How do I generate a true weekly top 25 list in iTunes?

September 20, 2004 9:19 PM

Itunes Filter: One of the missing features of Itunes is a true weekly top 25 list...[mi]

....but since your library is exportable via either XML or text that can be imported into say Excel, it seems like there is a way to at least keep track of your playing habits.

If I export my library on one date and then one week later export it again and compare the two, just by comparing play counts from first library to the second I should be able to develop a top 25 list.

Since I have almost zero excel skills, how would I go about creating a spreadsheet (s) to handle this task?

posted by szg8 to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Can't you create a Smart Playlist that sorts by most-often-played and played-within-the-week?
posted by Marquis at 9:39 PM on September 20, 2004

1. File > New Smart Playlist
2. Match the following condition:
   • [Play Count] [is greater than] 1 (you could put it higher if you know about how many times your popular songs get played)
   • hit the plus
   • [Last Played] [is in the last] 7 [days]
3. Limit to 25 songs selected by [most often played]
   
4. Live updating.
   
5. OK

posted by Marquis at 9:52 PM on September 20, 2004

Marquis, that'll only have your most-often-played-of-all time that have been played with in the last week.
posted by bitpart at 9:54 PM on September 20, 2004

Oh, yike, you're totally right. Sorry - I was being dumb! (thanks, bitpart)
posted by Marquis at 10:00 PM on September 20, 2004

No problem. I tried the same thing. It took me about a week and a half to realize that it didn't work.

TOTAL THREADJACK: Marquis, I'm sorry to see you go from said the gramophone. All the luck for you in Europe.
posted by bitpart at 10:08 PM on September 20, 2004

(aw, shucks. thank you.)
posted by Marquis at 10:58 PM on September 20, 2004

Well, the easiest thing would be to set up a sheet that has the song title and whatever else you need to know in columns (the export to text file will allow you to open that directly in Excel, then just delete whatever you don't need).

Then you'll want to create an additional play count column so you can have "Play Count Last Week" and "Play Count This Week". Then, set up an additional third column with a formula that subtracts last week's play count from this weeks play coutn ="Cell with Play Count This Week" - "Cell with Play Count Last Week", then sort on that formula column descending, and the highest numbers will float up to the top.

The problem there is that it will be real easy to paste your play count columns in until you additional songs at which point, your columns won't line up anymore and all your math will be out of whack requiring painful manual corrections.

The alternative is to set it up as a pivot table. That's probably the best choice, but it gets a bit more complicated.
posted by willnot at 11:21 PM on September 20, 2004

Response by poster: Computers...supposed to make things easier....

Willnot, an awful lot of manual work......

Since the two library files will be identical except for the playcount, last date played, and any new songs that were added, it shouldn't be so hard to develop some basic functions.....Maybe I should be looking in Access....

All a computer needs to do is compare the two lists, do the math on the playcount and generate a list.

It shouldn't be hard.......and yet it seems so elusive...
posted by szg8 at 8:00 AM on September 21, 2004