The Queue's Rules

The queue is the list of what plays next. It has two parts. On top, under Playing next, are the songs you queued yourself. Below them, under Next up, are the songs that come next in whatever playlist or album is playing. Your songs always play first.

Above both, Playing from names where the playing song came from: the playlist, album, artist, or mix, which opens when clicked, Liked Songs, or a radio named after the song, playlist, album, or artist it is based on, which opens the radio’s page. The line shows only while a song is playing from somewhere TIDAL reports.

These are the rules the app follows. The queue tests in src/app.rs check every one of them.

Starting and resuming are separate actions. With Shuffle off, a playlist’s Play button starts at its first available song in the selected order. A page’s or card’s Play always starts the first item in the page’s order and turns Shuffle off; Shuffle turns it on and starts a random item. Double-clicking a row starts there and keeps the current Shuffle mode. The row’s song starts at once, also far down a long playlist: it does not wait for the playlist’s pages before it. Playing from names the playlist from the start, and Next up fills in once the pages up to the row are in (a moment on a long playlist): the songs after it in the playlist’s order, or with Shuffle on the playlist’s other songs shuffled. Previous goes to the row above it. Shuffle switched before then is the mode the rest plays in, and Next pressed before then plays the song after the row once it is known, not autoplay. Play or Space while a song is still loading decides whether that song plays when it starts; it never starts the song that played before again. Next and Previous while a song is still loading move from that song, in its playlist, once the songs around it are known: Next plays the row after it and Previous the row above it, and the song that played before does not play again meanwhile. Repeat all does not change this: the clicked song alone does not wrap round to itself while the rest is read. A song listed twice in a playlist starts at the row clicked, not at its first entry, and Next up follows from there, as in TIDAL. A song in an artist’s Popular tracks plays the artist from that song, all of their songs as the artist’s Play does, under the artist’s name; not only the songs shown. A new context starts with an empty History in the play queue panel (a row of a sorted or filtered view of the playing context is not a new one), which lists only songs played since (up to 100, newest last, saved with the session). The song just left joins History the moment the song changes, and a song that comes round again going forward is simply listed again. Previous steps back through History; clicking a row goes back to it in the same context; the listening history is untouched. In the panel, one click on a Next up row skips to it (rule 5 below); the second click of a double-click is ignored, so it never skips twice. History, the playing song and Next up are one list in the panel’s single scroll area (no separate History scroller); it opens with “Playing from” at the top, History above it, and keeps that place on song changes until the user scrolls. The panel is fully opaque. Play in the player bar resumes the current song at its paused position.

Since 0.10.0, the Shuffle button on a collection page changes the global playback mode without starting that collection. It can be selected before anything is playing; the next Play uses the selection. While another collection plays, toggling Shuffle changes that playback’s mode without switching to the page’s collection. The queue then reflects the new play order.

A shuffle plays each recording once, also across a restart: resuming finishes the songs left and does not play the ones in History again. A song listed again under another track id or album (same ISRC, or without an ISRC the same title and first artist within two seconds, an explicit and a clean version counting as one) is left out, also when later pages join. Tidalfast keeps the last 200 songs played per context, and the last 200 overall, in recent_plays.json in the state folder (track ids and ISRCs only, written a few seconds after a change). A new shuffle starts on a song not among the recent ones and plays those last; a shuffled Repeat all round does not open with the last 50 songs (at most half the context) of the one before; autoplay never brings back one of the last 100 songs played.

Since 0.8.0, starting a playlist in its original order explicitly names its first available song from the loaded prefix. If that prefix is not loaded, it requests playlist position zero. A page loaded from the middle never becomes the beginning. This keeps the full TIDAL playlist context; the app does not replace it with a shortened list of loaded songs. A request waiting for local playback to reconnect keeps the song chosen at the click.

Sorted and filtered views omit unavailable songs and local files from their playback requests. The displayed rows keep their positions, and selecting a repeated song starts that occurrence. A filtered playlist or My Collection tracks view plays its matching songs in displayed order, including duplicates. An empty or entirely unplayable view disables Play instead of starting the unfiltered context.

Since 0.9.0, starting another song on this computer keeps the selected Repeat mode, with Shuffle on or off. Loading a playlist no longer silently disables repeat in the playback engine.

Since 0.9.0, silencing the old song during a local track change keeps the decoder paced while the replacement loads. Cached audio no longer races to the end and causes an unwanted extra skip during that handoff.

Since 0.9.0, an unexpected playback engine restart retains the engine’s in-memory playback state. Recovery restores the same song and position, paused or playing, with its playlist context, exact shuffle order, manually queued songs (including duplicates), repeat settings, and pending context pages. Playback started on the replacement engine takes precedence over recovery.

  1. The list shows the play order. The top row plays next, followed by the rows below it.

  2. Add to queue adds a song to your part of the queue. It goes after the songs you queued earlier and before the playlist’s songs. Queue the same song twice and it plays twice. A double-click only counts once.

    Since 0.9.0, an album’s Add to queue adds its playable songs in album order, including repeated songs. This also works for singles and EPs. A fully loaded album appears immediately. Otherwise, a loading notice appears while all its track pages are fetched, then its songs are appended together after the songs already queued. A failed fetch adds no partial album. Clear queue and sign-out cancel an album still being fetched.

  3. When a song starts, its row leaves the queue. It doesn’t matter how it started: the song before it ended, you pressed Next, you clicked its queue row, or a media key skipped to it. Only that occurrence leaves: another copy you queued remains until its own turn. A queued song the player passes over (a blocked one) leaves as well. A song that has played never comes back when you queue more songs or reorder Playing next, also after Previous restarted the song before it.

  4. Next removes the top row right away.

  5. Playing a row from the queue skips to it. The rows above it are skipped and removed, as if you had pressed Next down to it. The rows below it stay, and the playlist keeps going afterwards.

  6. Starting a playlist or album keeps your songs. The rows underneath change to the new collection; your songs stay under Playing next and play before the collection continues. If you queue an album and then start it from the Library, its first song plays now and the separately queued album still follows. Clear queue removes those manual copies while keeping the playing album’s remaining songs.

  7. Clear only removes your songs. The trash button sits beside the Playing next heading and empties that section; the playlist’s rows below stay.

  8. Changes appear immediately. Tidalfast owns the queue and updates its own player directly. Toggling shuffle rechecks the queue so the new playback order appears promptly without waiting for the song to finish.

    A song you queue shows its whole row at once: its cover, title and artists, as on the row it came from, whichever page that was. A song no page holds (one a plugin names by its id) shows what is known and fills in once TIDAL describes it. A later read of the queue only ever completes a row; it never blanks one or takes its cover or artists away, also while the player is still looking the song up. Reordering Playing next keeps every row as it was.

  9. Closing the app keeps the queue. Tidalfast saves it locally. When you resume the last song, it restores your queued songs and playlist position.

    The saved session also holds the playback position, Shuffle with the order of the songs due next, Repeat, the mute level, and whether the now playing view was open. Starting the app plays nothing: the song waits paused in the player bar, and Play resumes it at the saved position. A saved song TIDAL no longer has is skipped for the next one in its playlist or album. A song or music video TIDAL cannot be reached for (the network is down) is not skipped and nothing leaves the queue: it stays the playing item, at its position, and plays once the network is back (see How It Connects).

Since 0.8.0, selecting several playlist rows and choosing Add to queue preserves repeated occurrences in their selected order. For example, selecting B, C, B adds all three rows. A repeated click still counts once, and the notification reports only the rows actually added.

  1. Dragging within Playing next reorders it. Dropping a song, dragged from elsewhere, at a position in Playing next inserts it there, and dragging a row already in Playing next elsewhere in the same section moves it. Next up is never a drop target: it plays from the current context, not from a list Tidalfast rewrites. While Playing next is empty, drop the song on the player bar’s Queue button instead.

  2. Any row after the playing song can be removed on its own, as in TIDAL. Every row of Playing next and Next up in the play queue panel has a cross at its right (the … menu of a row, and a right-click, offer Remove from queue too). A queued song leaves Playing next; other copies of it stay. A Next up row leaves the list at once and the song is left out of the playlist or album for as long as it plays (also in Repeat all rounds); it is back when the playlist or album is started again. A lagging answer from the engine that still lists the row does not bring it back. The playing song and the History rows have a … menu instead. This works on this computer’s queue only; another device’s queue is not rewritten.

  3. A plugin can take any row out of the queue, as in TIDAL. A Luna plugin (No Remix removes the remixes of a playlist) that removes a row with playQueue/REMOVE_ELEMENT takes a row out exactly as rule 11 does for the cross: a song you queued, or a Next up row. A plugin’s clear, like Clear (rule 7), empties Playing next only. This works on this computer’s queue; another device’s queue is not rewritten.

  4. Blocked songs and artists are never played from the queue. TIDAL’s block lists (Block on an artist’s menu, “Don’t play this” in the player bar, Settings > Blocked) are read once per session, and TIDAL’s own apps leave what they name out of what they play; so does Tidalfast. A song is passed over when its turn comes if its track id is blocked or any artist on it, main or featured, is: in the playing context (every Repeat all round too), in Playing next, and in autoplay and radio. The rows stay in album and playlist pages and in Liked Songs; only the queue panel’s Playing next and Next up leave them out, since they will not play. A song started by name (a double-click, or the song a page names) plays even if blocked, and a context that starts without a named song begins on the first song that is not blocked. A context with nothing left to play asks for autoplay instead of looping. Block and Unblock apply at once, before TIDAL answers; a refusal restores the old state. Nothing is removed from the queue: lifting a block makes the songs playable again. Music videos are never blocked.

  5. Settings can keep a song out of the queue. With Allow explicit content off, songs marked E are greyed out in lists and left out of what plays: a playlist, album, artist or mix skips them, Add to queue adds only the others, and a shuffle never starts on one (videos are not included, as in TIDAL). Allow AI content does the same for songs TIDAL labels AI. This is a rule of its own, applied with a song’s availability and with blocked content, and it takes effect for what the engine loads next: songs already in the queue stay until they play or are removed.