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Retired, Not Euthanized
I got several fretful emails regarding yesterday's post about the retirement of several scripts which iTunes 8 has rendered unnecessary. Of particular concern was the appearance of Make Bookmarkable on the list. This is somewhat typical:
"Just a quick note to vote for preserving Make Bookmarkable. Although the ability to change the Media Kind to Audiobook in iTunes 8 has been added to preferences, it is NOT possible to change the Media Kind of podcasts -- despite the fact that the majority of podcasts are MP3s. I listen to dozens of podcasts and most of them are spoken word audio. Many benefit from the ability to speed them up. Until Apple allows for regular MP3s to be sped up I will continue to use Make-Bookmarkable."
Additionally, changing the Media Kind of a track does not change its file's file type, so changing an MP3's Media Kind to "Audiobook" does not make the MP3 an AAC. It just allows it to be listed in the Audiobooks library playlist (by some hidden mechanism; AppleScript cannot emulate it). So, in consideration of the cases where one actually wants to change the file type with Make Bookmarkable, I suppose it will remain un-retired and updated when necessary.
As for the other scripts on the list, they will still be available on the site, just out to pasture in the Retro Scripts section.
Retiring Some AppleScripts
Here is a list of AppleScripts which have been rendered "Old-And-In-The-Way" by virtue of new features in iTunes 8, particularly the new multi-edit features:
- Batch Set Tracks Sorting Tags
- Make Video Tags
- Set Video Kind of Selected
- Make Bookmarkable
- Make UN-Bookmarkable
- Selected Tracks Bookmarkable
- Set Selected Tracks Shuffle
- Enter Description Text for Selected
- Enter Long Description Text for Selected
I will most likely move these to the Retro Scripts category once I positively determine that their utility is superfluous with iTunes 8.
iTunes 8 and Genius Incompatibilities
As I hinted at yesterday Genius playlists are a new "species" of playlist. Several scripts are affected by their inability to correctly distinguish Genius playlists from other playlist types. I will be working on fixes for them in the coming days. I think, in fact, that you can pretty much attribute any failings of AppleScripts that did work before iTunes 8 to the appearance of one or more Genius playlists. You may want to verify this by shutting Genius off and trying the errant script again. While some AppleScript behaviors have been updated/fixed in iTunes 8, I have not (yet) noticed any new AppleScript features that would otherwise cause scripts to error.
UPDATED: Quick Convert v2.8
Quick Convert will convert all or just the selected tracks of the selected Playlist using your choice of available iTunes encoders, restoring your Preferences-set encoder afterwards. Works with importing selected CD tracks, too.
Additionally, you can:
- copy all converted/imported tracks to a new playlist
- choose to remove and/or delete the original tracks and/or files
- if you have selected the AAC encoder you can choose to make the tracks "bookmarkable" and re-add the converted files to the Audiobooks library
Latest version is compatible with iTunes 7.7.1 and accounts for DOS-formatted drives during M4B conversion.
UPDATED: New iPod Playlist From Selection v3.2
New iPod Playlist From Selection will copy selected iTunes tracks, or the tracks of a selected iTunes playlist, to a new user-named iPod playlist.
Latest version fixes a problem with a benign "Apple Event timed out" error that would appear.
UPDATE: Selected Tags to Lyrics v1.1
Primarily for iPhone and iPod touch users, Selected Tags to Lyrics will copy any combination of Name, Artist, Album, Grouping, Composer, BPM, Comment, (Long) Description, Year and/or Bit Rate tags to the Lyrics tag of the selected tracks, such that this info will be available with a tap when the track is playing. Can append to or replace current Lyrics info.
Latest version accounts for description and long description, preferring the latter, and adds "year" and "bit rate" as options
Some iPod-Related Updates
Correspondents had been recently reporting a common problem with several scripts that copy files to iPod where files would not be completely copied before their originals were removed; thus only a few tracks would get copied. I've fixed the issue (and I do not know for sure if it was caused by an iTunes problem or a Doug problem) and the scripts have been updated and posted.
UPDATE: New iPod Playlist From Selection v3.1
New iPod Playlist From Selection copies selected iTunes tracks, or the tracks of a selected iTunes playlist, to a new user-named iPod playlist. Works only with iPods set to "Manually manage music and videos", and very handily when assigned an iTunes Scripts Menu Shortcut. I use Control-Command-N.
This latest version fixes an issue with intermittent copying
UPDATED: Lossless to AAC Workflow v2.1
Lossless to AAC Workflow is a set of two scripts which assist with importing/managing Apple Lossless audio files and sending converted AAC copies to a mounted iPod set to "manually manage songs and videos".
Lossless to AAC Workflow (CD->iPod):
- Imports each enabled CD track as an Apple Lossless file
- Makes a converted AAC copy of each imported Lossless file
- Adds the AAC file to iPod, deleting the original AAC from iTunes.
Lossless to AAC Workflow (iTunes->iPod):
- Makes a converted AAC copy of each Lossless track selected in iTunes
- Adds the AAC file to iPod, deleting the original AAC from iTunes.
In this way you can keep archived Lossless files on your hard drive, and manageable AAC files on your iPod.
This latest version fixes an issue with intermittent copying.
UPDATED: Rip to iPod v2.1
Rip To iPod v2.1 will import each enabled (checkmarked) CD track to iTunes and immediately copy it to iPod, removing the track from the iTunes library and deleting the original file, thus giving the appearance of seamless CD-to-iPod importing. You can also change your encoder on-the-fly and your Preferences-set encoder will be restored after the rip. Requires that iPod be set to "Manually manage music and videos". iPods set to sync are ignored.
This latest version fixes an issue with intermittent copying.
