Creating OTF playlists on the Iriver H1xx series

Having spent a bit of time trying to find really good instructions for using the OTF playlist function on my H140, I thought I'd write some full, detailed ones myself to help anyone else out who might be having the same trouble.

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Creating an OTF playlist

1. Stop any tracks you are playing and go to the File Browser
2. Navigate to and highlight the first track or directory you want to add to your new playlist.
3. Press and hold the joystick button down, then select 'Playlist' > 'Insert'
   * Insert positions file after previous file added to playlist, (if previously added file was Insert last then, Insert positions new file after that one).
   * Insert Next positions file after Now Playing file, (to be played next after Now Playing).
   * Insert Last positions file last in the playlist.
   * The difference between Insert and Queue is that the Queue files are removed from playlist once played.
   
4. The track will start playing. Leave it playing, and now press the joystick button down quickly once to bring up the file menu again
5. Navigate to the next track or directory you want to add, hold the joystick button down again and Select 'Playlist' > 'Insert Last' (Or 'Insert Next', or whatever option you want!)
6. Repeat steps 4 & 5 until you have added all the tracks you want
7. When you are done, press the A-B button again to bring up the main menu.

Remember that queued songs will not be included when you save a playlist. If you want to save the playlist, use the playlist 'Insert' function.

Note: Set 'Playlist Options' > 'Recursively Insert Directory' to ON to have subdirectories included when inserting directories in your playlist.

I would now suggest you save you playlist using the instructions below. You can also view/modify it at this point if you want prior to saving. Instructions on how to do this are also given below.

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Saving the playlist

1. Press A-B button if necessary to get to the main menu
2. Go to 'Playlist Options', and choose 'Save Current Playlist'
3. A keyboard screen will appear and the playlist will initially be named "/dynamic.m3u".
4. To delete letters from the current name, press the RECORD button
5. Move the joystick to highlight the letters you want (You can also use the A-B button to toggle between UPPER CASE and lower case characters)
6. Press the Joystick button to select each letter you want
7. Make sure your filename ends in '.m3u'
8. When you are finished, Press the PLAY button to save the file.

It will be saved in the ROOT folder on your iRiver, unless you have specified a different folder in the filename you entered, e.g. '/PLAYLISTS/MyPlaylist.m3u'.

IMPORTANT! If you are going to try and save it in a different folder, make sure the folder exists first. Rockbox will NOT create folders for you. Trying to save into a folder that doesn't already exist, will cause a major error (It says something like '*PANIC*' on the screen), as I recently found out!!!!!!!
If this happens, just reset your player. I did this and had no issues.

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Viewing/Editing tracks in the playlist

1. Either before of after saving your playlist, you can go to 'Playlist Options' > 'View Current playlist'. This will bring up the list of songs in the chosen playlist in order.
2. Highlight the track you want to change.
3. Press and hold the joystick button down to bring up a list of options.
   
   Then either:
   
   
4. Choose 'Remove' if you want to delete the highlighted song from the playlist.
   
   Or...
   
   
5. Choose 'Move' to move the song in the playlist order. It will return you to the playlist, and there will be a flashing cursor. Move it to the point in the playlist you want the song to move to, then press the joystick button again to move it.
6. Repeat steps 2-5 until you are happy with the order and list of songs.
7. Press the joystick left a couple of times to get back to the main menu.

Now SAVE YOUR PLAYLIST!

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To play the playlist

1. Using the File browser, navigate to where you saved your playlist and highlight it with the cursor.
2. Press the joystick button down or push the joystick to the right. Either will activate the playlist.
3. The playlist should now start playing!

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I hope people find these instructions useful. Please feel free to update the page, if you can add anything useful.

Ed Solman (IRC nick: wrecker)