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30 Most Recent RSS FeediTunes 9.1 - Books
Following Kirk's tip, I downloaded a version of P.G. Wodehouse's "Right Ho, Jeeves" from Gutenberg, added it to iTunes, and did some 'script to it.
It behaves like a track in that it has most of the same properties, can be copied to playlists, and so on. The track kind of a track-that-is-a book is "Book", at least my Wodehouse book's is "Book". Properties that don't apply to "bookness", such as start and finish, time, and so on, return zero or null values. Still, some operations you would perform on a music track will error when you run them on a book track, eg: setting the lyrics property.
Books can have artwork. And—perhaps obviously—Books can't be copied to an iPod/iPhone.
More as it develops.
[UPDATE: the kind of a book track may actually vary depending on the, uh, kind of book. That is, if iTunes "knows" it's a book from iBooks, then the kind may be "Purchased iBook" for all I know.]
iTunes 9.1 - Books folder
Kirk confirms a Books folder in the iTunes Media folder. He explains how he actually got an ePub book into his library.
iTunes 9.1 - more special kind changes
Speaking of special kind kinds: you will find "Genius", "iTunes U", and "Library" added and "Videos" removed. Wondering about "Library", I did a
tell application "iTunes" to get every playlist whose special kind is library
...and came up with {}, so perhaps this is--surprisingly--Book related. Interesting how I entered "Library" and AppleScript Editor changed it to "library".
"Videos" used to refer to music videos which are part of the "Music" library.
I have received emails (already) pointing out that the "Applications" library has been renamed to "Apps". I would have mentioned it, but since that library playlist is not 'scriptable, well, it's not really in my purview.
More as it develops.
iTunes 9.1 Released with Changes
Apple has released iTunes 9.1 just in time for your iPad's arrival on Saturday.
Looks like AppleScript Application Bundles are still not displaying in the iTunes Script menu. I'm wondering now if this is permanent. (They still display in the system-wide Script Menu when placed in (or aliased to) your ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/iTunes/ folder.)
The "Audiobooks" master library is now "Books" and its special kind is changed from Audiobooks to Books. AppleScripts that use the old Audiobooks special kind will need to be updated to use Books in iTunes 9.1 and better. However, it looks like your audiobook files will remain in a "Audiobooks" folder for those of us using iTunes Media organization. Presumably, eBooks will go in a separate folder--"Books"? "eBooks"? "iBooks"? Our first eBook download for the iPad and eventual iTunes sync will tell the tale.
So far, this is the only change I've seen. More as it develops
[UPDATE: After a re-start, AppleScript app bundles were back in the Script menu!]
UPDATED: Most Played Artists v2.0
I had to update Most Played Artists to v2.0. This is a script that generates a text file listing the total combined play count of tracks by each unique artist in your library, originally written by Michael Henley back in 2006. Apparently, as pointed out by Correspondent Juston R., it wasn't working so hot with Database Events. I also made some other minor fixes. Good to go!
Join Together v6.0 Released
Join Together v6.0 is now available. This release is for machines running Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard or better only. If you are running Mac OS 10.4.11 or 10.5.8 then you do not need—nor will you be able to use—this update.
Join Together automates the process of joining the files of selected iTunes tracks together with QuickTime and exporting them as a single AAC Music or Audiobook file/track. Optionally, you can then create a "chapterized" audio file of the exported AAC file with pointers to the individually joined tracks.
Updated in Join Together v6.0:
- Improved compatibility with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
- Addressed checkbox toggle issue
- Minor performance enhancements
- minor GUI changes
More information and links to download are on the Join Together v6.0 page.
Updated Spareparts Section
A Correspondent via the AppleScript Users email list detected a problem with a script snippet of mine regarding grabbing the artwork data from an iTunes track with iTunes 9 and Snow Leopard. That very day I also had updated Export Artwork with a fix for a similar issue. At any rate, the snippet resides in the Spare Parts section and, to be more exact, the updated snippet with the fix is here.
Migrate Your iTunes From Windows to Mac
I frequently get asked if there is an easy way to move an iTunes library (files, playlists, ratings, and all) from a Windows machine to a Mac. My friend Kirk McElhearn has written it all down in this how-to at Macworld.
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.
Nine Years
Before I forget: February 15 is, apparently, the ninth anniversary of this site. As Regulars may know, the site began as a repository for AppleScripts written for SoundJam. (In fact, I still have SoundJam on my old iMac Rev B running OS 9 quite serviceably--if you think of that sort of thing as serviceable.) By February 15, 2001, Apple had released iTunes, but it wasn't 'scriptable until iTunes 2—as it was called—was released November 3, 2001. For a while I was posting both SoundJam and iTunes scripts. At the time no one was aware that SJ was doomed.
Anyway, thanks for all the visits and good words over the years. It's still a lot of fun.
