Hi Jane, On Dec 07, 2007, at 04:29PM, Jane Jordan wrote: >Thank you! I just got all of _The Lord of the Rings_ into the Audio >Books playlist. At least, I think that's what it's called. I have >finally managed to fix them all, too. They have the same author and >all that, now. Hopefully they will be in better order than they were >when I first got them moved. > >Fascinating. > >Jane
Excellent! Now you can put all your audiobook files into a smart playlist. This is just a playlist created by a series of rules, similar to what you may have used for Mail or for some of your Automator actions. In iTunes, create a new smart playlist with Command-Option-N (or choose "New Smart Playlist" from the File menu on the iTunes menu bar). For Smart Playlists you can either match any of the rules, or match all of the rule. Check the box for "Match all" Set up two rules: Album: contains; Lord of the Rings and Playcount: is: 0 Use VO-keys right arrow and set the arguments for each rule. Start by selecting "Album" on the first popup button, VO-keys right arrow to the next popup button and select "contains" then VO-keys right arrow to the text field and type in the name of your Album, e.g. "Lord of the Rings" At the end of each rule VO-keys right arrow takes you to buttons for "hyphen" (or minus) and "plus". Clicking the "plus" button lets you add another rule. Clicking the "hyphen" (minus) button lets you delete the current rule, if there are two or more rules in the list. VO-keys right arrow to the popup button on the second rule and select "Playcount", VO-keys right arrow and set the next popup button to "Is" then type in "0" in the text field. Once you're done entering rules, carriage return (or VO-keys right arrow to the Cancel button to quit without creating a playlist). You will be at the new smart playlist in the Sources Outline, and you can enter a name for it. Tab over to the Songs Outline to examine the contents. Here's the really neat thing about the smart playlist you just created: By default, a box for "Live updating" is checked, so if you play from the smart playlist, as you finish listening to each section of your audiobook, the playcount advances, and the tracks you've listened to drop off the playlist. You're always positioned at the "current" track, and because bookmarking is turned on, you always know where you left off. Even better, if you move the smart playlist over to an iPod, the iPod dynamically updates the contents of smart playlists so that it "knows" that your play count has increased above 0 -- or any other criteria you supply, like when you last listened to the file -- without having to reconnect with iTunes on your computer. So when you play your audiobook from a smart playlist on your iPod, the sections you've listened to will also drop off the top of your playlist, so that you'll always have the current track at the top of your smart playlist, and your last played position will always be remembered. Of course, if you need to find those tracks again, because you want to replay them, or because you fell asleep <grin>, you can navigate back to the menu by Artist (Author) and Album (Book) and find the complete set of tracks. Using smart playlists is also really good for managing audiobooks that are in MANY mp3 audio tracks. In those cases, you can turn on bookmarking by checking the "Remember Position" box following the detailed instructions in the archive post from March 2007: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40macvisionaries.com/msg13067.html (Subject was: renaming files so iTunes Will Not Reshuffle the Order) If you want to reset the playcount of any tracks to 0, select them in the Songs Outline of iTunes, and use the contextual menu (VO-keys+Shift+M) and select "Reset Playcount". Your Smart Playlist should organize your tracks to play in the correct order, since you imported your books from CD and used the default importing settings ("Create file names with track number" checked on the importing tab of the iTunes Advanced Menu Preferences). If in doubt, put the playlist in the Sources Outline, tab to the Songs Outline, interact and VO-keys right arrow to the Album column, then use VO-keys+Shift+Backslash to sort on that column as described in the archive post given above. If you are transferring the Smart Playlist to an iPod, and want to make sure the latest sort order is applied, tab back to the Smart Playlist in the Sources Outline and use the contextual menu to select "Copy to Play Order" and the Smart Playlist will transfer with the ordering shown in the Songs Outline even if it was ordered differently before you performed your "sort". If you want to take exact control of the order of your Smart Playlist, you could construct a regular playlist track by adding tracks in your preferred order, then make a rule like: Playlist: is: <name of your playlist> instead of selecting tracks by album name. This is all very cool. Have fun with this. Cheers, Esther >On Dec 7, 2007, at 8:05 PM, Esther wrote: > >> Hi Jane, >> >>> I thoguht that having .aac files set to remember position when last >>> played was what bookmarking is? Though I think you may have answered >>> my question as to how to get my .aac files into the Audio Books >>> library. >>> >>> Hmmmmm >>> >>> >>> Jane >>> >> >> You're right, of course, but back in the Dark (Inaccessible) Ages >> (smile) of >> iTunes, only Audiobooks "bookmarked" so that your last played position >> was remembered, and playback resumed from there. This predates >> podcasts. So since bookmarking was the distinguishing feature of >> audiobooks, the AppleScript to put aac files in the Audiobooks library >> in iTunes was named "Make Bookmarkable". >> >> >> Cheers, >> >> Esther >> > > > >
