iTunes Question

August 16, 2005 10:27 AM

When I'm looking at a song in my iTunes library is there a way to tell which of my playlists it appears on? I can't seem to find a way, or an answer on Google. (4.0.1 if it matters.)
posted by OmieWise to media & arts (9 comments total)

Right click (or control click) the song, and in the menu there's an item called Playlists, which give you that info.
posted by cillit bang at 10:30 AM on August 16, 2005

< Three minutes. Thanks cillit bang. AskMe rocks.
posted by OmieWise at 10:37 AM on August 16, 2005

That is cool, I wish I had my powerbook with me today to try this out. I've got the same trouble OmieWise has, I think. Too many songlists that are too similar.
posted by fenriq at 11:04 AM on August 16, 2005

Also, why haven't you updated iTunes?
posted by Plutor at 11:45 AM on August 16, 2005

piggybacking on this question (since it's been answered), is there a good way to do this for a bunch of selected songs at once? I actually wrote an applescript to do this, which I could paste if anyone wants, but I was hoping for something more elegant (and fast - my script is quite slow on a large library).
posted by advil at 12:30 PM on August 16, 2005

advil-I'd love to see the script.

Plutor-2 reasons, general laziness and also the feeling that every successive iteration of iTunes contains some new DRM screw from Apple. I could be wrong about that, but I'm also still running 10.2.8, so this version works just fine.
posted by OmieWise at 12:40 PM on August 16, 2005

advil-I'd love to see the script

I might as well, but be warned, this isn't pretty. I was basically figuring out applescript at the same time as writing this. It also uses some application called "progressbarmetal" which is a simple progress bar I presumably got off the web, but google isn't turning up where I got it anymore. I put those lines in "try" blocks, so it should work without this, but the reason I added them in the first place is b/c the script is so damn slow you need some indication of what it's doing. As I said, I'd rather have something better.

On preview: If mefi supported the <font> tag this would be all pretty, but alas, it does not.

tell application "iTunes"
    if selection is not {} then
        set sel to a reference to selection
        set len to (count items of sel)
        set t to "Results:
"
        set alllists to every user playlist of container of container of item 1 of sel
        set tlist to {}
        set idlist to {}
        repeat with i from 1 to len
            set end of tlist to ("Playlists for \"" & (get name of item i of sel) & "\":
")
            set end of idlist to (get database ID of item i of sel)
        end repeat
        try
            tell application "progressbarmetal"
                setwindowtitle ("checking playlists")
                setprogressvalue (1)
                set position of window "checking playlists" to {100, 100}
            end tell
        end try
        set max to length of alllists
        set lc to 1
        repeat with pl in alllists
            set plname to (get name of pl)
            try
                tell application "progressbarmetal"
                    setwindowtitle ("checking " & plname)
                    setprogressvalue ((lc * 100) / max)
                end tell
            end try
            
            
            set c to 1
            repeat with s_id in idlist
                if ((not smart of pl) and (exists (some track of pl whose database ID is s_id))) then
                    set item c of tlist to ((get item c of tlist) & " " & plname & "
")
                end if
                set c to c + 1
            end repeat
            set lc to lc + 1
        end repeat
        tell application "TextEdit"
            activate
            make new document at front -- (tlist as string) at front
            set text of document 1 to (tlist as string)
        end tell
    end if
end tell

posted by advil at 2:22 PM on August 16, 2005

aaah, so that's what Applescript looks like.

PS. font tags are evil/wrong anyway. If you want to post source code try using the <code> tag.
posted by bruceyeah at 5:33 PM on August 16, 2005

font tags are evil/wrong anyway.

While I don't disagree, mefi doesn't seem to allow inline styles either, and the applescript colorizer I have will work without one of these (I'm not even sure it supports css at all). Also:


a non-indented line inside a <code> block
an indented line inside a <code> block


The pre tag won't work either as mefi inserts gratuitous linebreaks after every line, making it doublespaced (and ugly).
posted by advil at 6:48 PM on August 16, 2005