Request for feedback: Shuffle

Updated Shuffle Play has been announced in Public Beta 5.4

They asked for feedback 3 months ago. 
A+ observation. 🙂

Hello, We just rolled out the Public Beta of our next update and it includes an overhaul of shuffle. Most notably, we made it so that you can see the shuffled and reshuffled order of the queue by selecting, deselecting, and reselecting the shuffle option. The shuffle algorithm is a standard card deck shuffle with the exception of the currently playing track which keeps playing as the first track in the shuffled order. New tracks added post-shuffle are appended to the queue. Looking forward to hearing what you have to say through the Beta. I also want you know that we fully acknowledge that the shuffle experience has been a broken experience for some time. It's our fault for not being more responsive. While we might not get every individual’s desired behavior for shuffle into this release, we have heard loud and clear that shuffle is an important part of the ultimate home music experience and we are committed to making it better for you. Thanks! Ben Smith

This is great news.  Now if I could only get into the Beta program so that I can use it.  When can we reasonably expect to see it's normal release?

That's good news Ben! I was wondering what changes were made to the algorithm, and I personally like the new shuffled queue view much better! Visual confirmation of a real shuffle. I hope in the future many more of the forum ideas are implemented, there are so many simple requests like these that shouldn't be that difficult to do. In the meantime, thanks for the shuffle update, it's much better now! (needs album art tho...)

Ben,
First off, thanks for getting some traction to this.  One thing I'd still love to see, which I don't think should be too much more complex, is if I long press on an artist, playlist, album, genre, etc. I'd love to see "Shuffle into queue" or something there, where I could say, "Hey I feel like some random Jazz" and with one long-press I've got it playing.

User35102 it is a public beta. All you do is sign up in your account online.

this is great news!
not seeing the Windows version available in the Downloads section, only Android. Anyone else had this? Might be me 🙂

FYI - Turns out I was wrong on one detail here. When you add tracks to an already shuffled queue , they will be shuffled in the order using a mini-card shuffle. They are not added to the end.

We didn't change the algorithm in this release. We are experimenting with other more sophisticated algorithms (like shuffle-merges) but haven't found one that both produces superior results and can handle large track sets (>1000 and >10,000) quickly.