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30 Most Recent RSS FeedSnow Leopard
UPDATED: Export Artwork v2.0
Export Artwork saves the artwork of the single selected track to a user-chosen folder as a PNG or JPG file, with scaling options. Default location is the folder containing the selected track's file, however any location can be selected.
This latest version fixes a problem creating the graphics file with iTunes 9 under Snow Leopard, and is generally updated after two years.
Dupin v2.1 Released
Dupin v2.1 is now available.
Dupin is your iTunes duplicates manager.
With Dupin you can:
- Very quickly find all sets of duplicate iTunes tracks based on your choice of criteria
- Select the "Keeper" tracks from among a number of duplicates automatically using a variety of versatile filtering options
- Consolidate the play, skip, and ratings information from all tracks in a Dupe Group to the single "Keeper" track
- Re-populate iTunes playlists replacing "non-Keeper" tracks with "Keeper" tracks
- Purge duplicate tracks from iTunes and send files to the Trash
- Manage intentionally duplicated tracks
- Copy tracks to new iTunes playlists
- View duplicates in non-loaded libraries created with iTunes' multiple library feature or iTunes Library Manager
- View duplicates in iTunes libraries on other machines on your local network
- Sort tracks and view track info
- Export a list of duplicates to a text file
- Locate tracks in the Finder and in iTunes
- Audition tracks
New in Dupin v2.1:
- runs under Snow Leopard or better only
- adds aproximate time matching for Time Criteria (settable to :01 ≤ n ≤ :10 seconds)
- adds File Path column to main table
- made task additions to contextual menus
- some warning dialogs now have suppression/reset options
- "Search" configurable with categories, re-located to toolbar
- other minor GUI improvements and alterations
- speed enhancements
- addresses toolbar customization issue
- addresses threading issue
- addresses memory leak issue
More information and download links are here.
NEW: Music Folder Files Not Added v2.0
Well, depending on your point of view, perhaps this is an update. Music Folder Files Not Added v2.0 is a Snow Leopard-only application (MFFNA v1.1 is still posted and will run on Tiger and Leopard) that will list the file paths of the files in your designated "iTunes Music" folder which are not in iTunes' library. Additionally, you can select a different parent folder and its contents will be compared to the iTunes library. You can then Add a selection of found files to iTunes or move them to the Trash.
This version was developed with Xcode using the new AppleScriptObjC framework and as such will only run on Snow Leopard.
Rosetta Redux
As you may know: to run AppleScripts that were compiled on a PowerPC machine on Intel machines (and therefore Snow Leopard) requires Rosetta—an optional install on your SL install disc. While Rosetta is a fairly small install, some people have expressed an interest in staying Rosetta-free. There are quite a few of these types of AppleScripts here on the site and I'm working on updating them to Universal Binary (although a good percentage of these in the Retro Scripts category probably won't be updated by virtue of being obsolete). Long-time visitors may also have some of these scripts in their collections.
While you could wait for me to update these kinds of scripts to UB—disclosure: one of these days I will get around to admitting that I am a notorious procrastinator—you can update these scripts yourself by doing what I would do: open the script in AppleScript Editor, noting whether it is a compiled Script (.scpt) or an Application (.app), and re-save it. It will be re-compiled for your machine type, and if it is an Intel machine, will run without Rosetta. The "Run Only" and "Startup Screen" checkboxes can be left unchecked. Script Applications that use idle handlers need to be checked "Stay Open".
During the Save, if AppleScript Editor informs you that the "Document Format is Read Only: This script application is in a format that is no longer supported...", the case for non-bundled applications compiled pre-SL, just click the "Save As" button, and proceed with the save. In Snow Leopard, single-file-type apps are no longer supported. The defacto Application type is a bundle.
The AppleScript Release Note: 10.6 Changes page at Apple has more on this.
Visitors' Operating Systems
I've been keeping an eye on Google Analytics to track the operating systems of visitors to help me determine who I should be writing AppleScripts for. Looking at August 28 (SL's debut) thru September 20 (about 90k visits):
- Intel 10.6 - 44.38%
- Intel 10.5 - 43.91%
- PPC 10.5 - 4.0%
- Intel 10.4 - 3.04%
- PPC 10.4 - 2.84%
To put a finer point on it, here are the stats for the week September 13 thru September 20 (about 25k visits):
- Intel 10.6 - 52.24%
- Intel 10.5 - 36.54%
- PPC 10.5 - 3.83%
- PPC 10.4 - 2.90%
- Intel 10.4 - 2.72%
I think I can pretty much drop explicit support for Tiger and PPCs. Snow Leopard adoption appears to be somewhat brisk, which is fine by me because I've been writing stuff on two machines running Leopard and Snow Leopard respectively and it's making my brain hurt.
Join Together Needs QTP7 in Snow Leopard
Several users have emailed about this: If you have upgraded to Snow Leopard and are using Join Together you will need to install QuickTime Player 7. And be sure to get the latest version of Join Together.
QuickTime Player 7 is in "Optional Installs" on your Leopard Install disc. Open this folder, run "Optional Installs.mkpg", and make sure "QuickTime Player 7" is checked.
After installing QTP7 (or if it is already installed), you can find it in /Applications/Utilities/. Activate it and run it long enough for it to establish a full launch, and then quit it. This will be enough activity for its preferences file to be created, which Join Together needs to locate.
Change in Folder Actions
The "on files added" Folder Actions handler in 10.6 now waits for a file to finish "arriving" before being called. Earlier versions would call the handler as soon as the a new file hit the folder. But if the file was very large the handler might fail because the file hadn't completely arrived in the folder. Now, under 10.6, if the file-being-added stays the same size for more than three seconds, it is deemed "done", and the action is called.
The workaround suggested in this Folder Actions and iTunes tip is no longer necessary in Snow Leopard.
Target QuickTime Player by application id
If you've got a script that needs to target QuickTime Player in Snow Leopard you probably really want to target "QuickTime Player 7". Otherwise, if you target "QuickTime Player" the QuickTime Player X app will run and it doesn't have the AppleScript Goodness like QTP7. However, if the script also has to run in Leopard, you have to target "QuickTime Player"--without the "7". But you don't need to write two scripts.
In OS 10.5 and later you can target an app by its application id. I remember seeing that in the AppleScript Release Notes for 10.5 thinking "Hmm. Now how can I use that" and never really thought of anything. Until I needed to access QTP in both 10.5 and 10.6.
This tell block:
tell application id "com.apple.quicktimeplayer" -- do something in QuickTime Player end tell
...will target "QuickTime Player" in OS 10.5 and "QuickTime Player 7" in OS 10.6. The application id is the same for each, so it makes no difference what their names are. And the AppleScript architecture is virtually the same in both operating systems. (Remember that "QuickTime Player 7" is an optional install either during installation or from the "Optional Installs" folder on your installation disc.)
"QuickTime Player X" is a drastically different version of the player app and scripts written for QTP7 will not play well with it. However, it is scriptable to a modest extent. Its application id is "com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX" in case you need to target QTPX specifically.
Snow Leopard's QuickTime Player Duality
Speaking of Optional Installs, to get the AppleScript goodness of QuickTime Player you may have been used to, QuickTime Player 7 will need to be installed from Snow Leopard's Optional Installs. QuickTime Player 10.0 is the default install in /Applications/, but its AppleScript innards are radically different (some would say severely lacking) from previous versions. So for legacy purposes, you'll need QTP7. If you currently have QuickTime Pro, QTP7 is installed automatically in /Applications/Utilities/. Otherwise, it's an optional install.
More on Rosetta Optional Install
Macworld's Jason Snell has written up a great review of Snow Leopard. With Regard to the Rosetta installation I mentioned earlier he opines: "I can only assume that making Rosetta optional is an attempt by Apple to goad users to upgrade their apps and to shame developers who still haven’t recompiled their apps to run on Intel chips. But given that most everyday users have no idea which of their apps are Intel-native and which are PowerPC, this seems unnecessarily harsh."
