The iTunes thread: iTunes version <insert number> is out: Tell us how much you hate it

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The iTunes thread: iTunes version <insert number> is out: Tell us how much you hate it

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rubbersoul: Oct 11, 2007; curse you mop toppers!

One of my favorite itunes for mac plugins is dock art. It replaces your itunes dock icon with the album art of whatever is currently playing, and makes it look like this:

http://homepage.mac.com/gweston/dockart/index.html

Sizzlingkeys is also a great itunes controller for those who don't have itunes controls pre-made on their keyboards on their old macs.

http://www.yellowmug.com/sk4it/

# ? Dec 3, 2008 22:59

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# ? Apr 20, 2024 04:44

VERTICAL WIPE!: Jul 18, 2003; I'm weird...so forgive me

rubbersoul posted:

One of my favorite itunes for mac plugins is dock art. It replaces your itunes dock icon with the album art of whatever is currently playing, and makes it look like this:

http://homepage.mac.com/gweston/dockart/index.html

Sizzlingkeys is also a great itunes controller for those who don't have itunes controls pre-made on their keyboards on their old macs.

http://www.yellowmug.com/sk4it/

Wow. Dock art looks sweet. After meticulously tagging my whole music collection with album art awhile back I'm always looking for ways to display it.

# ? Dec 3, 2008 23:02

rubbersoul: Oct 11, 2007; curse you mop toppers!

VERTICAL WIPE! posted:

Wow. Dock art looks sweet. After meticulously tagging my whole music collection with album art awhile back I'm always looking for ways to display it.

That's pretty much my main motivation to get all my stuff tagged, besides it looks a little snappier than the itunes cd icon.

# ? Dec 3, 2008 23:05

Grayham: Jun 13, 2005; I just blue myself

Why doesn't iTunes update the skip count when I skip the song in iTunes?

Skip count only seems tied to when and if a song was skipped on an iPod.

# ? Dec 4, 2008 02:25

abelwingnut: Dec 23, 2002

Is there any way to sort by two different columns? For instance, the first criteria would be Album Artist, and then within each Album Artist they would be sorted by date. I somehow managed it once but I have no idea how.

Thanks in advance.

# ? Dec 4, 2008 02:38

lamppshade: Dec 15, 2005; Lights Camera Action

Is there a way of making a smart playlist contain all the songs in a sub-directory? I have a directory called /import where I dump things until I've listened to them and actually looked at the ID tags. I want to be able to create a playlist from that directory and rate the songs on my ipod.

When I create a smart playlist, there isn't an option that looks like
Directory is /music/import

That would be great!

# ? Dec 4, 2008 04:17

IUG: Jul 14, 2007

Abel Wingnut posted:

Is there any way to sort by two different columns? For instance, the first criteria would be Album Artist, and then within each Album Artist they would be sorted by date. I somehow managed it once but I have no idea how.

Thanks in advance.

I just found this one out from someone else here. Click on the "Sort by Album", then again, and once more. "Album by Year" comes up, and it still sorts by Artist, THEN album. A weird spot to put it for sure.

lamppshade posted:

Is there a way of making a smart playlist contain all the songs in a sub-directory? I have a directory called /import where I dump things until I've listened to them and actually looked at the ID tags. I want to be able to create a playlist from that directory and rate the songs on my ipod.

When I create a smart playlist, there isn't an option that looks like
Directory is /music/import

That would be great!

Do what I do. Make a "New" playlist that will only house stuff that has less than 3 playcounts. I also added something so that it takes the song out for 2 days, so I only hear the song every 3 days (to not wear the song out on myself). When it reaches the 3rd playcount, it goes into my "Needs to be Rated" playlist, which is the same as the previous one, but OVER 2 playcounts, and it doesn't filter out based on the last played.

I can do pictures of these playlists if you want to see them.

# ? Dec 4, 2008 04:37

Rush_shirt: Apr 24, 2007

Has anyone tried syncing iTunes libraries across two computers (specifically a Mac and a PC)? I'd really like to do this, whether it's through passing off an external hard drive or using the network (I'd assume the former would be faster).

# ? Dec 4, 2008 06:52

GuyGizmo: Feb 26, 2003; stupid babies need the most attention

thegloaming posted:

Has anyone tried syncing iTunes libraries across two computers (specifically a Mac and a PC)? I'd really like to do this, whether it's through passing off an external hard drive or using the network (I'd assume the former would be faster).

I looked into it a little while ago and I don't think it'll come easy. There might be a program that'll do it for you, because I know there's one that'll sync libraries between two Macs, and maybe there's one that can do Mac / Windows. There's also the tiny chance that if you had a shared network drive between the two computers you could try to point both copies of iTunes to the same library, but I bet that would end up not working at best or having disasterous consequences at worst.

# ? Dec 4, 2008 07:01

pokeyman: Nov 26, 2006; That elephant ate my entire platoon.

thegloaming posted:

Has anyone tried syncing iTunes libraries across two computers (specifically a Mac and a PC)? I'd really like to do this, whether it's through passing off an external hard drive or using the network (I'd assume the former would be faster).

You can use the same library on both if you don't mind only having one copy of iTunes open at a time. If you want both copies open on the same library at once, this won't work for you.

All you have to do is share the library over the network (or you can put it on an external drive and just shunt it around). Make sure the "iTunes Library" file has the .itl extension (it won't if it's on a Mac version of iTunes, but you can add it and it'll work fine in both). Then, open iTunes by holding option (on Mac) or shift (on Windows), and point it to the iTunes Library.itl file in question. You might get a brief "updating iTunes library" message when switching from Windows to Mac or back, but it should work fine after that.

# ? Dec 4, 2008 07:15

Rush_shirt: Apr 24, 2007

pokeyman posted:

You can use the same library on both if you don't mind only having one copy of iTunes open at a time. If you want both copies open on the same library at once, this won't work for you.

All you have to do is share the library over the network (or you can put it on an external drive and just shunt it around). Make sure the "iTunes Library" file has the .itl extension (it won't if it's on a Mac version of iTunes, but you can add it and it'll work fine in both). Then, open iTunes by holding option (on Mac) or shift (on Windows), and point it to the iTunes Library.itl file in question. You might get a brief "updating iTunes library" message when switching from Windows to Mac or back, but it should work fine after that.

Sounds simple enough. I'm assuming that'll save all playlists and such, right?

Also, if I'm using an external drive, I guess I won't have to worry about having them both open at once.

# ? Dec 4, 2008 07:20

pokeyman: Nov 26, 2006; That elephant ate my entire platoon.

thegloaming posted:

Sounds simple enough. I'm assuming that'll save all playlists and such, right?

Also, if I'm using an external drive, I guess I won't have to worry about having them both open at once.

In my experience, the library functions identically, down to the last playlist and play count.

Yeah, that'll make accidentally opening the library multiple times much more difficult if it's on an external drive. One instance at a time and you're all set. Oh, and use the same version of iTunes everywhere (kind of obvious, but good to double-check).

# ? Dec 4, 2008 07:47

chimz: Jul 27, 2005; Science isn't about why, it's about why not.

Abel Wingnut posted:

Is there any way to sort by two different columns? For instance, the first criteria would be Album Artist, and then within each Album Artist they would be sorted by date. I somehow managed it once but I have no idea how.

Thanks in advance.

Try clicking on Date Added, then Album Artist. I thought this would break Album Artist ties using Date Added, but apparently it doesn't work right or something weird is going on. I think this used to work...

It looks like it now sorts by the last column you clicked then breaks ties by using Artist by Album sort.

# ? Dec 4, 2008 08:07

plastickiwi: Dec 19, 2001; Tickled purple

iTunes suits me just fine for music, but its podcast handling is baffling.

iTunes has a feature intended to save bandwidth for podcasters. If you don't listen to a podcast within some undetermined period of time, iTunes stops downloading new episodes of that podcast. The only warning that it has done so is a tiny icon next to the podcast name. There's no way to configure the timeout or turn off the feature, which isn't documented in the Help files.

Let's go over that again:

1. The program stops doing a user-scheduled task without asking;
2. it doesn't warn the user it's done so;
3. it doesn't even document the feature; and,
4. it doesn't allow the feature to be configured or disabled.

That's not just wrong; it's exhaustively wrong: wrong in absolutely every way a feature can be wrong. It's Bizarro application design: "We make feature do exact opposite of what user expect!"

# ? Dec 4, 2008 14:48

SmirkingJack: Nov 27, 2002

plastickiwi posted:

iTunes suits me just fine for music, but its podcast handling is baffling.

iTunes has a feature intended to save bandwidth for podcasters. If you don't listen to a podcast within some undetermined period of time, iTunes stops downloading new episodes of that podcast. The only warning that it has done so is a tiny icon next to the podcast name. There's no way to configure the timeout or turn off the feature, which isn't documented in the Help files.

Let's go over that again:

1. The program stops doing a user-scheduled task without asking;
2. it doesn't warn the user it's done so;
3. it doesn't even document the feature; and,
4. it doesn't allow the feature to be configured or disabled.

That's not just wrong; it's exhaustively wrong: wrong in absolutely every way a feature can be wrong. It's Bizarro application design: "We make feature do exact opposite of what user expect!"

Agreed. My other podcast gripe is that it doesn't allow users to rename podcasts. Look, I am not going to remember what ST01 or BE102 is, just let me rename it to something more descriptive.

# ? Dec 4, 2008 14:53

SmirkingJack: Nov 27, 2002

GuyGizmo posted:

I don't think there's anyway to do it "the right way", but it's possible if you used an AppleScript or something to put the path of every iTunes song into one of its rarely used metadata fields (maybe 'grouping' or 'comments' or 'sort show' since that'll probably never be used for music) and then making a smart playlist that searches for a path in that field.

Tagging an extra field may be the right way to go. Originally, when I had roommates, I wanted to do this so I could mount network shares and separate Jack's music from Jill's and mine, but now I want make a Wife's Music playlist and a Good Music playlist. She doesn't have that much, so maybe I'll just do it by hand. Thanks for the suggestion.

# ? Dec 4, 2008 14:57

SmirkingJack: Nov 27, 2002

I asked in the Mac Software thread but I might as well ask here too. I am about to purchase Jaikoz. The demo has done a good job so far and I want to bang this tagging thing out. Before I do, is there any feedback on the app, or other (free) alternatives that work just as well? I like the idea of discovering the song by an acoustic ID as opposed to existing tags. I also signed up for the Mac beta of TuneUp, but they haven't sent me any super secret access yet and I want to get this out of the way. OS X, in case it needed to be said.

# ? Dec 4, 2008 15:07

Rush_shirt: Apr 24, 2007

SmirkingJack posted:

Agreed. My other podcast gripe is that it doesn't allow users to rename podcasts. Look, I am not going to remember what ST01 or BE102 is, just let me rename it to something more descriptive.

It's not a very good solution, but it's a solution nonetheless: you can convert the podcast to an MP3 and then change the tags on the MP3 version.

Also I had no idea Apple did that whole "cancel your subscriptions if you haven't listened in a while" deal. That's really dumb, especially since they don't tell you about it.

# ? Dec 4, 2008 15:36

SmirkingJack: Nov 27, 2002

thegloaming posted:

It's not a very good solution, but it's a solution nonetheless: you can convert the podcast to an MP3 and then change the tags on the MP3 version.

Also I had no idea Apple did that whole "cancel your subscriptions if you haven't listened in a while" deal. That's really dumb, especially since they don't tell you about it.

You can rename the actual episodes within a podcast, but you can't rename the feed itself. Sorry, I should have specified what I meant.

# ? Dec 4, 2008 15:44

handbags at dawn: Mar 8, 2007

Thanks for the "1 week" suggestion - I tend to skip around sometimes so I also put in a condition for "Last Skipped/is not in the last/7/days." That way the songs get taken out of rotation for a week whether I listen to them all the way through or not.

# ? Dec 4, 2008 16:25

SmirkingJack: Nov 27, 2002

lamppshade posted:

Is there a way of making a smart playlist contain all the songs in a sub-directory? I have a directory called /import where I dump things until I've listened to them and actually looked at the ID tags. I want to be able to create a playlist from that directory and rate the songs on my ipod.

When I create a smart playlist, there isn't an option that looks like
Directory is /music/import

That would be great!

I just had a thought that might solve both our problems, if you're using a Mac. I wonder if it is possible to create an Automator workflow that will create/update a playlist based on the contents of a directory. Assign it as a Folder Action so when files are added/removed from the target folder, it kicks off and updates the playlist. I see an option in Automator to create and select a playlist, but not edit. Maybe it's buried in there somewhere.

# ? Dec 4, 2008 16:36

IUG: Jul 14, 2007

So if you're using a Mac, I have two hints that are related to each other. The first one uses OS X's Spaces. I now have my main window seperated from iTunes. Space 1 is my web browser and main window. Space 2 is a full screen iTunes window (Space 4 is for last.fm).

Click here for the full 1570x484 image.

The only problem with this is sometimes when I'm listening to something newer, I might not know exactly what I'm listening to. Since you can't have two iTunes windows open, one for the Library, one for the mini-player, I recently found an application called Bowtie that is a themeable window controller for iTunes.

This is just one of the few themes they have. Plus, you can also rate your songs this way (I just pushed this song up from 4 stars to 5 before taking this photo). I keep it in the bottom corner of my 1st space, and it replaced GrowlTunes for me.

# ? Dec 4, 2008 18:08

GuyGizmo: Feb 26, 2003; stupid babies need the most attention

plastickiwi posted:

Let's go over that again:

1. The program stops doing a user-scheduled task without asking;
2. it doesn't warn the user it's done so;
3. it doesn't even document the feature; and,
4. it doesn't allow the feature to be configured or disabled.

This has been a persistent problem with a lot of Apple's design methodology in software. I appreciate their attempts to make things as simple and intuitive as possible, but they constantly do so at the expense of customization and power. Most of their non-professional software sacrifices tons of potentially great features by assuming it knows better than you do and acts in a specific way with there being no mention of it, no way to change it, and oftentimes it being undocumented. They just don't seem to get that it's possible to create simple, intuitive UIs that are still robust and powerful, but design them so that you only find the advanced features if you look for them and want to find them.

iTunes is probably the worst offender of any of their programs I use. Hell, with each new version, they seem to axe features that were around in previous versions. It's really annoying.

# ? Dec 4, 2008 18:27

Alfajor: Jun 10, 2005; The delicious snack cake.

I had once found an application that would add lyrics to the song track, so that you could then see the lyrics on your iPod (by clicking on the middle of the wheel).
I've since then re-formatted and reinstalled, and I can't recall what it was. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

# ? Dec 4, 2008 18:50

handbags at dawn: Mar 8, 2007

Alfajor posted:

I had once found an application that would add lyrics to the song track, so that you could then see the lyrics on your iPod (by clicking on the middle of the wheel).
I've since then re-formatted and reinstalled, and I can't recall what it was. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

You can put lyrics in any song, it's in the "get info" under the lyrics tab. As far as automatically putting lyrics in, I've used this before - iTunes Lyrics Importer http://senthilkumar.googlepages.com/ituneslyricsimporter

Haven't used it in a while, so I don't know if it works with the current version.

# ? Dec 4, 2008 18:57

rotaryfun: Jun 30, 2008; you can be my wingman anytime

Alfajor posted:

Thanks for this thread!
Currently listening to my new "1 week" playlist

This! Thanks a ton for this. For whatever reason, I just never played with the smart playlists and had no idea that they could do that.

Actually I was just thinking the other day that it would be nice if I had some way to listen to songs that hadn't been listened to in a while.

# ? Dec 4, 2008 19:00

IUG: Jul 14, 2007

Alfajor posted:

I had once found an application that would add lyrics to the song track, so that you could then see the lyrics on your iPod (by clicking on the middle of the wheel).
I've since then re-formatted and reinstalled, and I can't recall what it was. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

If you're on a Mac (you guys need to specify this stuff), then there's this widget: http://mindquirk.com/apps/harmonic/

# ? Dec 4, 2008 19:07

Phobeste: Apr 9, 2006; never, like, count out Touchdown Tom, man

My PC has two audio controllers, one on the motherboard and one on an expansion card. I've been mainly using the one on the expansion card, a lovely C-Media, but I just plugged my speakers into that and my headphones into the motherboard output (my speakers don't have a headphone passthrough). I control which one sound is played through with the windows sounds controller, but when I switch between them, anythign that's currently making noise won't make the switch. Can I fix that?

# ? Dec 4, 2008 19:07

isochronous: Jul 15, 2001; *Golf Clap*

Aominux posted:

Are you sure? Do you know if that's true for all models? Someone in the Zune thread said that the Zune can't do this and it's a complete dealbreaker.

Someone in the Zune thread lied to you, not only can you stream stuff off a zune onto a computer (though you must have the zune software installed on the computer) you can also do the same thing with an XBox360 (that is, plug your zune into it and play music directly from it on the 360).

# ? Dec 4, 2008 19:30

ZeeBoi: Jan 17, 2001

Here's something fun for Mac users: http://fluidtunes.com/

# ? Dec 4, 2008 19:35

IUG: Jul 14, 2007

ZeeBoi posted:

Here's something fun for Mac users: http://fluidtunes.com/

This is going to be awesome for whenever I have the Mac hooked up as a jukebox for a party.

# ? Dec 4, 2008 23:34

HIERARCHY OF WEEDZ: Aug 1, 2005

IUG posted:

If you're on a Mac (you guys need to specify this stuff), then there's this widget: http://mindquirk.com/apps/harmonic/

Be careful with this. It won't add lyrics to MP3s, and if you skip too fast for Harmonic to keep track, lyrics from the next song will end up in the metadata for the first.

# ? Dec 4, 2008 23:41

mclast: Nov 12, 2008; catchphrase over

SmirkingJack posted:

I asked in the Mac Software thread but I might as well ask here too. I am about to purchase Jaikoz. The demo has done a good job so far and I want to bang this tagging thing out. Before I do, is there any feedback on the app, or other (free) alternatives that work just as well? I like the idea of discovering the song by an acoustic ID as opposed to existing tags. I also signed up for the Mac beta of TuneUp, but they haven't sent me any super secret access yet and I want to get this out of the way. OS X, in case it needed to be said.

Not totally sure if this is an alternative, but the best replacement I've found for Foobar2000's tagging functionality is entagged. The GUI isn't anything, and it's made as Java multiplatform so there's none of that good OSX consistency, but it has great tagging automations including freedb lookups for albums.

Foobar2000 is the only thing I really miss about Windows since switching to OSX.

# ? Dec 4, 2008 23:56

IUG: Jul 14, 2007

Panic! at the Fist Jab posted:

Be careful with this. It won't add lyrics to MP3s, and if you skip too fast for Harmonic to keep track, lyrics from the next song will end up in the metadata for the first.

It adds them to the mp3. I see them on my iPod and everything. I guess the skipping thing is valid though, I always wondered why sometimes my music would have the wrong lyrics completely (but from something else in my library).

# ? Dec 5, 2008 01:08

piezo4: Dec 10, 2004

is there any way (applescript etc.) to change the time threshold for what constitutes a played track? A lot of times I only listen to a track for say 20 seconds, and I would really like that to increment the play count for that track.

# ? Dec 5, 2008 02:58

piezo4: Dec 10, 2004

piezo4 posted:

is there any way (applescript etc.) to change the time threshold for what constitutes a played track? A lot of times I only listen to a track for say 20 seconds, and I would really like that to increment the play count for that track.

i found something works for now if anyone else has this problem.

Right now I have quicksilver trigger of command-right arrow to skip to the next track.

I added the script below and assigned it a trigger of command-option-right arrow so I can skip a track when I want and still increment its play count. Not perfect because it requires some additional intervention, but it works

(from dougscripts.com)
"Skip & Pretend We Played This

Increment the Play Count of the currently playing track and set its Last Played Date to "now", and, irregardless of acomplishing that, advance to the next track in the current playlist."

code:


tell application "iTunes"
	if player state is not stopped then
		try
			tell current track
				set played count to (get played count) + 1
				set played date to (get current date)
			end tell
		end try
		next track
	end if
end tell

# ? Dec 5, 2008 03:22

Mikey-San: Nov 3, 2005; I'm Edith Head!

IUG posted:

The only problem with this is sometimes when I'm listening to something newer, I might not know exactly what I'm listening to. Since you can't have two iTunes windows open, one for the Library, one for the mini-player

Wanna see a cool trick?

Click here for the full 1440x900 image.

1. Create a smart playlist where kind contains "audio file".
2. Double-click smart playlist to open it in a new window.
3. Minimize/zoom the main window.

edit: doesn't negate your solution, but I thought it was a neat trick

Mikey-San fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Dec 5, 2008

# ? Dec 5, 2008 07:10

pokeyman: Nov 26, 2006; That elephant ate my entire platoon.

Mikey-San posted:

screenshot

I never thought I'd be this guy, but what the hell is that chicken-like leftmost menu bar icon?

# ? Dec 5, 2008 09:47

do it: Jan 3, 2006; don't tell me words don't matter!

pokeyman posted:

I never thought I'd be this guy, but what the hell is that chicken-like leftmost menu bar icon?

Twitterific

# ? Dec 5, 2008 09:52

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# ? Apr 20, 2024 04:44

IUG: Jul 14, 2007

Mikey-San posted:

Wanna see a cool trick?

Click here for the full 1440x900 image.

1. Create a smart playlist where kind contains "audio file".
2. Double-click smart playlist to open it in a new window.
3. Minimize/zoom the main window.

edit: doesn't negate your solution, but I thought it was a neat trick

Yeah, I know you can open a playlist like that. However, I don't think you can have both windows show the same playlist. Besides, this program will show 3 lines of info, let you rate the song, and shows you the album art.

Really, I just wish for a way to use old Audion faces to control iTunes.

# ? Dec 5, 2008 16:48

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The iTunes thread: iTunes version <insert number> is out: Tell us how much you hate it

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