Setting to Define Where Favorited Media Goes (Playlist)

Feature requests
1

Feature description:

Favorites Location Settings.

This feature would allow the user to select a Playlist (or multiple idk) in which Favorited media gets assigned to once it has been Favorited by the user.

I see this feature working by default, as Favorites does currently, then, if the user accesses the settings panel to associate Favorited Media with a Playlist(s), is when it kicks into action.

When a user Favorites a media, it gets a “Favorite” flag, and is automatically added to the selected Playlist(s).

IF the user unfavorites media AND the Playlist matches what’s currently assigned in the Settings, it’s Favorited flag is FALSE and it’s removed from that Playlist (this choice could be further boiled to more settings like "Should media be removed, etc, but for the purpose of the initial feature I think simple Playlist select(s) suffices).

IF the user unfavorites media AND the Playlist does not match what’s currently assigned in the settings, its Favorited flag is FALSE and the media is not removed from the Playlist.

IF the user changes the Favorites Playlist setting, this does not affect any media, it simply changes the assign/unassign location of Favorited media for future actions.

Adding to a “Favorited” Playlist, 2 things must be true: Media is favored (via icon click) and Playlist is set in the settings.

Removing from a “Favorited” Playlist 2 things must be true: Media was previously favored (via icon click) and Playlist is set in settings.

Anything outside these bounds ends in default Favored Media functionality as defined by Symfonium, which seems to be flags and Smart Playlists.

Problem solved:

I do not like how Jellyfin handles Favorites when it comes to Music, so I’ve opted to create a Favorites Playlist instead. Having Favorites as a Playlist (instead of whatever Jellyfin defines it as) allows me to share it among users within my system. Jellyfins Favorites is per user, private.

Additionally, Symfonium Favorites only become available (as far as I know) when creating a Smart Playlist filtering favorite media. There’s no easy way to sync this playlist back up to Jellyfin or merge this playlist with another.

Brought benefits:

This will allow users to define where their favorited media goes. I think by default, the Smart Playlist is perfectly fine, this in turn just gives the end user more control on how favorited media is handled.

Other application solutions:

 
To my knowledge, I don’t know any other application that does this.
 

Additional description and context:

 
I think that the conditional check against currently set “Favorited Playlist(s)” (or something to that effect) makes it flexible enough that a user could switch this around as needed without much trouble or confusion.
 

Screenshots / Mockup:

    

2

I’m sorry but this is ultra specific and complex, just 3 dots add to playlist to add things to a playlist.

3

Hopefully, this doesn’t come off as argumentative. I’m just trying to relay the possible usefulness to support the proposed feature.

Adding to Playlist is a multi-step process that cannot be done from a device lock screen.

Adding to Favorites is a quick, one-step button click that can be done from the lock screen.

Allowing the user to define where Favorites get allocated seems like a customization that aligns with the apps overall goal (high user customization).

It’s difficult to write about the complexity without seeing the code, but on paper it sounds like 1 additional check and a feature trigger. If the settings field is set to a known playlist, the app checks if the playlist still exists and triggers the add/remove to playlist functionality for the given track whenever the favorite button is clicked. The default Favorite functionality/flag doesn’t get changed, but the functionality gets conditionally expanded. The Smart Playlist Filters seems to have functionality to query known playlists already.

As an alternative, allowing Smart Filter to be run on an existing playlist would also work. This would allow the user to filter in favorites to known playlists.

Currently, I cannot sync a Smart Playlist back to my NAS, I can only sync known playlists. This means there’s no way to get my Symfonium Favorites in sync with my NAS in any way. This is similar to how Jellyfin handles Favorites where it’s exclusive to the app and not accessible outside the app.

4

Use a provider that support Favorite sync directly like GitHub - epoupon/lms: Lightweight Music Server. Access your self-hosted music using a web interface. ?

5

Thank you, that’s an alternative to the proposed feature. I’d counter though that Jellyfin is almost certainly the more popular provider out of these 2, even if Jellyfin is a bit archaic. If you retain provider usage statistics, that could also bear weight.

6

Popular != Good or Best :wink: By far.

Your need is ultra specific even if you won’t acknowledge that :wink:

The smart playlist to playlist is actually something that I envisaged at some point for those kind of syncs, but since they are not tied to providers it’s not really UX friendly.

With that said you can open another feature request around that part (smart playlist → playlist) when I have time I’ll do another pass at if it’s possible to do something that works for most use case without being too complicated for users.