AppleScript
TIP: Check Amazon MP3 Against iTunes
A Correspondent asked if it would be possible for the script Search Amazon MP3 to work with tracks from the iTunes Store to be able to comparison shop at Amazon MP3. While the script can't access tracks directly in the iTunes Store, you can drag preview tracks from the Store into an iTunes playlist and run the script on them there.
NEW: Album Rating Reset
Album Rating Reset will allow you to set the Album Rating for the album of the selected track to with full- and half-star ratings, or reset the Album Rating to its computed "clear-star" default rating. Requires iTunes 7.4.
iTunes 7.4 Released
iTunes 7.4 was released last night but I didn't get to it til this morning. New stuff! Album Ratings! My Good Friend Kirk McElhearn has observations on this new feature. I'm still looking into other AppleScript additions, but quite noticably there are three new track properties: album rating, album rating kind, and rating kind. The "kind" properties are read-only, but you can set album rating just like rating. I'll be posting a page of my findings later today.
DVD Housekeeping
Visitors who have been paying close attention to the latest AppleScripts posted here may have noticed a lot of DVD stuff going up. Well, I recently acquired a new DVD burner, a Sony DRX830UL/T. My Lacie d2 refused to burn any more DVDs. So far far, so good with the Sony. Anyway, I've been backing up all my TV Shows to data DVDs and naturally want to make the process as easy as possible:
- Go to the TV Shows playlist library and go into Browse mode. Select a Show and a Season.
- Make sure the tracks are sorted by Episode Number then Select All.
- Run the script Divvy Up For DVDs to create DVD-sized playlists using the selected tracks.
- Choose one of the new DVD-sized playlists and run the script Make Video PDF Booklet. This will create a PDF booklet with various info about each track and then add the PDF to the playlist.
- Burn the playlist (tracks and PDF) as a data DVD in iTunes. (Optionally, print the PDF to insert in the DVD case later. Paper...bah!)
- Have some sesame rice crackers and hummus. They're a great snack.
- When the DVD is cooked and mounted in iTunes, select it and run either CD Label of Selected Playlist (which uses AppleWorks) or Pages CD Label of Selected Playlist (which uses Pages) to create a sticky label for the DVD disc. (Sharpie...bah!)
- Optionally, return to the original playlist and use Print to make a DVD cover.
- Repeat for each DVD-sized playlist.
Then I smash the shows to make room for the upcoming new season's shows. We're big Season Pass users at my house.
NEW: Make Video PDF Booklet v1.0
Make Video PDF Booklet will create a PDF booklet containing video-oriented tag info from the selected tracks (or every track from the selected playlist) and then add the PDF to iTunes and copy it to the playlist where the selected tracks reside. Here is an example PDF Booklet made with the script. (Also see Make PDF Booklet).
NEW: Divvy Up For DVDs v1.0
Divvy Up For DVDs will create DVD-sized (no greater than aproximately 4.37GB) playlists using the selected tracks or playlist of tracks. Each created playlist is numbered sequentially, for example, "My Name Is Earl, Season 2 - Disc 1", "My Name Is Earl, Season 2 - Disc 2", and so on.
NEW: Pages CD Label of Selected Playlist
I downloaded the iWork Trial and have been playing around with Pages. I've never bothered before and I wanted to see the word processing in action. I think I'll be buying it. Anyway, I came up with Pages CD Label of Selected Playlist, which is an update to the AppleWorks version . It assists in constructing printable CD Labels (the sticky circular kind) in Pages using exported track data from the selected iTunes playlist. Requires included Pages Template and uses Avery 5692/8692 labels. Read Me explains more. I've only tested it in Pages 3.0.
UPDATED: Search SlothRadio for Artwork v1.1
Search SlothRadio for Artwork v1.1 uses the Artist and Album name of the selected or currently playing track in iTunes to initiate a search for corresponding cover artwork using SlothRadio's Cover Finder. They recently changed their web page format and so the script has been updated. Thanks to Correspondent Jostein Sletvold for the info.
NEW: Track Names With Incremented Number v1.0
Probably misnamed, but coming up with a more descriptive title for Track Names With Incremented Number would have been a job. This script sets the Name of the selected tracks (or every track of a selected playlist) to a user-configured string using tag variables for the current name [name], track number [tn], episode number [en], episode ID [ep] and position in the selection order [#]. For example, a string such as "Desperate Housewives - Season 3/[en] - Episode [ep] - [name]" would render "Desperate Housewives - Season 3/5 - Episode 305 - Nice She Ain't", and so on. While it's great for TV Shows it could also prove handy for audiobook chapters and the like.
iTunes 7.3.2 - Capacity and Free Space Bug Fixed
iTunes 7.3.2 fixes the problem with capacity and free space for source. When getting these values for an iPod source the correct values are returned.