I've been using SAM for over a decade and need some help.

We have a SAM directory based clockwheel that is about four hours long. It plays to its entirety and repeats approximately six times a day. regardless of time. We have some tracks in subdirectories of the main clockwheel directory that we'd like to play at specific dayparts (morning, lunch, evening) throughout each day.

Below are some ideas of how to achieve this. Let me know which are possible.

OPTION 1

We tried using the "Event Scheduler" to load a new clockwheel at a specific time of day. This would load, however, the clockwheel starts over at the beginning at the specified time. This gets the default 4-hour clockwheel categories out-of-order.

We'd prefer that the new clockwheel would be loaded and continue playing tracks at the next line. So if the default clockwheel's last added song is at line 22, then the event scheduler's new playlist would continue at line 23 (not line 1). When a new clockwheel is manually loaded within the category rotation logic configuration that is the way it works (beginning with the next line in the clockwheel instead of starting at the beginning).

I saw in the SAM documentation that there's a no stop command for clockwheels which may or may not help in this situation. If there's a way to set a clockwheel not to stop until it finishes, then maybe the Event Scheduler could start playing the new clockwheel at the end of the current one. If this will help, what exactly is this command and how should it be used?

OPTION 2

In this post, ElevatorBoy mentioned that you can run a PAL script that will look for a particular item in the "playlist" and cause some action that will change what's happening.

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=30923&p=154454&hilit=clockwheel+no+stop+command#p154454

If there's a way to run a PAL script that will replace a clockwheel directory path with a new one then that may work.

For example, the PAL Script will replace all instances of:
Dir ('C\Music\Category\')
with
Dir ('C\Music\Category\Evening')

Is this possible? Different PAL scripts could run at specified times updating the default clochwheel categories as specified.

OPTION 3

The ideal scenario would be adding something to the clockwheel that would work like this to pull a song from a category.

Instead of just this:

Dir ('C\Music\Category\).Rescan
Dir ('C\Music\Category\).QueueBottom(smLRP, EnforceRules);

It would work something like this:

IF TIME IS BETWEEN 05:00-09:00 THEN PLAY
Dir ('C\Music\Category\Morning\).Rescan
Dir ('C\Music\Category\Morning\).QueueBottom(smLRP, EnforceRules);
IF TIME IS BETWEEN 11:00-13:00 THEN PLAY
Dir ('C\Music\Category\Lunch).Rescan
Dir ('C\Music\Category\Lunch).QueueBottom(smLRP, EnforceRules);
IF TIME IS BETWEEN 20:00-04:00 THEN PLAY
Dir ('C\Music\Category\Evening\).Rescan
Dir ('C\Music\Category\Evening\).QueueBottom(smLRP, EnforceRules);
IF ELSE (for when a track isn't selected above) THEN PLAY
Dir ('C\Music\Category\).Rescan
Dir ('C\Music\Category\).QueueBottom(smLRP, EnforceRules);

Is this one possible?

If none of these are doable, then we'll probably create one big 24+ hour clockwheel and have it reload in the middle of the night each day at a specific time. That way we can have the dayparted songs play as close as possible to their needed time while maintaining the overall four-hour default clockwheel.

Thanks in advance for sharing your expertise and advice on the best way to address this situation.

That sounds like your clockwheel and repeat rules are bad for the SAM just-in-time-scheduling concept.
If your clockwheel would repeat some songs and leave others unplayed if started twice for some time period instead of running once for twice the amount of time, your repeat and selection rules are wrong. Redo your script and adjust the rules so that SAM will not repeat stuff.

You could put all the tracks from your subfolder into one category and make SAM pick from that category in smLRP mode. That way you could avoid repetitions naturally without even enforcing the repeat rules.
Same is true for any other selection method if paired with correct categorization.

Regarding your stop button idea:
If your clockwheel can be split in half by stopping and resuming it at a certain line, you could just as well create two clockwheels and play each of them at one half.

_________________
Benedikt Bauer - SVS (Spacial Volunteer Support)

Shop for readymade PAL scripts by countrywesterndj - Or get a custom script made by me (or others)

My Project:
Send "Now Playing" from SAM to Twitter and/or Facebook | Sourcecode

Thank you for the response Mastacheata. It's appreciated.

This really isn't an issue with repeating the same songs or the selection rules. It's the question of how to insert dayparted tracks in specific, existing clockwheel categories while keeping the same four hour clockwheel category order uninterupted.

Since it doesn't seem the first three options from my first post are possible, we'll probably just create one big 24+ hour clockwheel (with 6 dayparted four hour clockwheels in order). It will reload at the beginning of the clockwheel in the middle of the night each day at a specific time. That way we can have the dayparted songs play as close as possible to their needed time while maintaining the overall four hour default clockwheel during the day.

What do you mean by dayparted? (Sorry, english is not my native language and I've never heard that word before)

_________________
Benedikt Bauer - SVS (Spacial Volunteer Support)

Shop for readymade PAL scripts by countrywesterndj - Or get a custom script made by me (or others)

My Project:
Send "Now Playing" from SAM to Twitter and/or Facebook | Sourcecode

Dayparting or dayparted is the practice of dividing the broadcast day into several parts (morning, afternoon, evening, late night) in which a different type of music apropos for that time period is aired.

So what is your problem then?
Schedule a clockwheel swap every 6 hours and you got your day parts.
Add another event of Add Files to Queue Type and enter Queue.Clear; if you want to have a clean start after the last track of the previous daypart played.

_________________
Benedikt Bauer - SVS (Spacial Volunteer Support)

Shop for readymade PAL scripts by countrywesterndj - Or get a custom script made by me (or others)

My Project:
Send "Now Playing" from SAM to Twitter and/or Facebook | Sourcecode

Thank you for the response Mastacheata.

The one 24+ hour clockwheel (with 6 smaller dayparted four hour clockwheels) is working fine for our needs.