Apple Music Profile
YouTube Channel
RSS Feed
Dupin
Join Together
M3Unify
30 Most Recent RSS FeediTunes 10.5.2 Is Available
Apple posted iTunes 10.5.2 today with improvements to iTunes Match (not sure which specific issues have been addressed yet) and a fix for an CD audio distortion issue.
UPDATED: Update Expired Podcasts v2.2 (and launchd project)
iTunes will stop updating a Podcast subscription if you haven't played at least one of its episodes in five days. Update Expired Podcasts v2.2 will go through every Podcast subscription and update it so you don't have to manually update each one individually.
This latest version adds a routine that checks to see if iTunes is running before proceeding with updating the Podcasts. Now, you may be asking yourself: if I'm running the script from the iTunes Script menu then why would the script need to check if iTunes is already running? Because: I'm going to show you how to regularly launch the script automatically and invisibly in the background and you may not want iTunes to run when the script fires. If you're not familiar with launchd then read on.
Thousands of Empty Playlists?
I've been hearing of an iTunes Match glitch that somehow or another creates thousands of empty playlists. Here's a script that will delete every empty playlist:
tell application "iTunes"
set y to (get index of last user playlist)
repeat with i from y to 1 by -1
try
set thisPlaylist to user playlist i
if special kind of thisPlaylist is none then
if not (exists track 1 of thisPlaylist) then
delete thisPlaylist
end if
end if
end try
end repeat
end tell
It may time-out because the number of actions it has to perform is so large. Just run it until the empties are gone.
UPDATED: Restore Artwork from Album Folder v2.1
Restore Artwork from Album Folder v2.1 will look for an image file in the parent folder of each selected track's file—presumably its "Album" folder—and apply the data from that image file as artwork for the track.
This latest version addresses an issue whereby the script stalls when no image file is found and logs folders without image file to Console.
UPDATED: Search-Replace Tag Text v3.0
Search-Replace Tag Text performs a search-and-replace with the text in your choice of tag (Song Name, Show, Artist, Album Artist, Album, Composer, Comments, Genre, or Grouping) in the selected tracks or all the tracks in the selected Playlist.
This latest version is written as a Cocoa-AppleScript applet for OS 10.6 and 10.7 only and features case sensitive and whole word matching, as well as a "dry run" mode that will display a list of what will be changed before you actually commit to the search and replace.
Dupin v2.4 Available
Dupin v2.4 is now available. You can download it from the Dupin page or, if you have an earlier version, click "Check for Update..." in your Dupin's Application menu.
Dupin is the iTunes duplicates manager.
New in version 2.4:
- Can detect if iTunes Match is enabled
- Addresses issue of having to individually acknowledge deletion of each track when iTunes Match is enabled
- Can identify iTunes Match "cloud tracks"
- Adds column header contextual menu to show/hide columns
- Fixes text coloring issue when window not frontmost
- Updates names of columns for parity with modern iTunes
- Other minor enhancements
Dupin v2.4 is a free update for registered users of v2.x.
Dupin Lite v1.1.3 Available at the Mac App Store
Dupin Lite v1.1.3 fixes an issue running Filter on a selection of tracks whereby it would appear that the app had stopped working. (The standard version of Dupin is not affected by this issue.)
Interesting iTunes Dock Pop-Ups
A tip at Mac OS X Hints describes the hidden Dock preferences in Lion that allow Dock pop-ups to display currently playing iTunes track info. Interesting.
iTunes Library Manager and iTunes Match
I have received a handful of disparate reports regarding issues running iTunes Library Manager with iTunes 10.5.1. In short, iTLM will not display backed-up libraries correctly and in one scenario crashes when attempting to Save or Load.
I am currently investigating these issues, no doubt precipitated by changes in iTunes 10.5.1 file management. Under the circumstance, I cannot recommend using iTunes Library Manager if you also intend on using iTunes Match.
Some iTunes Match AppleScripting Notes
Cloud-stored tracks that have not been downloaded to iTunes are seen by AppleScript as class shared track until they are downloaded at which point they morph into class file track. This is similar to how an un-downloaded podcast episode morphs from URL track to file track after downloading it. (I have also occasionally experienced a phenomenon whereby, after downloading a cloud track, AppleScript still treats it as a shared track until I restart iTunes. Not sure why that's happening.) A shared track inherits properties from track and does not have a location (file path) property as does file track. Typically, a shared track is the class of track listed in Home Sharing libraries (or old-style shared libraries).
For the most part, the track properties of a cloud track can be manipulated with AppleScript. This is different from how a Home Shared shared track works, the tags and such of which cannot be changed with AppleScript. Presumably, you are the "owner" of cloud tracks and have permission to edit the tags but you are not the owner of Home Shared tracks since they are on a different machine. My understanding is that changes made to a cloud track's tags locally are not automatically updated on other devices on which they appear. A track on another device would need to be deleted and re-downloaded in order for changes to be seen. [Update: I misspoke. Some data, like played counts and ratings, apparently travel to the cloud automatically.]
