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

SmirkingJack: Nov 27, 2002

The major gripe I have always had about Smart Playlists is that I have never found a way to make one based on the path of the file. Is it still this way, or is this now possible?

# ¿ Dec 3, 2008 15:34

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 01:28

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

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

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

SmirkingJack: Nov 27, 2002

GuyGizmo posted:

Okay, here's a doozy of a question:

How can I synchronize my iTunes Library between my home and work computer over the internet?

This is similar to something someone asked earlier, but this time both are macs running Mac OS X, and they're not on the same network. But basically, I would love it if I could get any music added to my home mac to be somehow automatically be copied to or available to my work mac, and any statistics, like play count or last skipped, to be shared between the two computers, because obviously given my last posts in this thread I use that all the time for smart playlists.

Here are the ideas I have, but I don't know exactly how well they would work:

1. Set it up so that both macs have their iTunes Library set to the same location, share that folder somehow on my home mac, and then mount that over the internet on my work mac so that the home library appears in the same path on my work mac. Obvious problems with this are that my Comcast internet connection at home (with limited upstream bandwidth) will probably choke occasionally while trying to listen to music, or whenever iTunes decides it needs to load a huge amount of data.

2. Set it up so that both macs have their iTunes Library set to the same location, then set up rsync or something to run automatically and sync the two folders at various points throughout the day.

3. Some other better idea?

I'm thinking I might try the second one since that would be the least amount of work, but I still feel like it could be trouble.

Lucky for you, SuperSync just released a new version that will do just that. I know nothing about it, other than it is something that I want to check out. So you should purchase it and let us all know how it works out.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2008 22:33

SmirkingJack: Nov 27, 2002

holyraygun posted:

For anyone interested in Supersync, I just noticed that it's half price ($14.50) on macZot today.

I have not gotten around to trying the demo yet, but it is pretty hard to lose for $15. Thanks for the heads up - I, at least, would not have known otherwise.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2008 17:25

SmirkingJack: Nov 27, 2002

The situation: I have all of my music on my Mini. I use Home Sharing to copy it to my MacBook where I rate it as I listen to it.

The question: I want to sync the ratings so the music on the Mini is updated with the values of my MacBook. Is there an easy way to do this?

# ¿ Oct 13, 2009 16:33

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 01:28

SmirkingJack: Nov 27, 2002

shaitan posted:

How do you get itunes to update its library? I add a new album to my hard drive but I never see them in itunes until I re-add the folder that I placed the music into. I'm on Windows using the latest itunes.

And when I re-add that folder, now I see two copies of my other music...

Huh, that's how I do it, but with no ill effects. iTunes 9 introduced a 'watched' folder, so you could try throwing your new stuff in there.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2009 03:10

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