iTunes and shared libraries

May 14, 2007 10:30 PM

iTunes: is there any way of making it look at "Shared" music by default?

So, my iTunes library is stored on a network drive on a Linux SMB server. This works fine for iTunes on my desktop machine, an old eMac - the network drive is set to automount, and iTunes is happy. I fiddled with daapd (an iTunes server; basically the unix equivalent to checking "share my library on my local network" in iTunes) yonks ago, but it was a bit limited then.

Fast-forward to a few days ago, when my shiny new MacBook turned up. After setting up the wireless network, I investigated daapd again. The latest incarnation (Firefly Media Server) works well enough for my laptoppy purposes, and I've got it set up and working.

The only remaining problem/annoyance is that iTunes on the MacBook defaults to opening the (empty) local library at startup. I have no desire to copy my library over to the laptop, nor to automount that network drive (as it won't always be available). Is it possible to have iTunes default to browsing a shared library instead?

(To illustrate: when I start iTunes I want to see this, not this.)

posted by Pinback to Computers & Internet (1 answer total)

The initial view appears to be hard-coded into iTunes. However, if there's an audio CD mounted, the view will almost immediately change to that. So you may want to look for some way to mount a DAAP server as an audio CD.
posted by scottreynen at 2:55 PM on June 24, 2007