fragment Element

Article
4/26/2023

[The feature associated with this page, Windows Media Player SDK, is a legacy feature. It has been superseded by MediaPlayer. MediaPlayer has been optimized for Windows 10 and Windows 11. Microsoft strongly recommends that new code use MediaPlayer instead of Windows Media Player SDK, when possible. Microsoft suggests that existing code that uses the legacy APIs be rewritten to use the new APIs if possible.]

The fragment element specifies one condition of the query that selects items from the library. Conditions are specified by condition strings. A condition string typically has a name portion, a condition portion, and a value portion.

<fragment
    name = "string"
>
</fragment>

Attributes

name (required): A portion of a condition string. See Remarks.

Parent/Child Elements

Hierarchy	Elements
Parent	filter, sourceFilter
Child	argument

Remarks

Certain condition strings have a metadata attribute portion, a condition portion, and a value portion. For example, in the condition string "Album Artist Is Joe", the metadata attribute portion is "Album Artist", the condition portion is "Is", and the value portion is "Joe".

Example:

<fragment name = "Album Artist">
    <argument name = "condition">Is</argument>
    <argument name = "value">Joe</argument>
</fragment>

For condition strings of this type, the following table shows the possible metadata attributes, possible conditions and possible values:

Metadata attribute	Possible conditions	Possible values
ActorAlbum Artist Album Title Author Caption Channel Composer Conductor Content Provider Content Provider Genre Contributing Artist Copyright Text Director Episode File Type Genre Key Keywords Language Mood Parental Rating Period Producer Provider Publisher Series Station name Subgenre Subtitle Title Writer	EqualsDoes Not Equal Is Is Not Contains Does Not Contain	Any string value
Bit Rate (In kilobytes per second.)	EqualsDoes Not Equal Is Is Not Contains Does Not Contain	4864 96 128 160 192 256 300 500 750 1000 1500 3000 4500 6000 7500
Secondary Media Type	EqualsDoes Not Equal Is Is Not Contains Does Not Contain	Audio: NewsAudio: Talk Show Audio: Audio Books Audio: Audio Spoken Word Video: News Video: Talk Show Video: Home Video Video: Movie / Film Video: TV show Video: Corporate Video Video: Music Video
File Size (in KB)Image height Image width Play Count : Afternoon Totals Play Count : Evening Totals Play Count : Morning Totals Play Count : Night Totals Play Count : Total Overall Play Count : Total Weekday Play Count : Total Weekend	Is Less ThanIs Greater Than Is Is Not	Any number
Broadcast timeDate Encoded Date Recorded Date taken Release Year	Is BeforeIs After Is Is Not	YesterdayLast week Last month 6 months 1 year 2 years 5 years 2000s 1990s 1980s 1970s 1960s 1950s 1940s
Date Added	Is BeforeIs After Is Is Not	YesterdayLast week Last month 6 months 1 year 2 years 5 years
Date Last Played	Older ThanMore Recent Than Is Is Not	YesterdayLast week Last month 6 months 1 year 2 years 5 years
Month taken	Is BeforeIs More Recent Than Is Is Not	12 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Year taken	Is BeforeIs More Recent Than Is Is Not	Any year
Auto RatingMy Rating	Is At LeastIs No More Than Is Is Not	Unrated1 Star 2 Stars 3 Stars 4 Stars 5 Stars
Custom Field #1Custom Field #2 File Name Key Fields	ContainsDoes Not Contain	Any string

Certain condition strings have a limiter portion, a number portion and a format portion. For example in the condition string "Limit Total Size To 3 Megabytes", the limiter portion is "Limit Total Size To", the number portion is "3" and the format portion is "Megabytes".

Example:

<fragment name = "Limit Total Size To">
  <argument name = "number">3</argument>
  <argument name = "format">Megabytes</argument>
</fragment>

For condition strings of this type the following table shows the possible limiters and formats.

Limiter	Possible numbers	Possible formats
Limit Total Size To	Any number	Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes
Limit Total Duration To	Any number	Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days

Certain condition strings have a limiter portion and a number portion. For example in the condition string "Limit Number of Items to 25", the limiter portion is "Limit Number of Items" and the number portion is "25".

Example:

<fragment name = "Limit Number of Items">
    <argument name = "number">25</argument>
</fragment>

For condition strings of this type the following table shows the only possible limiter.

Limiter	Possible numbers
Limit Number Of Items	Any number

Certain condition strings have a protection portion and a condition portion. For example in the condition string "Protection Is present", the protection portion is "Protection" and the condition portion is "Is".

Example:

<fragment name = "Protection">
    <argument name = "condition">Is</argument>
</fragment>

For condition strings of this type the following table shows the possible conditions.

Protection portion	Possible conditions
Protection	Is Is Not

There is one type of fragment element that does not contain a condition string. If the name attribute of a fragment element is "Randomize Playback Order" the fragment element contains no argument elements. This fragment element instructs the player to play the list in random order.

Example:

<fragment name = "Randomize Playback Order">
</fragment>

Certain condition strings have a sort portion, a value portion and a condition portion. For example, in the condition string "Sort By Title Ascending order", the sort portion is "Sort By", the value portion is "Title", and the condition portion is "Ascending". Note that in this case the value portion is a metadata attribute.

Example:

<fragment name = "Sort By">
    <argument name = "value">Title</argument>
    <argument name = "condition">Ascending</argument>
</fragment>

For condition strings of this type the following table shows the possible values and conditions.

Sort portion	Possible values	Possible conditions
Sort By	GenreTitle Date Added Auto Rating My Rating Play Count : Total Overall Play Count : Morning Totals Play Count : Afternoon Totals Play Count : Evening Totals Play Count : Night Totals Play Count : Total Weekday Play Count : Total Weekend Actor Subtitle Station name Channel Broadcast time Director Release Year Writer Producer Date Recorded Date Encoded Bit Rate Protection	AscendingDescending Random

When you use a fragment element to sort a playlist, you must sort on a metadata attribute that applies to the type of media items you are sorting. For example, if you are sorting music items you cannot sort on Actor. The following table shows which metadata attributes you can use to sort which media types.

Media type	Possible metadata attributes
Music	GenreTitle Date Added Auto Rating My Rating Play Count : Total Overall Play Count : Morning Totals Play Count :Afternoon Totals Play Count :Evening Totals Play Count :Night Totals Play Count :Total Weekday Play Count : Total Weekend
Video or TV	GenreActor Subtitle Title Date Added Auto Rating Station name Channel Broadcast time Director Release Year Writer Producer Date Recorded Date Encoded Bit Rate My Rating Protection Play Count : Total Overall Play Count : Morning Totals Play Count : Afternoon Totals Play Count : Evening Totals Play Count : Night Totals Play Count : Total Weekday Play Count : Total Weekend
Radio	TitleDate Added Bit Rate
Photo	Title
Other	GenreTitle Date Added Auto Rating My Rating Bit Rate Play Count : Total Overall Play Count : Morning Totals Play Count : Afternoon Totals Play Count : Evening Totals Play Count : Night Totals Play Count : Total Weekday Play Count : Total Weekend

Requirements

Requirement	Value
Version	Windows Media Player 9 Series or later

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fragment Element

Attributes

Parent/Child Elements

Remarks

Requirements

See also

Additional resources