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30 Most Recent RSS FeedNew track Property
New in iTunes 8.1, the track object has a new release date property.
iTunes 8.1 Released
Apple Released iTunes 8.1 today (v8.0.2 was the previous version). Among the new features are its ability to handle larger libraries more speedily, iTunes Plus (256kbps AAC) importing via CD, and Genius playlists that will scour for video media.
I know of at least one AppleScript enhancement. A track's played date and skipped date properties can now be wiped by setting either to 0 (zero) or missing value. Before, you could never set these properties to anything but a date. While you could set played count and skipped count to 0, the only way to fudge the played or skipped date was to give it a date in the past, like date "January 1, 1970". Now, you can do this:
tell application "iTunes" set sel to selection repeat with aTrack in sel tell aTrack set played date to missing value set played count to 0 -- and/or set skipped date to missing value set skipped count to 0 end tell end repeat end tell
I'll have a look for any other changes.
Gizmodo Mench
Thanks to John Herrman at Gizmodo for the nice mention in his Dealzmodo Hack: Making iTunes Work For You article. Lot's of good stuff in there.
NEW: Lyrics via LyricWiki
Lyrics Via LyricWiki will use the name and artist of the selected or playing track as the basis for a SOAP query to LyricWiki.org; fruitful results will be displayed so you can choose to apply the lyrics to the particular track.
If I had a dollar for all the Correspondents who sent me the AppleScript SOAP call used in this script, I could take a week off. Well, maybe take a long weekend. Information on LyricWiki's SOAP webservice is here.
UPDATED: No Lyrics to Playlist v2.0
No Lyrics to Playlist has been updated to version 2.0. It will search a selected playlist for all tracks in the selected playlist that do not contain lyrics and copy them to a playlist it will create called "No Lyrics". Includes a second script to clear the "No Lyrics" playlist of tracks with lyrics.
This set of scripts was written by Herwin Lans and originally posted about four years ago. Because of changes in iTunes, it required updating and, particularly, the "Clear No Lyrics Playlist" script needed an over-haul.
NEW: Purchase Date to Comments
Purchase Date to Comments will copy the purchased date--if available--of the selected tracks to the comment tag of each. You can choose either UTC format ("2008-12-27") or localized Short date format ("12/27/08"). UTC dates will be placed at the beginning of any existing comment text to allow tracks to be sorted by comment. Short dates will be placed after any existing comment text. (In either case, Smart Playlists could be created using "Comment contains 2008-12" or "Comment starts with 2008-12".)
NYT Tech Talk Mench
This site, Super Remove Dead Tracks, and iTunes Library Manager get a nice mention in the January 15th NY Times Tech Talk podcast. Thanks!
Jason Snell Tries Not to Gag
I think Macworld's Jason Snell did a great level-headed job responding to some pretty whacked-out questions in this Advertising Age interview with Simon Dumenco (who has all the misinformed media memes about Apple down pat).
NEW: Change Hidden iTunes Preferences
Change Hidden iTunes Preferences is an application that will let you invoke some so-called "hidden" iTunes preferences: Show "Library" playlist, Show genre while browsing, Allow half-stars in ratings, Show arrow links -- to either search the iTunes Store or search your library, Load complete iTunes Store preview before playing, Play songs while importing or converting, and Create file names with track number. Some of these preferences, as some users may recognize, used to be available in iTunes' Preferences. Others, like the "Library" and half-stars prefs, have recently been discovered. This is for use with iTunes 8 or better only.
The download disk image contains the actual application (which is not an AppleScript) and an AppleScript to launch the app from your iTunes Script menu. Make sure you copy both of them off the .dmg.
Daypart Released
Daypart is a simple yet full-featured application that allows you to schedule iTunes playlists when to play, giving you an easy way to program varied musical content throughout the week in your home or workplace.
Program your iTunes music when you want, the way you want.
Smart Playlists, Playlist Folders, and Genius Playlists provide some degree of musical variety in iTunes, but you still have to manually select, start, and stop each playlist one at a time whenever you want to switch from one to another. Daypart does all that for you and lets you program every day of the week with different playlists at different times. You can have Daypart play your Party Shuffle playlist in the morning, Most Recently Added around lunch, dance music in the afternoon, Classical for dinner, and audiobooks in the evening. And on the following day schedule something completely different. Plus, you can create more than one schedule to accommodate your many listening habits.
With Daypart you can:
- Schedule playlists flexibly, for just a few minutes or several hours
- Schedule intricate configurations of playlists on a weekly basis
- Segue between playlists without cutting off songs
- Automatically shuffle and/or repeat playlists
- Store and re-use frequently used scheduling criteria
- See how playlists are scheduled over a period of days
- Automatically load and engage a schedule at startup
Plus, Daypart features:
- Uncluttered, easy-to-use interface
- Scheduling tips
- Scheduling conflict-awareness
- Customizable windows positioning
- Ample keyboard shortcuts
- Detailed Help book
More information, link to video demonstration, and download is here.
