[VaRob]

I recently traded in my 2013 Volt on a 2017 Volt Premier w/ all options and ACC, and I have enjoyed reading through all of the old threads comparing what I like and miss in the transition to what others experienced. There are a few things that work differently enough, though, that I am trying to figure them out and one of those is the expanded ability of the infotainment system to save things other than stations as favorites. I was able, for example, to save 'Go Home' for the navigation since it doesn’t have a built-in go home button.

One thing I would like to save as a favorite is for the system to play a playlist from an attached USB drive. I have reason to think it should work because page 25 of the Infotainment Manual says...

Storing Media Favorites
To store media favorites, touch and hold a favorite button to display a list of media types for the currently playing item. Select from this list.

...and the list includes...

Playlists : Touch a screen button in the favorite area to recall a favorite playlist. The first song in the playlist begins to play.

...so it sounds like they intend for me to be able to attach a playlist to a favorite. The thing is, when I press and hold on a song in the playlist, it shows other options from the list (genre, artist, song), but it doesn’t give me the playlist option.

I am wondering whether anyone has succeeded in assigning a playlist to a favorite button, and if so, how you did it. Thanks

 

[JRRF]

I'm not certain you can do what you want. It always asks from a song whether you want the artist, genre, or song. Those appear to be the only options for the favorite button. But don't get too excited. Even after you store all those USB favorites, they tend to drop off after a while, ostensibly due to poor communication between the head unit and the usb drive.

 

[caskConditionedAle]

I'm not much of a playlist or favorites user so I can't help in that area. But being a software guy, my mind works in odd ways. Does MyLink allow you to choose a favorite artist or genre? If so, and you have a tag editor, just hack one of those fields to create your "playlist." Pick the songs you want in your favorite playlist and change all their artist tags to "Play1". Then choose Play1 as a favorite artist.

 

[VaRob]

I'm not much of a playlist or favorites user so I can't help in that area. But being a software guy, my mind works in odd ways. Does MyLink allow you to choose a favorite artist or genre? If so, and you have a tag editor, just hack one of those fields to create your "playlist." Pick the songs you want in your favorite playlist and change all their artist tags to "Play1". Then choose Play1 as a favorite artist.

Oh, now that is clever! It does let me choose genre, so (as you say) I could pick a genre that I have none of and tag them all with that. I'll give that a shot, thanks!

 

[aspomwell]

I asked the same question last year when I got my Volt. It's not documented, but you can do it:

http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread...ia-Playlist-as-Favorite&p=3629977#post3629977

 

[VaRob]

Well what do you know... it worked! It loses the 'shuffle on' setting every time I choose it, but that’s still a lot less key presses than I had to do before. I cannot imagine how anyone decided to design that convoluted a way of doing this; it felt like finding an Easter egg in software. My total admiration to whomever figured that out. That's what makes these forums great; someone has almost always asked the same question before. I sure do appreciate your passing it along... thanks!

 

[hellsop]

Well what do you know... it worked! It loses the 'shuffle on' setting every time I choose it, but that’s still a lot less key presses than I had to do before. I cannot imagine how anyone decided to design that convoluted a way of doing this; it felt like finding an Easter egg in software. My total admiration to whomever figured that out. That's what makes these forums great; someone has almost always asked the same question before. I sure do appreciate your passing it along... thanks!

Sometimes stuff like that isn't DESIGNED so much as "Hey, if I do this, it'll do this other thing too the same way." Then it gets mentioned at the code review and someone says "Good thinking. Someone write that down" and it doesn't happen.