Shuffle, Repeat, and Sort Content February 2005
In Windows Media Player 10, content that you are playing appears in the List pane of the Library feature. For example, items in a playlist, tracks on a CD, or items in a library category (such as an album or artist category) are displayed in the List pane while playing, as shown in the following screen shot.
Using the Player, you can change the order in which items in the List pane play by shuffling or sorting the items. You can also choose to play the items repeatedly. When you turn on shuffle, items will play in a random order. When you change the sort order, the Player rearranges the items in the list and plays them in the newly sorted order, unless you have turned shuffle on, in which case the Player continues to play the items in random order.
You can sort items in the List pane by any of the following categories—By Name, By Artist, By Album, By Rating, or By File Name. For example, you can sort songs in alphabetical order by the song name, as shown in the following screen shot.
The Player relies on media information to sort items. The By Name, By Artist, By Album, and By File Name categories sort the list alphabetically from A to Z, where the By Rating category sorts the list with the highest rating first. When you sort by album, the Player sorts items with album media information from A to Z, and orders the items with no album media information at random.
When you sort by rating, the Player sorts the list—with highest rating first—by the user rating. The Player automatically rates items that you haven't rated yourself. By default, all items in your library are given an auto rating of three stars, which then changes based on the number of times the item is played. Ratings are displayed in the Rating column in your library. You can distinguish between the two types of ratings in the library—user ratings are brighter than auto ratings. For information about how to rate items, see Windows Media Player 10 Help.
Sorting only affects the order in which items are displayed in the List pane; it does not affect the order of the items in your library. Turning on shuffle or repeat does not change the display order in the List pane.
Note The Player must be in full mode (the default) before you can set the shuffle, repeat, or sort options.
To set shuffle and repeat optionsIn Windows Media Player, begin playing items. To select the items you want to play, on the Details pane, select a number of items, right-click, and then click Play Selected Items, as shown in the following screen shot. To select a number of items at once, you can pick adjacent items by pressing and holding the SHIFT key while selecting. You can pick nonadjacent items by pressing and holding the CTRL key while selecting. Click the Shuffle/Repeat button, shown in the following screen shot, to select the option you want to use. You can select any of the following options:
To set the sort orderIn Windows Media Player, begin playing items, and then click Now Playing. Click Now Playing List, point to Sort, and then click the sort method you want, as shown in the following screen shot.
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