iLounge on iTunes 8
iLounge has an excellent overview of the new features in iTunes 8. Particularly good details on the Genius features.
Genius Playlists and AppleScript
As far as AppleScript is concerned, iTunes 8's Genius playlists are user playlists with a special kind of none and a smart value of true, and therefore they are indistinguishable from Smart playlists. I don't know if eventually there will be a special kind value of "Genius", but for now distinguishing a Genius playlist from Smart playlists will not be easy.
iTunes 8 Loses Prefs Control for Genre Browser
Switch off the iTunes 8 Genre browser via a defaults write command in Terminal.
iTunes 8
Apple released iTunes 8 today at the "Let's Rock" event.
Happily, the "whose clause" bug from v7.7.1 has been fixed: a filter using an implied plural ("every" or a range) will return a list and one that implies singularity ("first", "last", "some") returns a bare item. As it should be.
More as it develops.
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.
