hi. oddly enough i restarted and the problem fixed itself. very strange.
On Aug 15, 2008, at 10:29 PM, Esther wrote:
Hi Matthew,
If using the sort command (VO-keys-Shift-backslash) when you are in
the column for "Release Date" under the Songs Outline for your
Podcasts library doesn't re-order your podcasts so that the latest
episode is either at the top or the bottom of the list (depending on
whether you've sorted in ascending or descending order), then I'm
stumped. You mentioned that this just started happening, and that
it affects your unplayed podcasts. Most libraries selected in your
source list can be sorted on any viewable column in the songs
outline. In the case of podcasts, where the folder structure is
part of the library organization, and where it is assumed that
organization should be maintained and that some fields, like the
description of episode contents, is secondary information, your
ability to sort is restricted to a few columns like the release
date. Is this happening with all of your podcast subscriptions or
just one? And in the case of the podcast that is affected, is this
behavior only showing up so that new episodes are out of order with
respect to the older ones? It's possible that the behavior changed
in a new release of iTunes which doesn't allow you to sort on the
release date column, although I can't imagine why this would be a
feature. If the problem only occurs in your account, this kind of
odd behavior in an application (where some setting that you normally
can change suddenly can't be changed and is left in an odd setting)
can be due to a corrupted preference file (probably one with a name
like com.apple.iTunes.plist in this case).
If you want a work-around, you could create a smart playlist for
your podcast subscription and sort that. Use Command-Option-N to
create a new smart playlist and assign the rule:
Album contains <name of your podcast>
Then you should be able to sort on any viewable columns in your
smart playlist -- by name if the name starts with Episode 34: etc.,
by date added to the library if you have that option checked under
View options (Command-J to bring up the menu) or by Album in the
case of podcasts like Blind Cool Tech, which assigns each episode a
"track number" -- now above a thousand -- in chronological order.
The smart playlist will continue to update and follow the sort order
you choose, so you could access that problem podcast series by
choosing your smart playlist in the iTunes source list instead of
using your general podcast library.
In detail, to create a smart playlist for this subscription:
1. Command-Option-N to create a new smart playlist
2. A window will open with the announcement "New Smart Playlist;
Smart Playlist Dialog". VO-keys-Right Arrow past "Match the
following rule" to the rules section.
3. Interact with the rules section (VO-keys-Down Arrow). You'll be
positioned at the first pop-up button, which will be set to "Artist".
4. Change the pop-up button to "Album". (VO-keys-Space to press the
button, then type the first letter "A" to select "Album", and press
Return. You can also navigate with the up and down arrow keys.)
5. VO-keys-Right Arrow past the "contains" popup button. At the text
field type in the name of your podcast subscription. (This can
either be any part of the name or the full name -- whatever you want
to match, but if you start typing the full name iTunes will tell you
the first album that matches what you type. I only need to type the
first three letters "S C R" of the Screenless Switchers podcast to
get a match to that podcast in my library. When I hear iTunes has
the right album, I can press the right arrow key to accept the rest
of the name and stop typing.).
6. Since we only need one rule, you could have simply pressed return
when you heard the match you your album to get out of the dialog.
However, to take a look at the other setting options, VO-keys-Right
Arrow to the button for adding and removing rules. To add another
rule, you would press the "Add" button (VO-keys-Space) at the end of
the first rule. Then you would select another keyword on the pop-up
button (which would be left at your last selection) for your next
rule. Again, you can do this using VO-Space to press the pop-up
button and arrow keys or initial letters to choose your selection.
Rules can also be deleted by pressing the "Remove" button at the end
of each rule.
7. To get out of the rules section stop interacting (VO-keys-Shift-
Up Arrow).
8. Save your smart playlist by pressing "return" (or you can VO-
right to the "OK" button). There are other options to manage the
length or size of the playlist (by restricting the number of items,
total size, total time, etc.) that we don't use here. However, note
that the box for "Live Updating" is checked by default. That means
that the content of the playlist will continuously update according
to the rules you've given. You don't need to edit the playlist if
you add or delete podcast episodes from this subscription -- it will
always contain ALL the episodes.
9. You'll be prompted to enter a name for the playlist. VO-right to
the text field and type in a name, or carriage return to accept the
suggested default.
10. To examine the smart playlist, which is now selected in the
source list, tab to the "Songs Outline".
11. If you want, add a new column from the view menu, like "Date
Added to Library" (Command-J to get the View Options menu, navigate
through and check or uncheck any options you want, then carriage
return when you're done).
12. VO-right to the column you want to sort on (e.g. "Date Added to
Library") and sort with VO-backslash applied either once or twice,
depending on whether you want ascending or descending sort. Note
that "Release Date" is not one of the View options for the playlist.
This is all I could think of as a work-around. I still don't
understand the source of your problem, unless it's a corrupted
preference file.
One advantage of the playlist is that you can play podcasts
sequentially from a playlist -- if you play from the "Songs Outline"
iTune will stop playing at the end of each podcast episode. (In
general, the next podcast could be on a completely unrelated topic
or even from a different subscription folder, so the default
behavior is to stop after each podcast.)
HTH
Cheers,
Esther
On Aug 12, 2008, at 3:07 AM, Matthew Elliff wrote:
the columns are the same in leopard, but this command as far as i
know did nothing. i did it several times in this folder in the
songs loutline, but it didn't change anything.
On Aug 12, 2008, at 2:09 AM, Esther wrote:
Hi Matthew,
hi. where do i do this? on a podcast episode itself? in the
folder itself? i tried in the folder itself and episode 34 of
this particular is still showing first instead of the later
episodes which are now in the 40s.
VO-keys right arrow in the songs outline for your podcasts to
whatever column displays the release date. In Tiger you can find
out the column header in iTunes by using VO-keys-Shift-C, but I
understand that in Leopard this keyboard sequence has a completely
different result, and I think people have said that the headers
get announced as you move. In my version of iTunes, the podcast
songlist columns are: (1) status (played or unplayed), (2) name,
(3) time, (4) release date, (5) description, etc. Just VO-keys
right arrow until you are in the column you want to sort -- it
doesn't matter whether you are in the folder level or the episode
level. You can also customize what information you want displayed
from any playlist or library by going to the View menu on the
iTunes menu bar and selecting View Options (shortcut Command-J).
So you could check the box for "Date Added to Library", for
example, and sort on that displayed column. I'm assuming that you
want the order in which episodes are released from the podcast
feed. In my version of iTunes on Tiger I would VO-keys right
arrow to the folder in the second column of the Songs Outline of
my Podcast library, interact and expand the folder for my
subscription, then VO-keys right arrow to the fourth column in the
Songs Outline and do a VO-keys-Shift-backslash. If I found, as
you did, that the episodes are ordered: 34, 35, 36, etc. up
through 46 for example, and I wanted the episodes to show up in
descending order, I would issue a second VO-keys-Shift-
backslash. That would give me the episodes with 46 first, then
45, 44, etc. down to 34. You should also be able to check this as
you VO-down in this column -- the release dates should go to
earlier times as you move down the column, and if you VO-left to
the second column for the name of the episode you should get the
earlier episodes appearing first.
The only time that this would NOT work is if the Episode numbers
did not match the release date order. That happens some time, if
the podcast producer made a mistake, and failed to release an
episode in order.
If your version of iTunes on Leopard does not behave this way, or
if you have different column information so that these
instructions don't work for you, let us know.
Esther
On Aug 11, 2008, at 10:17 PM, Esther wrote:
Hi Matthew,
this has just started happening. don't know why. all of a
sudden when i expand a folder for a podcast in itunes, instead
of the podcast being at the top, it's somewhere at the top or
near the bottom.
This sounds as though your podcasts got reordered because
they're sorted by some random column in your songs outline. VO-
keys right arrow to the column for the release date and use VO-
keys-Shift-backslash to your episodes by release date. Check
the order when the folder is expanded. You might need to do a
second VO-keys-Shift-backslash on the same column to reverse the
sort order to match what you want (e.g. most recent episode at
the bottom of the list or most recent episode at the top of the
list).
You might have issued a sort command (VO-keys-Shift-backslash)
on the podcast episodes column inadvertently by pressing the
Shift key when you meant to expand the folder (with VO-keys-
backslash). If the folder was already open, that would have
sorted the episodes alphabetically (or reverse alphabetically)
according to the episode name.
HTH
Cheers,
Esther
