- AARGH!! Media Player is frustrating me!

  • Thread starter Thread starter The Cerebral Ass ©
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The Cerebral Ass ©

I am so incredibly frustrated with Windows Media Player.

I have 11 MP3's in a folder. All I want to do is play them in succession.
THAT'S ALL. I *don't* need any special effects on the songs, I *don*t* need
the biographies of the authors, and I *don't* need to know where I can buy
the full album. I JUST WANT TO PLAY THE SONGS IN ORDER.

Highlighting all of them and opening them will only play the last one
selected.

Obviously, I need to create a playlist. But that opens a WHOLE NEW can of
worms.

First, I find that there is NO OBVIOUS METHOD of adding songs to a new
playlist by browsing the computer in the traditional Windows way. WMP tries
to do the thinking for you, and impress you by listing every song on your
computer by order of album name, artist name, artist's birthday or artist's
favorite foods. If it could tell you what room that artist is currently
sleeping in, I bet it would.

That's all fine and dandy, but all I want to do is play my 11 songs, all
neatly located in one directory. And I can't. Because I have several other
copies of them spread across my computer, at varying bitrates and lengths...
and WMP CAN'T TELL THEM APART, as they are all using the same filename. And
it REFUSES to let me specify that I only want the songs in this specific
folder.

Why in the blue hell can I not tell WMP where the files I want to play are
located? Why does it insist on trying to do my thinking for me? This is the
most frustrating experience in a long line of Windows-related frustrating
experiences (right up there with the WinXP firewall blocking file
transfering in MSN Messenger and requiring a 20-minute tutorial on how to
circumvent this, back when XP first came out).

Is there a top-secret hidden option in WMP 9 that will allow you the
luxury - nay, the PRIVILEDGE - of picking exactly what folder the songs you
want to add to your playlist are located in?
 
Press F3, click browse. As long as you don't have sub-folders under the
directory where the mp3's are located, then you are all set.

--
Posted 'as is'. If there are any spelling and/or grammar mistakes, they
were a direct result of my fingers and brain not being synchronized or my
lack of caffeine.

Mike Brearley
 
The Cerebral Ass © said:
I am so incredibly frustrated with Windows Media Player.
....... snipped .............

Is there a top-secret hidden option in WMP 9 that will allow you the
luxury - nay, the PRIVILEDGE - of picking exactly what folder the songs you
want to add to your playlist are located in?
Click to expand...
Media Library
Add
Add Folder
 
Don't have any elegant solutions, though here's how to accomplish what
you want:

In Windows Explorer, go to the folder containing the mp3 files. Using
Ctrl+left click, select your files in the order you want, then click the
right mouse button, and select "Play" or "Queue-it-Up".
 
Even better yet. With Media player and Windows Explorer showing on the
desktop. Create your blank playlist by pressing Ctrl + N. Name it. Go to
Windows Explorer. Click on the first file you want to play. If the files
are in contiguous order, press the Shift key and Click on the last file in
the list. (If you don't want all files in contiguous order, hold the Ctrl
key down and single click on each file name). Once the files are
highlighted, drag the mass by clicking and holding the left mouse key down
on any of the highlighted filenames and move the mouse to the right side of
the playlist window (where the filenames go.) This will populate your play
list. To play the files simply click the playlist dropdown, find the
playlist you just created and click the play icon.
 
Here's a low-tech solution. Use a text editor (Wordpad) to create a text
file with the filenames for each MP3 file one on each line. No need for a
full path. Save this file with an m3u extension in the same directory the
files are stored. To play your music, simply double-click the file or open
it in MediaPlayer.
 
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