for that matter, neither the general shuffle function nor the shuffle playlist function do anything for me in that regard. i am simply unable to make the player choose a random playback order for any given playlist. it will always follow the album order, even if i manually pick a random track to start with...

I don't understand what you want to do here.

I'll try to explain again:

• So, let's say I'm playing a track from playlist A
• Now, I would like to start playing a random track from playlist B

To do this, I would have to

• Click on playlist B
• Select a random track manually from playlist B (or ctrl+h and then select a track)
• Double click on the track to start playing it

Why can't you just press play?

• The play button controls the currently playing track (from playlist A, in my example)
• So, pressing play just plays/pauses the current playing track

Solution

• A button that shuffles the current selected playlist (not the one that is currently playing) and then plays a track from it.

Behavior when using this modified feature

• I am playing a track from playlist A
• I press play/pause button: the current track plays/pauses
• I click on playlist B
• There is a "Shuffle Play" button between the "Clear Playlist" and "Undo" buttons. I click on "Shuffle Play"
• The playlist B is shuffled and a random track from the playlist B starts playing

Hope this makes it clear. I'm pretty sure many people would like to have such a feature, it is pretty convenient this way.