Making Custom Playlists in Media Player 12
Making Custom Playlists in Media Player 12
Explorer Media Player 12 Guide
(new Windows 7 mediaplayer)
(Very useful tips to use the windows media player 12)
How Make Custom Playlists:
A playlist is a group of songs. In Media Player’s library, every icon, stack, and Navigation pane category is a playlist in its own right, which you can play by right-clicking and choosing Play. So every time you open Windows Media Player and click the Library button in the features taskbar, you have many playlists from which to choose.
A custom playlist is one you create yourself. A custom playlist can contain any songs you like, in any order you like. For example, you can create a Party playlist of songs to play during a party. You can create a Favorites playlist of just your favorite songs. You can also create custom playlists of songs you want to copy to your own custom CDs, DVDs, or portable music player.
To get started on creating a custom playlist, follow these steps:
- If you haven’t already done so, open Windows Media Player 12.
- Open the Library view if currently in Now Playing view.
- If you don’t see the Playlist pane at the right side of the program window, do either of the following to make it visible:
-
- Click the Play tab.
- Click the Organize button and choose Layout O Show List.
To create your own custom playlist, you’ll need to start with an empty one, like the example at the right side. If your List pane isn’t empty, click the Clear List button pointed out in that figure.
To create your custom playlist, drag any song titles you want from the contents pane to the left of the playlist into the playlist. As an alternative to dragging one song title at a time, you can select multiple songs and drag them all at once. As an alternative to dragging, you can right-click any song title and choose Add to Playlist. Or select multiple songs, right-click any selected song, and choose Add to Playlist.
To add all the songs from an album to the playlist, right-click the album’s icon and choose Add to Playlist. Likewise, you can right-click any icon or stack that represents a category of songs such as a genre, artist name, or rating and choose Add to Playlist. All the songs within that category are added to the playlist.
Don’t worry about adding too much stuff to the playlist. There’s almost no limit to how large a playlist can be. And you can also remove any song from the playlist at any time.
Managing songs in a playlist
After you have some songs in a playlist, you can arrange them as you see fit. Use any of the following techniques to do so:
- Drag any song title up or down to change its position in the list.
- Right-click any song title and choose Move Up or Move Down.
- Click the List Options button above the list, and choose whichever option best describes how you want them sorted.
- To put the songs in random order, choose Shuffle List from the menu.
To remove a song from the playlist, right-click the song title and choose Remove from List. Optionally you can select multiple songs using the Ctrl+Click or Shift+Click method. Then press Delete (Del) or right-click any selected item and choose Remove From This List.
Saving a Playlist:
To save a playlist, name the list by clicking Untitled Playlist and entering a name. To rename a list, simply click the name and type a new one, then press Enter.
Viewing, playing, and changing playlists
Playlists.
To play all the songs in a playlist, or change a playlist, first click the Play tab. If the Navigation pane isn’t open, use the Layout Options button to open it. The playlists appear under the Playlists branch in the Navigation pane. If you click Playlists in the Navigation pane, you’ll see all of your saved playlists in the contents pane as icons. Recent playlists will be listed first, followed by all playlists. In that example I chose Tile from the View Options to show the playlists.
To use a playlist, right-click its icon or name and choose an option, depending on what you want to do:
- Open: Shows the contents of the playlist in the contents pane.
- Play: Plays all the songs in the playlist.
- Add To: Adds the songs from the playlist to whatever playlist is currently in the List pane.
- Rename: Lets you change the name of the playlist.
- Delete: Deletes the playlist.
- Open File Location: Opens the folder in which the playlist is stored.
Using and creating Auto Playlists:
An Auto Playlist is one that gets its content automatically. You can also create your own Auto Playlists based on any criteria you like. To create an Auto Playlist, click the arrow beside the Create Playlist button in the toolbar and choose Create Auto Playlist.
To specify a criterion for the Auto Playlist, click the + sign under Music in My Library and choose an option from the resulting drop-down list. Then specify criteria by clicking options that appear next to the funnel icon. For example, if you wanted to create an Auto Playlist for songs in which Carlos Santana is a contributing artist, choose Contributing Artist from the list, then click the Click to Set link and either choose an artist’s name or type the artist’s name.
You could create an Auto Playlist, perhaps named ”Today’s Tunes,” by choosing Date Added from the drop-down list, and then choosing a date specification (such as Last 7 Days) from the links that appear beside the new criteria item.
Suppose you have many different types of files in your library and you want to be able to quickly view just the MP3 files. You could create an Auto Playlist named MP3s (or whatever) and use the criteria File Type and MP3.
You can specify multiple criteria if you like. Multiple criteria are always treated as ”and” logic, which means each new criterion will narrow, rather than expand, the Auto Playlist’s contents. For example, if you specify the criteria Contributing Artist Contains Santana and Date Added to Library Is After Last 30Days,you’llseeallsongsaddedtothelibraryinthe last 30 days where the Contributing Artist is Santana.
To include pictures, video, or TV shows in the Auto Playlist, choose an option under the And Also Include heading. Or, to place additional restrictions on the content, choose options under And Apply the Following Restrictions to the Auto Playlist.
When you’ve finished specifying criteria for your Auto Playlist, click OK. The Auto Playlist will be listed in the Navigation pane along with all others. To play the Auto Playlist, and see its current contents, double-click its name or icon. To change the criteria that define the Auto Playlist’s contents, right-click its icon and choose Edit.