Playlist Warm-up Activity

The goal of this warm-up is to create a playlist program. This program will print a list of songs. This activity involves topics that have not been covered yet, so things may be unfamiliar - that's okay. Just try to follow the instructions as well as possible.

This activity should be completed in groups. Each group will present their playlist at the end of the activity. Here are the multiplayer Repl projects for the groups:

Group 1: https://replit.com/join/uaborkiuzb-hylandoutreach
Group 2: https://replit.com/join/msfvutocvf-hylandoutreach
Group 3: https://replit.com/join/rzvofsiwbx-hylandoutreach
Group 4: https://replit.com/join/njidlpvysl-hylandoutreach

Click on the link for your assigned group to begin.

Part 1: Brainstorming Songs

The first thing to do is think of songs to add to the playlist! These could be any song from anywhere (as long as it is appropriate). Try to think of your favorite song(s) of all time. Feel free to include fake songs if desired. Each song should have a title and an artist.

Open the songs.txt file in the Repl project, and add songs there. Do not worry about the main.py file for now.
Every group member must contribute at least one song.
There must be at least 5 songs total.

Part 2: Research

Before jumping into the code, take a look at some documentation. The code will use dictionaries and lists, two important collections in the Python world. Read through these articles as a group. One student should attempt to explain each topic to the rest of the group. Make sure to ask questions!

Part 3: Replacing Songs in the Python Code

The next step is to get into the actual code! Open up the main.py file to take a look.

Run the code to see what it currently does
Notice how each title and artist appear in the code
Notice the placement of the curly brackets, colons, and commas
Find the existing three songs in the code
Replace each instance of "All Star" and "Smash Mouth" with titles/artists from the songs.txt file
Run the code, and verify that the three new songs appear!

Part 4: Adding More Songs

Now the playlist should have some of the songs, but not all of them yet. Try to figure out how to add a couple more songs.

Find the final song in the code, ending with },
Under that, type in a new {
Under that, add the "title": "", and "artist": "",
Under that, add another },
Repeat the steps above once more
Make sure the titles and artists reflect songs from the songs.txt file
Run the code, and verify that all the songs appear!

Part 5: Adding Color

One fun feature of Python is the ability to change the color of text in the console. This is possible using the colorama library, with the Fore object. Adding any Fore value in front of a printed string will turn the text that color. Update the code so that each song has its own color!

Possible Colors

Fore.BLACK, Fore.RED, Fore.GREEN, Fore.YELLOW, Fore.BLUE, Fore.MAGENTA, Fore.CYAN, Fore.WHITE, Fore.RESET

Updating the Songs

Add a color to each song in its data, along with the "title" and "artist" values. Make sure to note the commas, curly brackets, and colons.

For the first song, find the "title" and "artist"
Right under the "artist" line, above the },, make a new line
Do something similar to the "artist" line, but use "color" instead

On the right side of the colon, add in Fore.RED

 {
     "title": "All Star",
     "artist": "Smash Mouth",
     "color": Fore.RED
 },

Update all of the other songs in the same way, choosing different colors

Try running the program. Nothing should have actually changed yet...

Using the Color

Now that each song has a color, make sure the color is used when the song is printed!

Find the print statement that prints out the song
Right inside the parenthesis, make some space
Add in song["color"]
- This will access the color of the given song
After that, add a + so it connects to the rest of the song
- Adding this will change the color for the text!

Run the program again, and verify that each song appears with its own color!

Final Code

By the end of the activity, the code should look something like this:

from colorama import Fore

print("Welcome to the Greatest Playlist Ever")

songs = [
    {
        "title": "All Star",
        "artist": "Smash Mouth",
        "color": Fore.RED
    },
    {
        "title": "All Star 2",
        "artist": "Smash Mouth",
        "color": Fore.CYAN
    },
    {
        "title": "All Star 3",
        "artist": "Smash Mouth",
        "color": Fore.GREEN
    },
    {
        "title": "All Star 4",
        "artist": "Smash Mouth",
        "color": Fore.YELLOW
    },
    {
        "title": "All Star 5",
        "artist": "Smash Mouth",
        "color": Fore.MAGENTA
    },
]

for song in songs:
    print(song["color"] + song["title"] + " by " + song["artist"])

Playlist Warm-up