manual/include/playlist-operations.html

<p>
  In the track header (editor window, left pane) is a button labelled <kbd
  class="menu">p</kbd> (for "Playlist"). If you click on this button, Ardour
  displays the following menu:
</p>
<table class="dl">
  <tr><th>(Local Playlists)</th>
   <td>Shows all of the playlists associated with this track, and indicates
   the currently selected playlist</td></tr>
  <tr><th>Rename</th>
  <td>Displays a dialog to rename the current playlist</td></tr>
  <tr><th>New</th>
  <td>Creates a new empty playlist, and the track switches to the new playlist</td></tr>
  <tr><th>New Copy</th>
  <td>Creates a new playlist that is a copy of the current playlist; the track switches to the new playlist</td></tr>
  <tr><th>Clear Current</th>
  <td>Removes all regions from the current playlist</td></tr>
  <tr><th>Select From All</th>
  <td>Displays a playlist browser to manually choose which playlist this track should use. (You can even select playlists from other tracks here)</td></tr>
</table>

<h2>Renaming Playlists</h2>
<p>
  Playlists are created with the name of the track of which they are
  associated, plus a version number. So, the first playlist for a track
  called "Cowbell" will be called <samp>Cowbell.1</samp>. This name will
  be used to define the names of any regions added to the playlist by
  recording. You can change the name at any time, to anything you want.
  Ardour does not require that your playlist names are all unique, but it
  will make your life easier if they are. Suggested examples of user-assigned
  names for a playlist might include <kbd class="input">Lead Guitar, 2nd
  take</kbd>, <kbd class="input">vocals (quiet)</kbd>,
  and <kbd class="input">downbeat cuica</kbd>. Notice how these might be
  different from the associated track names, which for these examples might
  be <kbd class="input">Lead Guitar</kbd>,
  <kbd class="input">Vocals</kbd> and <kbd class="input">Cuica</kbd>. The
  playlist name provides more information because it is about a specific
  version of the material that may (or may not) end up in the final version
  of the track.
</p>
<p>
  If you are going to rename your playlists, do so before recording new
  material to them.
</p>
<p class="fixme">
  It appears that recorded regions are not named after the playlist, but
  after the track.
</p>

<h2>Sharing Playlists</h2>
<p>
  It is entirely possible to <dfn>share playlists</dfn> between tracks. The only
  slightly unusual thing you may notice when sharing is that edits to the
  playlist made in one track will magically appear in the other. If you
  think about this for a moment, its an obvious consequence of sharing.
  One application of this attribute is parallel processing, described
  below.
</p>
<p>
  You might not want this kind of behaviour, even though you still want
  two tracks to use the same (or substantially the same) playlist. To
  accomplish this, select the chosen playlist in the second track, and
  then use New Copy to generate an <dfn>independent copy</dfn> of it for
  that track. You can then edit this playlist without affecting the original.
</p>