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Tobiah Tobiah is offline
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Default [OT] Windows

Select a group of .wav files. File manager has them listed
in proper order. Right click, choose PLAY. WMP plays them
in random order.
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William Sommerwerck William Sommerwerck is offline
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Default [OT] Windows

"It's not a bug -- it's a feature!"


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Don Pearce[_3_] Don Pearce[_3_] is offline
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Default [OT] Windows

On Wed, 23 Nov 2011 09:29:08 -0800, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:

"It's not a bug -- it's a feature!"

....that will not be supported at the next release.

d
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Phil W[_3_] Phil W[_3_] is offline
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Default [OT] Windows

"Tobiah":

Select a group of .wav files. File manager has them listed
in proper order. Right click, choose PLAY. WMP plays them
in random order.


Not here. Are you sure, that you havenīt activated random order in WMP by
accident?

When I select, 10 audio files in a row in an Explorer window, then right
click on file 4 in that list, WMP will open this file first.
Next come 5-10 *ordered* correctly.
After 10 comes 1-3.


Hope that helps

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Tobiah Tobiah is offline
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Default [OT] Windows

On 11/23/2011 11:27 AM, Phil W wrote:
"Tobiah":

Select a group of .wav files. File manager has them listed
in proper order. Right click, choose PLAY. WMP plays them
in random order.


Not here. Are you sure, that you havenīt activated random order in WMP
by accident?


I see the shuffle button, but it still shuffles in either state.
Probably a fluke on my machine.




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Frank Stearns Frank Stearns is offline
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Default [OT] Windows

Tobiah writes:

Select a group of .wav files. File manager has them listed
in proper order. Right click, choose PLAY. WMP plays them
in random order.


Hey, at least WMP played them! How picky can you get? g

Frank
Mobile Audio
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Arny Krueger[_4_] Arny Krueger[_4_] is offline
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Default [OT] Windows


"Tobiah" wrote in message
news
Select a group of .wav files. File manager has them listed
in proper order. Right click, choose PLAY. WMP plays them
in random order.


The above statement suggests a lack of understanding of computer file
systems and file managers work.

File managers list files in the order you specify. Most of them don't
display them in the actual order that they are on disk. A music player
usually has its own file management faculties.

When I tried your experiment, it turned out that the files I selected were
being played in the order of creation. IOW, oldest first. That actually
makes some sense.

With modern file systems, the concept of a "proper order" is usually
irrelevant. Your interests vary with your need for the files. For example, I
often look at files ordered by newest first.

The order files are written to disk is usually contingent on the status of
empty data blocks in the file system, based on previous activity. For
example, if I delete a file I create region(s) of empty space that are
subsequently selected when a new file is written or an old file updated, in
accordance with an algorithm that itself may be fairly complex. So, location
on disk means nothing.

We probably most often think of files as being ordered alphabetically by
file name, but that is not the only possible useful ordering.

The "proper order" for you is based on the status of your mind which few
computers actually know without you telling them.

In short, you are faulting windows for not reading your mind in real time. I
don't know of any current mainstream OS that does that, not even the Mac OS
or Linux. This week. ;-)


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Anahata Anahata is offline
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Default [OT] Windows

On Thu, 24 Nov 2011 08:20:38 -0500, Arny Krueger wrote:

The order files are written to disk is usually contingent on the status
of empty data blocks in the file system, based on previous activity.


True for the file's actual data, but this will never have any impact on
the order in which files are accessed by default in a directory. The
"natural order" is that of the directory entries. If an empty directory
is filled with new files, that will happen to be the order of creation
time too, but if files are then deleted and new ones added, the directory
won't necessarily be in creation time order either.

Any other ordering, such as by file name or deliberately by creation
time, has to be done by reading the the directory and then sorting the
list in memory.

--
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+44 (0)1638 720444

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Arny Krueger[_4_] Arny Krueger[_4_] is offline
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Default [OT] Windows


"anahata" wrote in message
...

On Thu, 24 Nov 2011 08:20:38 -0500, Arny Krueger wrote:


The order files are written to disk is usually contingent on the status
of empty data blocks in the file system, based on previous activity.


True for the file's actual data, but this will never have any impact on
the order in which files are accessed by default in a directory.


Never is a big word...

The "natural order" is that of the directory entries.


Which begs the question of what the directory entry order is. For example,
in NTFS the directory storage scheme varies with the size of the directory
and the size of the file. Samll files are completely stored within in the
directory. For large directories, the directory is stored in a B-Tree. In a
B-Tree the physical directory order is unrelated to the logical order of the
directory data entries. In some file systems, the natural order is
alphabetical and the new files are added by rearranging the existing file
directory entry order when files are added.

If an empty directory
is filled with new files, that will happen to be the order of creation
time too, but if files are then deleted and new ones added, the directory
won't necessarily be in creation time order either.


If you reread the tiny fragment of my post that you actually preserved, I
allowed for that.

Any other ordering, such as by file name or deliberately by creation
time, has to be done by reading the the directory and then sorting the
list in memory.


Based on this, what order should Windows Media Player play files in, if you
don't specify an order?


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Tobiah Tobiah is offline
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Default [OT] Windows


Based on this, what order should Windows Media Player play files in, if you
don't specify an order?


I don't think it's unreasonable at all to expect the files to play in
the order they were selected from the file manager. All I'm doing is
asking for this list of names to be handed to a program. I think it's
fair to expect that the current order in the file manager should match
the order handed to the program.

Under Linux, things work out that way. If I say

ls *.wav


I'm going to get alpha order. If I say:

playprogram *.wav


or

ls *.wav | xargs playprogram


Or

playprogram `ls -rt *.wav`


etc... I'm guaranteed that the order of the arguments
visible to the program will be the same as the order
in which I provided them. Granted, it's up to the program
receiving the arguments to do the sensible thing, but
they normally do.

In any case, Windows seems to attempt to cater to people
that want to do things like play a group of mp3 files, which
are usually named with a particular scheme so that an alphabetical
listing matches the intended play order. I still think it may
be a fluke on my system, but I find that I have to right click
each file and add them to the 'play list' one at a time.
There's really no need for things to be like this. It really
has zero to do with the order of file sectors or directory
entries and more to do with what's going to feel right to
the bulk of Windows users.

Tobiah







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John Williamson John Williamson is offline
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Default [OT] Windows

Tobiah wrote:
In any case, Windows seems to attempt to cater to people
that want to do things like play a group of mp3 files, which
are usually named with a particular scheme so that an alphabetical
listing matches the intended play order. I still think it may
be a fluke on my system, but I find that I have to right click
each file and add them to the 'play list' one at a time.
There's really no need for things to be like this. It really
has zero to do with the order of file sectors or directory
entries and more to do with what's going to feel right to
the bulk of Windows users.

I've had problems with Windows Media Player automatically cataloguing
stuff in the background, then playing it in some order dictated by the
metadata in the file. (Track number, track title, or something random).

This is also something that the Android based players seem to do, rather
annoyingly.

Winamp under Windows, and its equivalent under Linux gives you a choice
of title order (Set by the metadata information) or filename order when
you select a directory full of music.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.
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Anahata Anahata is offline
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Default [OT] Windows

On Fri, 25 Nov 2011 08:51:36 -0500, Arny Krueger wrote:

True for the file's actual data, but this will never have any impact on
the order in which files are accessed by default in a directory.


Never is a big word...


Point taken. I believe the Commodore Amiga had a system where there was
no directory as such, but the information that would have been stored in
a directory entry (name, date, size etc.) was stored immediately before
the file's data as a sort of header. It made listing and searching by
file names slow...

I wasn't really disagreeing, just nitpicking about data blocks vs.
directory blocks, for most file systems in current use.

Which begs the question of what the directory entry order is. For
example, in NTFS ... For large directories, the directory is
stored in a B-Tree.


True, I was thinking primarily of FAT.
B-Tree will list/fetch files in name order, assuming the name is the B-
tree key.

--
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+44 (0)1638 720444

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Arny Krueger[_4_] Arny Krueger[_4_] is offline
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Default [OT] Windows


"anahata" wrote in message
o.uk...
On Fri, 25 Nov 2011 08:51:36 -0500, Arny Krueger wrote:

True for the file's actual data, but this will never have any impact on
the order in which files are accessed by default in a directory.


Never is a big word...


Point taken. I believe the Commodore Amiga had a system where there was
no directory as such, but the information that would have been stored in
a directory entry (name, date, size etc.) was stored immediately before
the file's data as a sort of header. It made listing and searching by
file names slow...

I wasn't really disagreeing, just nitpicking about data blocks vs.
directory blocks, for most file systems in current use.


Which begs the question of what the directory entry order is. For
example, in NTFS ... For large directories, the directory is
stored in a B-Tree.


True, I was thinking primarily of FAT.


If memory serves - The FAT directory was based on linked lists of directory
blocks. Entried in each directory block were sorted by file name. If a
directory block got filled, the next file added forced a block split.
Deleted files were represented by a special file name that meant "no file".
I think that some disk compression utilities would coalesce directory blocks
that were excessively empty. Otherwise, they would just hang around.


B-Tree will list/fetch files in name order, assuming the name is the B-
tree key.


Agreed.


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[email protected] Nah@ao1.com is offline
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Default [OT] Windows

Entried in each directory block were sorted by file name.

Nah.

(Speaking of FAT only)
One can see the file order without additional sorting by running DIR in a
DOS box. This results from API calls to "find first file; find next file;
find next file etc).

I don't know how to see a raw unsorted list in Windows but there is
probably some pgm that will do this though it seems useless.

The OP said WMP plays in "random order" but computers cannot operate
haphazardly and true statistical randomness is achieved only with some
effort. OP is selecting from an already-sorted list and is probably being
fooled only by that long-standing bug where selecting an a-z group delivers
'z' first and which is avoided simply by selecting the last one first.

WMP can't display its playlist?
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Mr Soul Mr Soul is offline
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Default Windows

I don't think it's unreasonable at all to expect the files to play in
the order they were selected from the file manager. *All I'm doing is
asking for this list of names to be handed to a program. *I think it's
fair to expect that the current order in the file manager should match
the order handed to the program.

I wouldn't assume that it would/should work that way.

Mike C
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