Apple Music Profile
YouTube Channel
RSS Feed
Play Play
Murph
Yer Stack
Block Party Weekend
30 Most Recent RSS FeedBlanking the Genre Tag in iTunes 12
Kirk has found a bug in iTunes 12 whereby selecting a batch of tracks and deleting their Genre tag via the Get Info panel inserts 8 spaces instead of empty text into each track's Genre tag. This creates a Blank Genre that is actually displayed and selectable in Genre lists.
This AppleScript will correctly delete the Genre tag of each track in a selection:
tell application "iTunes"
set sel to selection
repeat with thisTrack in sel
tell thisTrack to set its genre to ""
end repeat
end tell
Also, any number of other scripts that can edit the Genre tag, like Multi-Item Edit, will get the job done.
MacVoices Podcast
Chuck Joiner invited me to join him on his MacVoices podcast. We talk about iTunes and AppleScript (of course) and obsessive-compulsive music organization, among other topics.
Dupin v2.8.4 Released
Over the weekend, I released a version of Dupin that was basically a simple maintenance release. However, it was then brought to my attention that a bug had been in existence since v2.8.2 which errantly moved files to the Trash when using Dupin to remove tracks from a playlist. This isn't an often-used feature—most users just want to delete the tracks and Trash the files from the entire library—but you can imagine the problem this would cause when the last thing you expected while just removing tracks from a playlist is to find that the files had been Trashed as well.
I have fixed that issue in version v2.8.4 of Dupin.
UPDATED: Sundry Info to Comments v4.0
iTunes knows some stuff about your tracks but won't let you see it other than via the Get Info panel because there are no columns in the browser window to accommodate it. We can fix that.
Sundry Info To Comments v4.0 can copy your single choice of filename, file path (location), file's parent folder path, file creation date (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS), current playlist, volume adjustment, start time or stop time (HH:MM.SS), artwork size (WxH), purchaser name or purchaser account ID to choice of Category, Comments, Description or Episode ID tag of each selected track. By putting data in one of these available tags it can be visible and sortable or used with Smart Playlist criteria.
Setting up to copy the Apple ID to the Episode ID tag of the track selection.
This latest version adds the track's start time, stop time and artwork size as info to apply; adds the Episode ID tag as a potential target tag; adds user-enterable separator-text field when appending to extant tag text; now stays active and frontmost until Quit; has minor compatibility adjustments for OS X 10.10.
Sundry Info To Comments is for OS X 10.8 and later and is free to use full-featured for ten day, $1.99 thereafter. More info and download is here.
NEW: Size of Artwork
I've been on a roll lately with the Managing Artwork scripts, eh?
The latest is Size of Artwork, which simply displays the size of the artwork of a selectd track:
For OS X 10.9 or later. This script is way more convenient to use when you assign it a keyboard shortcut.
UPDATED: Multi-Item Edit v3.0
Multi-Item Edit v3.0 will display the selected track(s)'s tags in a single window for viewing or editing. When working with two or more tracks, the common tags of the selected tracks are initially displayed; when a single track is selected then it displays all tags for that track.
This latest version, first and foremost, will recognize a single selected track. And because it now also stays active and floating above iTunes until quit (no longer quitting after applying changes), you can cursor through tracks in a playlist to view or edit them individually.
I also added auto-complete to the Genre field, added Close and Miniaturize control buttons to the window, improved accessibility tabbing between text and option fields, improved the UI logic between Plays/Skips and Last Played/Last Skipped fields, and made other minor tweaks.
Multi-Item Edit v3.0 is a free update for registered users, free to try full-featured for ten days, $1.99 to purchase. OS X 10.8 or later.
NEW: Tracks Without Embedded Artwork
MP3, AAC and ALAC audio files have the capability to store artwork as image data as metadata internally. In this way, artwork can "travel" with the file. But it's not always easy to tell if an audio file actually contains this metadata. For example, even though a track entry may have assigned artwork (which you can see in iTunes), its corresponding file may not include that artwork as metadata.
Tracks Without Embedded Artwork will examine the files of the selected iTunes tracks (or tracks in the selected playlist) for artwork metadata. Eligible audio tracks whose files do not contain artwork metadata will be copied to a new discrete playlist.
Once these tracks have been corraled, you can use other applets to embed their artwork to their files.
Tracks Without Embedded Artwork is free to try full-featured for ten days, $1.99 to purchase. More information and download is here.
UPDATED: Re-Apply Downsized Artwork v3.0
Re-Apply Downsized Artwork v3.0 will examine the first artwork of each selected iTunes track (or tracks in the selected playlist) and if greater than a user-set resolution (n x n pixels) will downscale the image to that resolution. Artwork already at the set resolution or smaller will not be affected.
This latest version has substantial UI and feature additions: cycle through each selected track; displays track and artwork information; preview the artwork at the selected resolution; pad the image to make square; can insert as track's first artwork to preserve current artwork(s) instead of replacing the first artwork; apply settings to all selected tracks or just the current displayed track; view image at actual pixel dimensions or proportionally sized to the re-sized window; export the displayed image as a file.
Re-Apply Downsized Artwork is $1.99 and free to try full-featured for ten days. OS X 10.8 or later only. More information and download is here.
Son of Latest Batch of Updates
Like last week, I hadn't gotten around to posting individual blurbs on all the updated stuff from this week (November 9-14). So, briefly:
Drop to Add and Give Info v3.0 - drop files onto this droplet and it will supply a Get Info-type interface to add basic tags to the tracks once they're added to iTunes. Better Yosemite support.
PDF Adder v5.0 - applet/droplet and PDF Service enable you to supply some basic tags to PDFs added to iTunes, the latter is a PDF Service workflow accessible from any app's Print Dialog. Yosemite support, minor tweaks.
Make PDF Booklet v3.0 - assists with creating lists of track data exported as a text-only PDF. Support for Yosemite.
This Tag That Tag v4.2 - copy, swap and append data between tags of selected tracks. Fixed a progress indicator that wouldn't indicate progress. I hate when that happens.
Delete Selected Files v2.1 - removes selected tracks and can move their files to the Trash or delete them immediately. Fixes a problem when canceling and progress would not cancel.
Drop to Add and Make Playlists v3.0- drop folders of media files onto this droplet and it will add the files to iTunes and create playlists for the tracks based on the names of the folders. Adds better support for Yosemite.
All HD and SD to Playlists v2.0 - creates two playlists containing, respectively, all the SD video tracks and all the HD video tracks in the library. Mostly just a maintenance update since last update in 2009.
Make An EQ Preset Script v3.0 - creates a new AppleScript applet using data from the selected EQ Preset. When that applet is launched it will re-create the EQ Preset in any iTunes (on a Mac). Handy way to archive EQ Presets. This is a major maintenance update, added better options in the applet for renaming.
Subscribe to the 30 Most Recent Scripts RSS or my Twitter feed @dougscripts to stay updated on script releases.
M3Unify v1.1.1
The latest version of M3Unify v1.1.1 fixes a few bugs working with protected files and a couple of other minor issues.
M3Unify is a flexible M3U playlist creator and file exporter that will allow you to load a USB thumb drive or SD card with copies of your iTunes songs the way you and your audio player want. It can archive M3U playlists and audio files to a folder, volume or portable media and includes options to create Artist/Album sub-folders, rename files, convert to AAC, and more.
