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30 Most Recent RSS FeedPlaylist Description in iTunes 12.7
I really like that you can add a description to playlists. In iTunes 12.7, now that "Edit Playlist" is gone, it's even less obvious how to do this than previously. In iTunes 12.7, make sure a playlist is in Playlist View (rather than Songs View or Album View, and so on). Right-click anywhere in the header of the playlist. In the contextual menu, select "Add Description" or "Edit Description".
AppleScript has been able to access the description of a playlist since iTunes 12.4 and it doesn't care what the current View is. Of course, the description only displays in Playlist View.
tell application "iTunes"
set thePlaylist to (get view of front browser window)
if thePlaylist's special kind is not in {none} then return
-- add folder to list if/when it becomes possible
try
set currentText to (get thePlaylist's description)
if currentText is missing value then set currentText to ""
on error
return
end try
try
set newDescription to text returned of ¬
(display dialog "Enter description:" default answer currentText ¬
with title (get thePlaylist's name))
tell thePlaylist to set description to newDescription
on error
return
end try
end tell
Open this in Script Editor by clicking the little script icon. Save it named whatever you like as a Script (.scpt) in your ~/Library/iTunes/Scripts/ folder so that it will be listed in the iTunes Script menu. It's a great candidate for a keyboard shortcut.
Unfortunately, while you can manually edit the description for a Playlist Folder, AppleScript hasn't caught up. I'm hopeful this will be added to a future version.
iTunes 12.7 Is Available
Apple has released a new version of iTunes that makes some significant changes. "The new iTunes focuses on music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, and audiobooks," says the support page. And as a result, it no longer manages your iOS apps or Ringtones. iTunes U content has been moved to Podcasts and Internet Radio can be made available in the Sidebar. There are also accommodations for some new social features coming in iOS 11.
I suspect you'll be hearing (or making) some complaints about the iOS apps and Ringtones changes.
TrackSift 2 Updated
Over the weekend, Apple approved and posted my update to TrackSIft 2. This latest version fixes a problem some users were seeing with the "Tracks Without Lyrics" tool that prevented the tool from recognizing accessible tracks. I've gotten several reports from users that this is successfully patched.
You can get more information about TrackSift 2 on this page and download it from the Mac App Store.
iTunes U Moving to Podcasts
Apple has announced that iTunes U content will soon be moved to Podcasts. When that happens, iTunes U content will only be available through the iOS Podcasts app or the Podcasts section of iTunes. In iTunes, the iTunes U section will disappear.
What. You were expecting an iTunes U app?
Find Tracks with Multiple Artworks
This will corral all the tracks in the Music library that have more than one assigned artwork to a new playlist (whose name you supply; any existing playlist(s) with that name will be deleted beforehand):
tell application "iTunes"
try
set newPlaylistName to text returned of (display dialog ¬
"Enter a name for the playlist:" default answer "Multi-artwork tracks")
on error
return
end try
try
delete (every playlist whose name is newPlaylistName)
end try
set newPlaylist to (make new playlist with properties {name:newPlaylistName})
set musicLibrary to (get some playlist whose special kind is Music)
repeat with i from 1 to (index of last track of musicLibrary)
try
set aTrack to track i of musicLibrary
if (count of artworks of aTrack) > 1 then
try
duplicate aTrack to newPlaylist
end try
end if
end try
end repeat
display dialog "Done" buttons {"OK"} default button 1
end tell
Open this in Script Editor by clicking the little script icon. Save it named whatever you like as a Script Bundle in your ~/Library/iTunes/Scripts/ folder so that it will be listed in the iTunes Script menu. Launch the script and enter a name for the playlist; the default is "Multi-artwork tracks"; press OK.
Rolling Out Updates for High Sierra
Apple will be announcing new hardware and software at a September 12 Event. Most of the attention, of course, is on the sparkly mobile-oriented stuff. Those of us anchored to iMacs and Macbooks will hopefully hear a sentence or two about macOS 10.13 High Sierra which I reckon will be released in late September (Sierra was released on September 20, 2016 after a September 7 Event).
I've already started releasing updates to scripts and I'll be releasing more regularly over the next few weeks. There are only minimal obligatory changes and accommodations to make. Most current scripts should run OK in High Sierra. But there are some optimizations I can take advantage of in macOS 10.13, thus the updates.
This is probably a good place to note once again that a clean install of macOS 10.12 and later may not create a "iTunes" folder in the user Library directory. Scripts installed in ~/Library/iTunes/Scripts/ will appear in the iTunes Script menu; you may have to create the intermediate folders yourself.
To stay apprised of updates—if you haven't already—subscribe to me on Twitter, @dougscripts, or on Facebook. Bookmark the 30 Most Recent page. Or subscribe to my Most Recent RSS feed (if you still believe in RSS).
Dropbox Dropping Support for Older OSs Soon
I just got an email from Dropbox letting me know that as of November 3, new installations of Dropbox will be no longer be possible on macOS 10.6 (Snow Leopard), 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion) and Windows Vista. Then, on January 17, 2018, support for these OSs will be discontinued entirely. There is more here at Dropbox's site.
I know some iTunes users like to store their libraries in Dropbox (which I don't think is a great idea, but there it is) so if you've got media files on an older machine using Dropbox you may want to move that stuff out of there.
UPDATED: Proper English Title Capitalization v3.6
Proper English Title Capitalization has been updated, primarily to provide compatibility with High Sierra. But I also added a Dry Run Log window to pre-flight the changes before actually affecting the tracks' tags in iTunes.
Until now, I had logged this stuff to Console.app. Blech.
I also had a look at a problem with capitalizing words if they followed a colon (:). I think most conditions are covered. Essentially, if a word follows a colon, it's capitalized no matter what.
Proper English Title Capitalization is free to use with a donate nag and thanks for your support! More information and download is on this page.
UPDATED: Dupin v2.12.0
I've posted Dupin v2.12.0 which has initial accommodations for macOS 10.13 High Sierra.
Dupin is the iTunes Duplicates Manager.
In addition to the macOS 10.13 considerations and obligatory performance enhancements, I've added a "Reset to All Keepers" button to the Filter Controls. I don't know what took so long on that. There is also a new "Local files" option added to the "Always Keep this Kind" popup.
The View menu now allows you to select to view only Dupe Groups that contain dead or cloud or local file tracks.
The Library Profile utility in the Help menu has also received some improvements.
Dupin v2.12.0 is free to try in Demo Mode during which it will only operate on twenty Dupe Groups at a time with one "Purge" operation allowed per launch for up to eight launches. A registration code to remove the Demo Mode restrictions is $15.00. This update is free if you purchased your current registration code within the last five years. Out-of-date registrations can be updated for $5.00 by downloading and launching the latest version and making an in-app purchase.
More information, links to the FAQ page, quick-start video and download is available from this page. Current users can hit "Check for Update..." in Dupin's menu.
Visitors' macOS Percentages
Every so often I like to post a Google Analytics graphic of visitors' macOS breakouts. This is from today and covers the last 30 days:
