New Feature: Custom Singer Playlists

[Sedge]

As I outlined in a separate post, I would like to be able to use an additional playlist for each singer (in addition to Tonight, Favorites, and History) for storing my singers' selections for our weekly contest. For it to be most effective, I would also need the Rotation to switch from using the "Tonight" lists to the new Contest lists on the fly. Below is my original outline for this feature.

I.
Is there a way that we can opt to have another playlist under each singer (named "Contest" or "Special" or something) that I could add their contest song to? I'm sure I can add the requisite xml files into each singer's kJams Library/Venues/[Venue]/Singers/[Singer] folder manually, but it would be nice to have at least new singers automagically have this list added.

II.
I would then want to be able to switch from the "Tonight" lists to the "Contest" lists, preferably from a top menu option, and have the Rotation screens change appropriately. We can perhaps test this with just having a secret pref that changes what kJams looks for as a Tonight list, but when changing a secret pref, I would probably need to restart kJams for it to register the change, and this wouldn't be ultimately desirable.

III.
This part can wait for a while, but if we could build the ability to select a Contest song into the web/iJams platform, so that singers can select their own contest song, this would be nice eventually. I only have a small handful of singers that manage their own lists, so it's not really necessary for now

There it is, officially proposed. In addition to contests that necessitate re-jiggering the rotation and song lists, I can also see this being useful for parties where a certain group wants to commandeer the karaoke for several songs, like the birthday girl and her parents, or the wedding party that needs to hop in a limo and won't be waiting like the rest of the reception.

For those of us that use this for live events, I see this being very useful, so please join me in persuading Dave to implement this feature (which he apparently has already developed the underpinnings for).

>>Sedge

[dave]

c'mon people, vote! if you're into it, click it! if you're NOT into it, say so, your vote will only count if you actually vote! thanks!

[jfbiii]

I think just setting up a venue named Contest would do exactly what you want already, wouldn't it?

[Sedge]

Interesting idea - but no, I don't think it would quite cover it. If a singer was managing their own lists, and is only able to manage the active venue, then this would fail. Also, adding songs throughout the night would be troublesome, as you would have to switch back and forth between venues, during active rotation. Not sure if this would crash, but it certainly wouldn't be simple.

[jfbiii]

Good points. They already have access to Tonight, History, and Favorites under their names, right? How about if instead of "Tonight" they had a playlist for "[Venue]" Then they would be able to access it, you'd be able to access it and to switch to a different rotation would be the top level menu item that already exists for "Venue."

IDK, personally I like the idea of being able to set up multiple rotations, give access to each singer so that they can manage each rotation (although they're sure to screw that up; drunk people are dumb), I just don't necessarily want a system for that + a system for venues when I think they're really the same feature.

[dave]

overloading "Venue" is the wrong approach. you're trying to shoehorn an idea into an existing framework for which it was not designed. that will dilute the meaning of "Venue". Plus, just because a singer is at one venue does not mean they're at another venue. (the kj would have to manually alias each singer, a hassle to do on the fly)