Patent ID: 7580932

Claim:
A method for establishing a filtering engine for generating an ordered list of one or more media items selected from a library of media items, said method comprising: selecting a first filter from a list of filters, said first filter defining an action associated with one property of the one or more media items; adding said first filter to an active filter listing; selecting a second filter from said list of filters, said second filter defining another action associated with another property of the one or more media items; adding said second filter to said active filter listing; ranking said first filter and said second filter according to the relative importance of each filter; assigning a weight to each filter according to its rank, said assigned weight indicating a relative importance of each filter in generating the ordered list of the one or more media items; displaying an adjustable weighting element indicative of the assigned weight of each filter, said weighting element including at least one of the following: a user-adjustable slider bar, a pull-down menu, a pop-up menu, and a dialog box; determining an aggregate score for each media item of the library of media items, wherein the aggregate score is a function of weighted scores, wherein each weighted score is determined according to each said filter in the active filter listing and adjusted by the weight assigned to each said filter in the active filter listing; and generating the ordered list of the one or more media items based on the aggregate scores of the media items; and displaying a three-state shuffle selection element alternately for providing a shuffle off, a mathematical shuffle, and an intelligent shuffle selection, said intelligent shuffle corresponding to the ordered list of one or more media items; wherein said assigning of weights to each filter occurs as a function of a rank of the filter and a total number of active filters.