what I can see looking at sql_from_ast, supporting playlist includes may require reworking how smart playlists currently work.

Apple Music also stores some song-specific data in it's database, namely songs that are hearted/favourited and unhearted/"suggest less"ed. I believe Album Rating is also stored in the database as well.

I've found a use for the hearts system outside of it's intended use in the Apple Music streaming service and would prefer to keep it or have something similar to it, even if it can only be shown in the web ui. Perhaps playlists could have a little icon that appears for all songs in them?

[ejurgensen]

Yes that would make sense to support, but as you mention, it might not be trivial. I guess that needs a closer look.

What is the difference between "playlists contains" and "playlists includes"? That isn't clear to me.

Apple Music also stores some song-specific data in it's database, namely songs that are hearted/favourited and unhearted/"suggest less"ed.

Do you know how it is stored? Which file and format?

Perhaps playlists could have a little icon that appears for all songs in them?

I don't understand what you mean - an icon that appears for all songs in them?

[joshqou]

What is the difference between "playlists contains" and "playlists includes"? That isn't clear to me.

contains/does not contain is the terminology used by iTunes, whereas includes/not includes is the terminology currently used by OwnTone. I just used contains by accident when writing my example.

Do you know how it is stored? Which file and format?

• Application.musicdb and Library.musicdb both begin with the ASCII sequence hfma, which is some kind of non-standard database format used by iTunes (now Apple Music). There doesn't seem to be a property for hearted/unhearted in ITLibMediaItem so either Apple forgot to document it or Apple Music is storing it somewhere else.
• Extras.itdb is a regular SQLite database however is empty for my library.

Hearted/Favourited info is definitely stored in the library somehow as changing libraries will add/remove your hearted/favourited songs. I'd presume it's in Library.musicdb alongside the song rating as that too is stored in the library rather than the file.

I don't understand what you mean - an icon that appears for all songs in them?

A heart/favourite system makes sense for Apple Music (the music player) since it integrates with Apple Music (the service), but it wouldn't make much sense for a local media player. I personally use to denote exceptional or dissapointing songs within their given star rating.

In previous versions of Apple Music, the heart/favourite star used to be shown along site the traditional stars rating, however the latest version of Apple Music only shows the favourite star beside songs.

Instead of implementing the hearts/favourite system as it is in Apple Music, I think it would be better to tie it into the existing playlists system. That way, it's more adaptable to being used however the user wishes.

A streamer could have a playlist of copyright free music, and have every song in that playlist have a small custom icon that appear next to the song throughout OwnTone's UI, similar to how the Explicit/Clean icon works.

It should be fairly simple to implement on the frontend, but such information wouldn't be retrievable by mpd clients unless it's protocol was extended. would depend on client support to display for mpd users.

---

Some more info on Playlist:

Apple Music handles the playlist rule by checking if the supplied argument contains the song being checked. The argument can be a normal playlist, smart playlist, or even a folder of normal playlists and smart playlists.

The wording used by iTunes/Apple Music doesn't really make sense as the argument would contain the song being checked, not that the song's 'playlist' would be the argument.