Hi Scott, If you changed the individual album names in the Metallica Collection, those are the names you will see when you use the file browser in iTunes. In default mode the file browser displays three categories: genre, artist, and album. Any one of those tag entries can be changed or edited in your Get Info window. You can also create new genres -- if for some reason you wanted to have a genre named "Metallica" and assign it to all these albums, you could do it. However, if you're asking if there is some way to have all the albums appear at one with a single selection in the file browser, then the only way to do it would be to create an artist, album, or genre key that is unique to this entire set of music. Before you made the change to album name by individual disc, all this music shared a single album name of "Metallica Collection". So, by selecting the album "Metallica Collection" under the album column of the file browser you would select all 16 discs worth of music. Now, all the music appears in the browser's album column with the names of the individual album discs, like "Kill 'Em All" (for disc 1), etc. So they all show up in the file browser, but not as a single entry. If you were willing to assign a unique genre class like "Metallica Collection" to all these tracks, you could select that as a single item under the genre column and get all the tracks in this collection.
I'm not sure that I understand the intent behind your question. After you rename each individual disc by album they will all appear in the file browser -- but under their individual names. If you want some easy way of making them all appear grouped together under the albums column you could always add a prefix like "MC:" or "MC01:", "MC02:", etc. to the individual album names. If you want a quick way to select all the tracks in the collection at once based on making a single selection in the file browser, then I would make grouping one of the viewable columns under your Music playlist (check it under the Command- J View Options menu), then select "Metallica" under Artist. Then I would navigate to the search text field (Command-Option-F for the direct shortcut) and type in "Metallica Collection" and tab back to the songs table, It will now contain every track in the Metallic Collection without your having to do any strange renaming of genre to "Metallica Collection", etc. and you will still be able to access each album by individual album name in your iTunes Library and on your iPod. This is assuming that the grouping field now reads "Metallica Collection" for all these entries. You can also use entries in the comment field to add text to search and sort on your tracks. (This is how we had to do it when there was more limited accessibility for iTunes). It's actually fairly simple to select and change all these tag entries in a block. If you don't want to change what was originally in the grouping field (i.e., the individual album titles), you can use the comment field. You can also use smart playlists for this kind of intermediate editing and selection. For instance, even if you no longer have "Metallica Collection" anywhere in any of your tags under Get Info, you can create a smart playlist with rules like: <Artist> <is> <Metallica> and <Date Added> <is after><4/14/09> or whatever works to uniquely define these entries. Then tab to the songs table, select all with Command-A, do Get Info (Command-I), and on the Info tab VO-Down Arrow to the Comments field or Grouping Field or whatever you want to use and type in "Metallica Collection" to set/ change all your tag entries for that field to this value in one step. And you can delete the smart playlist afterwards, since it was only used as intermediate step for editing. If the words "Metallica Collection" are in some viewable field, you don't even need to create the smart playlist intermediate step; you can just select these using the Search Text Field. If you need to review the basics of smart playlist, check the mail archive post for this from two weeks ago: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg01294.html (Introduction to Smart Playlists in iTunes) Cheers, Esther On Apr 15, 2009, at 1:40 PM, Scott Rutkowski wrote: > Hi again Esther. > > Thanks for your valuable info. > I've done what you have selected and renamed the metallica > collection to each individual album as you suggested. I'm wondering > when I look up metallica in the browser, should I now be seeing all > the album names or not? > > Just wondered if there was a way of now that each album is named > accordingly, can all the albums appear in the file browser or not? > > Thanks again. > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Esther > To: [email protected] > Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2009 7:13 AM > Subject: Re: Query about iTunes album's and groupings > > Hi Scott, > > Yes, it's probably easiest to make playlists of the individual > albums. There's nothing to stop your simply renaming the the main > album from "Metallica Collection" to the individual album names > associated with the tracks for each disc, you know. Instead of > copying the grouping tag to the smart play list name, just select > all songs in the play list songs table (Command-A), open Get Info > (Command-I), and on the Info tab, just tab over to the Album field > and paste in the name of the album. That seems much easier to me. > You don't even need to use a smart playlist, if you know the names > of the individual albums. Use the file browser (Command-B) and > select the album (Metallica Collection). Then, go to the target > search field with the (Command-Option-F) shortcut and type in the > name of the indvidual albums (like "Kill 'Em All"). When you tab > back to the songs table and select all (Command-A) on the Info tab > you should find "Kill 'Em All" for the Grouping entry. If so, just > copy it, VO-Up Arrow once to the Album field, paste with Command-V, > and return. That will re-name that grouping of tracks to the Album > indicated in the grouping field. Just work your way through the > rest of the album. If the Grouping entry is blank, that means one > of the entries has a different tag, and you want to check before > doing your paste -- you could have a song which matches your search > text, but which is in a different album. > > I'd bet that iTunes put all entries into a single "album" because of > the way their album purchasing model works. Nothing to keep you > from reorganizing things. Then you could also access your music > from the album menu on the Nano 4G. If you'd rather use the smart > playlist solution, you can use those playlists to start selecting > your tracks with Command-A and then rename the album in the Get Info > menu. > > Cheers, > > Esther > > > On Apr 15, 2009, at 10:48 AM, Scott Rutkowski wrote: > >> Hi Esther. >> >> NO you can't collapse or expand the albums like it was displayed in >> the iTunes store. >> I think the easiest way so far is to create a playlist and just >> copy the songs from each album in to the playlist because to play >> an album from start to end just to select that album in the >> collection to play the album seems to me to be a lot of work. Also >> if I just copy the collection to the ipod nano 4g, I would need a >> smart playlist just to play an individual album wouldn't I seen's >> there's no easy way to select an album on the ipod. >> >> Is this correct? >> >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: Esther >> To: [email protected] >> Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2009 3:55 AM >> Subject: Re: Query about iTunes album's and groupings >> >> Hi Scott, >> >> You asked: >>> Can anyone please advise how I can do the following in iTunes? >>> OK the deal is I have a box set the metallica collection I just >>> purchased. >>> Now alll the albums in the box set are all named the metallica >>> collection then under this title all the albums are grouped in to >>> groupings and all the tracks for each album are part of the box set. >>> My query is if i use the browser to look up metallica then look up >>> the album then under the grouping column I can see all the albums >>> listed. I want to sort all the albums in to their own playlists by >>> using the grouping column. Is this possible and if so how is it >>> done? >>> >>> At first when I looked up metallica in the browser i thought i >>> would be able to sort by albums but no it shows up as the >>> metallica collection and each album is grouped in their own >>> grouping. >> An easy way to make playlists of indvidual albums in your Metallica >> collection would be to use a smart playlist and select by disc >> number, since each disc in the collection is a separate album with >> a different name under grouping. So for example. using rules >> like: <Album> <is> <Metallica Collection> and <Disc number> >> <is> <1> you would get the grouping named "Kill 'Em All", which is >> the first album in the 16-disc collection you purchased from the >> iTunes Store. If you used the file browser in iTunes to select the >> album ("Metallica Collection") and view the results in the songs >> table, you'll get all 16 albums in the collection. These appear in >> album order if you've sorted on the album column, but the >> individual album names in the collection appear under the grouping >> keyword, and tracks from all 16 discs appear in the song table. >> >> To rename the playlists to the album named under "grouping" after >> you've made up each smart playlist, copy this from the Get Info >> menu of one of your tracks and then paste this into your playlist >> name: >> >> 1. Select any of the songs, Command-I to bring up Get Info menu; >> VO-I and select the "Info" tab in item chooser menu, return, and VO- >> Space; next VO-I and select "Grouping", arrow down to find the text >> entry, return, then Command-C to copy the grouping entry; Escape to >> close the get info menu. >> 2. Tab back to the sources table where the playlist is selected. >> Double-click with VO-Shift-Space (hold down the Control, Option and >> Shift Keys while tapping the space bar twice). Command-V to paste >> in the Grouping (album) name (e.g. "Kill 'Em All"). >> >> HTH >> >> Cheers, >> >> Esther >> >> P.S. I tried looking at the iTunes Store entry for this album. For >> any of the tracks you start playing (e.g., by pressing return on >> your selecting in the songs table) you can do a Command-I and query >> the tagging information. This is how I could tell there are 16 >> discs in the collection. On the iTunes Store entries I could also >> expand or collapse the individual album listings in this collection >> (much like you can do with podcast folders). Does it work this way >> for your purchased tracks, too, when you select the album? >> >> >> >> > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
