Custom Playlist Column Views, Sorta

Here’s something I’m often asked which Correspondent Rob Falk put succinctly: “Is there a way to clone a playlist view…other than the Library [using Assimilate View Options]? I frequently need to create a playlist that has a specific set of columns, that are not the same as the library, and was looking for a way to automate that.”

There sorta kinda is.

My first thought was to use AppleScript to just duplicate an existing playlist that already had the requisite view settings. (The duplicate command is typically used to copy a track from one playlist to another.) Unfortunately, when iTunes’ AppleScript duplicate command is used to copy a playlist it—bafflingly—creates a new untitled and empty playlist using the properties and views of the Music library playlist. Same as just creating a new playlist. That doesn’t seem right, does it? You’d think—well, I thought anyway—that using duplicate to copy a playlist would behave the same as the playlist contextual menu command “Duplicate” (control-click or right-click on the name of the playlist):

So, my next thought was…just use “Duplicate”. The playlist will be perfectly duplicated, column views and all, and selected in the Source list. Now you’ll have a new playlist named the same as the original with a “1″ at the end and which is populated with the original’s tracks (if it had any). You could create a bunch of playlists with columns set the various ways you like and then “Duplicate” them when you required one. Just rename the new duplicated playlist and delete any tracks. And that part can be automated.

The workflow, then, is to “Duplicate” a playlist manually with the contextual menu command and then run this script right afterwards:

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NEW: Make Playlists By Tag

I’m finding it difficult to describe what this script does despite its seeming obviousness.

Make Playlists By Tag will create new playlists based on a particular tag. For example, in the screenshot below “Artist” is selected in the popup:

(You can also choose Album Artist, Album, Composer and their “Sort” siblings, Genre, or Year.) Each artist is listed with a checkbox. When the Proceed button is clicked, each checkmarked entry will be used as the name of a new playlist and every track whose artist tag is that entry will be copied to it. And so on if “Year” or “Album Artist” was selected.

As it happens, “Patti Smith Group” and “Pearl Jam” already exist as playlists so they are distinguished in the list by being colored red. I may not want to re-create these.

I’m not sure if I would use it to create a playlist of every Artist or Album; that may bloat iTunes’ database.

A great companion to this app is Merge-Delete Playlists, which was just updated with some minor fixes.

Thousands of Empty Playlists? Redux

So there’s this glitch with iTunes Match that somehow creates thousands of empty playlists. I posted earlier about this and snippeted a simple script to scratch the empties from your iTunes. Too simple since it appears to get really bogged down trying to examine playlists while iTunes is deleting them. Correspondent Lowell Stewart suggested deleting in batches to give the processing some breathing room, and I’ve incorporated this in an update to Delete Empty Playlists. It’s definetly speedier using Lowell’s suggestion.

If you’ve been affected by an iTunes Match Empty Playlist Glitch then use Delete Empty Playlists v2.0.

Smart Playlist to Gather Upgradeable iTunes Match Tracks

Macworld’s Jason Snell describes in this article how to upgrade tracks with iTunes Match to 256kbps AACs. iTunes Match will allow you to re-download these types of files even if the matched tracks are lesser quality. To gather these lesser-quality matched-tracks together, Jason describes how to create a Smart Playlist with the correct criteria. I’ve created that Smart Playlist and exported it and have included it in a script which, when run, will add that Smart Playlist to your iTunes for you. Here is the direct download link. Just download and double-click the script; make sure iTunes is running. Be sure to read Jason’s article to understand the rest of the details.

Name New Playlist From Selection

I use the “New Playlist from Selection” command a lot to create temporary playlists. Actually, I use the Shift-Command-N shortcut more often than clicking the command in the File menu. But I’m irritated at all the dancing I have to do to name the new “untitled playlist”. It takes my attention away from what I was intending to do with the tracks. So, I rigged the script below to the keyboard shortcut Shift-Command-N—it works, luckily; sometimes assigning a shortcut that iTunes is already using doesn’t override the original command. The script does exactly what “New Playlist from Selection” does except now I can enter the name for the playlist before it’s created.

Here’s the script:
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UPDATED: Assimilate View Options v3.0

Assimilate View Options v3.0 re-creates a selected playlist so its View Options (visible columns) are the same as the main Music library (taking advantage of the fact that new playlists acquire the Music library’s View Options). Works only with regular playlists and Smart playlists.

This latest version works with playlists inside a folder playlist.

Assign it a keyboard shortcut for ease of use.

UPDATED: Merge-Delete Playlists v3.0

Merge-Delete Playlists v3.0 (formerly named “Batch-Delete Playlists”) will allow you to merge the track contents of two or more playlists or delete any number of playlists at once, including Smart, Genius, and folder playlists. The merge feature will prevent the same tracks that may appear in different source playlists from being duplicated and has an option to delete original playlists. The delete feature only deletes the playlist; tracks, of course, remain in the library.
Very handy when assigned a keyboard shortcut.

This latest version is written as a Cocoa-AppleScript applet for OS X 10.6 or better; adds the merge feature.

Create Default Smart Playlist Templates

A problem with Holiday music hanging around your iTunes library all year long is that, without a cautious Smart Playlist strategy, Grandma Got Runover by Mannheim the Christmas Donkey Steamroller can disrupt your tranquility at any time of year. Like pool-side in August. And there is nothing un-cooler than that.

Now it’s unlikely that I would create a regular playlist containing any speck of Holiday music during non-Holiday times of year on purpose. But you gotta watch them Smart Playlists. Thus, for a while, the criteria for every new Smart Playlist I created started with “Genre does not contain Holiday|Xmas|Christmas”.

That’s a pain to have to remember. And to enter for every new Smart Playlist.

However. The script Export Smart Playlist Criteria allowed me to export a Smart Playlist template that has several of my preferred Smart Playlist criteria already entered. These would include “Genre does not contain Holiday|Xmas|Christmas”, “Live Update”, and several other idiosyncratic restrictions and requirements. Now whenever I want to quickly create a new Smart Playlist I import that template XML “starter” and then choose “Edit Smart Playlist” from its contextual menu to add only minor finessing.

Now, whether you care to read on depends on whether you are thinking either:

“Dude, you can just keep a generic Smart Playlist in your sidebar and Duplicate it like whenever.”

(in which case you’re right, you win, like whatever) or:

“But Doug. You could write a script that automatically loads and selects your generic Smart Playlist template file by pressing a shortcut key!” (more…)

NEW: Dumb Down Genius Mix Playlist v1.0

Dumb Down Genius Mix Playlist will copy the tracks of a playing Genius Mix playlist to a new “dumb” (regular) playlist, which, for example, can be copied/sync’d to older iPods that do not accommodate Genius Mixes. You can subsequently copy the contents of additional Genius Mix playlists to the new playlist, refill it, or create more. (Each Genius Mix playlist only references about 70 tracks maximum, which is why you may have several, say, “Rock Mix” playlists.)

Thanks to Correspondent Pedro Espinosa for coming up with the basic work for this clever script.

Updated a Handful

Nothing to do with Snow Leopard–what a relief, eh? I’ve updated seven scripts today:

• Assimilate View Options
• Batch-Delete Playlists
• Block Party!
• Compare Two Playlists
• Export Smart Playlist Criteria
• Move Playlists to Folder
• Selected Playlists To iPod

These seem to be the most popular scripts that are affected by the “none/all” issue introduced in iTunes 8.2. There may be a few others, but I haven’t gotten email feedback on those nor have I run across a problem with any other scripts I use regularly. But if you ever get a error like this:

…then let me know.