Feature: Block (unblock) Tracks & Artists

[sfortis]

Hello,

I've started working on a PoC implementing a mechanism that will allow users to block specific tracks or artists so they are automatically skipped during playback. This is particularly useful for provider auto-generated playlists, like radio-generated queues.

Before I finalize the implementation, I wanted to check if this aligns with the project vision and get your input.

Player Behavior:

• Blocked items are silently skipped
• If currently playing item gets blocked → immediate skip
• If no unblocked items remain in queue → graceful stop

Implementation Plan

1. Models

   Add blocked: bool = False attribute to:

   • Track dataclass
   • Artist dataclass

2. Server - Database & Controllers

   • Add blocked column to tracks and artists tables
   • Add set_blocked(item_id, blocked) method to TracksController and ArtistsController
   • Update queries to include blocked field

3. Server - API Commands

   Add to MusicController:

   • music/blocked/add_item - Block track or artist
   • music/blocked/remove_item - Unblock track or artist
   • music/blocked/items - List all blocked items

4. Server - Playback Logic

   Modify PlayerQueuesController._play_index():

   • Before playing, check if track is blocked
   • Check if any of track's artists is blocked
   • If blocked → skip to next (silent, debug log only)

5. Server - Auto-skip on Block

   In add_item_to_blocked():

   • After blocking, check all active queues
   • If blocked item is currently playing → trigger skip

6. Frontend

• Add block/unblock options to context menu

• Add icons to blocked artists/tracks in library

• Queue list

• Add translation keys

7. Testing

Is this something that would interest you? @marcelveldt @MarvinSchenkel

[marcelveldt]

Best is to jump into discord in the developers section to have these kind of discussions, its easier and faster.

What exactly is the usecase behind this ? Because you can argue that if you don't want to hear something, you simply do not put in the library ?

Also, this will only work for items that are actually in the library. What about you put in some streaming provider playlist ?
In that case you may just want to specify an artist, album or genre by name that you want blocked and have a plugin provider watch the queues and mark items as unavailable when it matches one of the patterns. That can be done without modifications to the entire core at all or only a minimum one where you have a "blocked" field on a QueueItem to inform UI

[JoRouss]

This is exactly what I was looking for. I have full albums in my library and do not want to "delete" tracks from them. But there are some tracks I'd rather not play when I just "play all" from an artist.

For exemple, When I play everything from "Eminem", I'd like to skip "Bitch" from "The Slim Shady LP"...