There's a common misconception that the default tablet Media Player does not support playlists, so I figured that I would correct that and show you how to create and use them.

Media Player has two views, Library and Now Playing. Now Playing *IS* your playlist. Let me say that again. Now Playing *IS* your playlist.

I know, it should have simply been called "Playlist", but what can you do, eh?

So, how do we use it?

If you are in your library and simply hit play on a song, it imports the entire list of songs over to Now Playing, assuming you want the entire list in your playlist. That's not a bad assumption to make in general. (This also works in any list. If you are looking at an album and just click play, the playlist will consist of the entire album.)

So, how do I make my own playlist?

From your library, click and drag to select songs that you want to have in your playlist and then hit play. Say we've selected 20 songs and hit play. Now Playing will report "Now playing 1 of 20". Clicking on the Now Playing list button should show your created playlist.

What if your songs aren't all next to each other in the library? Well, start off selecting ones that are and hitting play... then return to the Library view and then select the others that you want and choose from the Media Player menu Clip -> Add to 'Now Playing' list. You should then see your songs added to the playlist.

How do I save my created playlist?

At any time, you can save your playlist by choosing Clip -> Save 'Now Playing' list as... in the Media Player menu.

How do I reload a saved playlist?

If you have already saved a playlist, you can find it in two places. First, you can use the Media Player menu and choose Open and find the physical file that you saved the playlist to.

You can also go into your Library and find the newly added Playlists list under Library > Music > Playlists.

It might be possible to do the same thing with videos, but as I haven't tried it yet, I can't say for sure.

(Also note that you have dynamically created playlists here for recently added songs, recently played songs and songs you've never played before.)

Anyways, I hope this helps you use the Media Player a little better.
(I'll be adding screenshots to this sometime tonight in case my explanations aren't good enough. There's also a chance this will not work in OS2007... as I no longer have it, I can't tell.)

I suppose my quest to get more people to use the default software better and make it more useful continues.

Wow you are fast.

Jaiku got the exclusive... when I wasn't getting 504 gateway errors anyway.

Thanks, you made my day!!

Thanks! Still it's a usability flaw. But I guess according to Nokia it supports playlists, just like to them Microb has tabs. Ah well..

Agreed (though I disagree on what you said about Microb because that's what the task switcher handles, but anyways...), I shouldn't have to make a how-to to explain to anyone how to use what should be a easy to figure out/discover feature.

Looks like this bug and this one .

I don't have that option in the media player - is there a certain version this has to be done with? I am running OS2007 on an N800, and I don't have a "add to now playing list" option. It seems buggy, too - do I maybe need an update? I have the main repos all enabled, and it tells me I am up to date.

I'm kind of at a loss here.

Just wanted to point out that you might also want to mention that you can add songs to your "now playing" playlist by selecting them in file manager; unfortunately they don't get added to the playlist, they replace it, but it's still kind of handy especially when playing things over the shared folders option...

Simply drag and select a bunch of MP3s, then go file->open and they'll show up as your playlist.

My biggest problem with the native media player (and virtually all media players for the tablet) is that it's obsessed with the whole "library" idea; while a library is cool and handy at times, it doesn't do squat for when I want to add in some files from shared folders that may or may not be there.

I'm sure the howto has been handy for lots of people though! Thanks!

Here's a bump - this technique still doesn't work for me - I just don't have the options you refer to. I'll try to install the screenshot app and show you what I mean, because I just am not getting anywhere.

Are there any additional steps I might've missed?