Playlists are Now Available

Hey everyone, today we are proud to announce that the playlist update is available now. Not only that, this update brings a lot of other improvements to the site. This includes a completely new video player with watch list functionality and more.

In this blog post we are going over everything this update has to offer, so be sure to give it a read.

Create your AnimeThemes account

Before we go into all the exciting playlist features, we want to spotlight what makes them possible in the first place: the AnimeThemes account. For the first time you can create your own AnimeThemes account. With an account you are able to create and manage your own playlists. This way you can share playlists across multiple devices.

To create an account you must go to the "My Profile" page and click on the "Create New Account" button. We require an e-mail address for verification purposes. Also your username will be visible on public playlists. After you created your account, make sure to confirm your e-mail address. Only after that you’ll be able to use the playlist features.

Once you’re logged in you will get a personalized "My Profile" page. Your avatar is provided by Gravatar. If you have a special role (e.g. Patron) on our Discord, you can message us to also receive it on the site. There are currently no features bound to roles, but we may experiment with Patron exclusive features in the future.

In case you want to change your password later, you can do so over the "Account Settings" section on the "My Profile" page. If you happen to forget your password you can use the "Forgot Password?" link on the login dialog. In that case we will send you an e-mail with a password reset link.

In the future we want to expand the account system further, allowing profile customization and more. So stay tuned for that!

Introducing Playlists

Playlists are finally here! Once you are logged into your AnimeThemes account, you can go to your "My Profile" page to find the "Playlists" section. Adding a new playlist is as simple as clicking the "+ New" button. Each playlist has a title and a visibility. Here’s an explanation for the different visibility settings:

• Public: Your playlist is visible for everyone and appears in search results.
• Unlisted: Your playlist is visible for everyone. It won’t appear in search results though.
• Private: Your playlist is only visible to you.

If you are not sure which to choose, don’t worry. Title and visibility can be changed later.

Once you created your playlist, it will be displayed on your profile. Click on the title of the playlist to go to the playlist’s page. Here you will see all themes you added to the playlist. Using the "Edit Playlist" button you can change the title and visibility of the playlist.

Now an empty playlist isn’t much fun, so let’s add some themes to it. To do that you can use the "Add to Playlist" button on the bottom right of the video player. It is also possible to add themes directly from other pages. For that you can use the context menu on theme cards.

Added themes will show up on your playlist page. You can change the order of the themes by dragging themes up and down. If you want to remove a theme from your playlist, you can do that via the context menu of the theme card.

New Video Player

Another highlight of today’s update is the completely revamped video player. It was rewritten from scratch and uses custom controls allowing us to provide a better viewing experience. At the core of the new design is a much bigger video frame. It makes much better use of the available space and puts the video into the focus.

Player controls have been moved into a bar at the bottom which is available even when you navigate away from the video page. This way you can keep listening to your current theme while searching for the next one.

On the video page itself you will find a revised section on the right which is divided in three tabs:

• Next Up: Here you will see your current watch list. Read on to learn more about them.
• Info: Here you will find all pages relevant to the currently playing theme, e.g. the anime it is from.
• Related: Here you will find themes which are related to the currently playing one.

Watch lists are a feature made possible by the new video player. When you play a theme, a watch list is automatically created based on the context. For example if you are start watching a theme from an artist page your watch list will automatically include all themes of the same artist.

With a watch list the next theme in the list will start playing automatically, once the current one finishes. This is called auto-play. You can turn off auto-play via a toggle too if you want.

Improved Wiki and Blog

We gave our wiki pages a much needed update and separated them into two main section: Wiki and Blog. Both sections got a new overview page which should be way better in presenting the available pages. Also individual pages got an improved layout.

Going forward the Wiki will be the place where we document our processes and standard. Here you’ll find everything you need to know if you want to start contributing to the project.

The Blog is where we will post status updates like this one you are reading right now. It could also be a nice place to share insights into the project as a whole. We may experiment with different post formats in the future.

Other Notable Changes

This update also introduced various other new features. Here’s a quick rundown:

• A "Shuffle" button was added to the home page and navigation replacing the "Play Random" button.
  • This is perfect for people who want to listen to a random selection of themes without having to click the "Play Random" button each time. The "Shuffle" button will generate a ever-expanding watch list with random themes.
• Anime now have a new attribute "media format".
  • You may be familiar with this attribute from sites like MyAnimeList. It describes if an anime is a TV show, a movie or an OVA. You’ll find the media format displayed in various places and you can even use it to filter anime on the search page.
• There’s a new "Most Viewed" section on the home page, showing the most popular themes.
• Group performances are now included on the group’s member pages.
• The API documentation has been updated to include the new features.

Thank You

And this concludes this small showcase of the long awaited playlist update. We hope you have a lot of fun with this update and create some awesome playlists. Feel free to share you creations on our Discord or elsewhere, we are excited to see your collections.

At last we want to say "Thank You" to everyone who helped with developing this update. This includes all beta testers giving valuable feedback, the Patrons who make this project possible in the first place, but also in particular all staff members actively working on the project.

A special shout goes out to para who left the team last year. He put a lot of hard work into developing this update. If you haven’t already you should read his farewell letter he wrote.