Hi Lou, Good to see you on the list. Yes, I was writing up this suggestion for Mark about using a smart playlist with these rules. I'll just add some comments to your post, and also point mark to the archived list post on "Introduction to Smart Playlists in iTunes" for a detailed explanation of how smart playlists work:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg01294.html Comments will be interleaved with your post: BlindMacMan wrote: > > Hello! > > Here is how I solved this problem: > > 1. Create a Smart Playlist (with Live Updating turned on) called > "Reading" with 2 rules: > - Album is book title > - Play count is 0. > > 2. Create a Smart Playlist (with Live Updating turned on) called "Done > Reading" with 2 rules: > - Album is book title > - Play count is not 0. > > Now, go to the first item in the "Reading" play list and listen to it. > When it is finished, the item will be removed from the top of the > "Reading" play list and automatically be placed at the end of the > "Done Reading" play list. But, best of all, the top item in the > "Reading" play list will begin playing without even skipping a beat. > Esther: We're assuming that your tracks appear in the "audiobooks" playlist and that each track automatically "bookmarks". If not, first select all your audiobook tracks (in the music playlist) and use "Get Info" (Command-I) to edit the Options tab. Change the pop up button for "Media Kind" from music to "Audiobook", then check the boxes for "Remember playback position" and "Skip when shuffling". Your tracks will move from the music playlist to the audibooks playlist in the source table in iTunes, and on your iPod; your last played position will be bookmarked, and these tracks will be skipped when you "shuffle play" your music. Just play your books from the playlist. Select your smart playlist in the sources table and press Enter. If you use an iPod, select the smart playlist from the playlist menu and start playing. If you want to reset your play count to listen to the book again, there's a contextual menu option to "Reset Play Count", so in the songs table just select all tracks of your book with Command-A, VO- Shift-M to bring up the menu, and select "Reset Play Count" to set play count to 0. I usually name my smart playlists by book, because I may read more than one audiobook at a time. > If I remember correctly, all items must be "checked" in order for the > next item to begin playing automatically. > Esther: This isn't necessary. "Checking" an item only affects the smart playlist if you check the option to "Match only checked items" in the smart playlist. This is useful if you sometimes want to exclude items but keep them on the smart playlist (e.g. you have a "Party music" playlist, but you don't want your Christmas music tracks to play). The only place where unchecking tracks in the songs table affects behavior is when you import or burn a CD -- then only checked tracks get ripped or written to CD. > Hope this helps. > > Lou. > Esther: If you want to join tracks and add chapter markers, you might be interested in a commercial third party software solution called Audiobook Burner ($9.95) from Splasm software: http://www.splasm.com/audiobookbuilder/ If you want to check the play order of your tracks, navigate to the songs table (VO-J will jump you between sources table selected playlist and songs table listing of its tracks) and interact. Sorting on the Album column (by navigating with VO-Right arrow to this column and then pressing VO-Shift-Backslash -- where Backslash is the rightmost key below the Delete key and above the Enter key on an English language keyboard) should correctly order tracks even in multi- disc audiobooks. (VoiceOver users who are not using English input keyboards can press VO-H twice to select these commands -- functions such as "Sort" will be listed in the Commands menu window. The shortcut key combination may be different for your keyboard.) Arrow down the tracks to verify the sort order. The most likely source of ordering errors is due to entering a slightly different album name for different discs -- like having "Lord of the Rings" for one CD and "The Lord of the Rings" for another. I usually enter/edit my own information on ripping CDs, since for multi-disc audiobooks the default information supplied by the cddb can vary, but the easiest way to spot this kind of error is by using the iTunes file browser (Command-B to toggle on or off), and checking whether you have more than one album title for the same author (composer). If you do, it's easy to correct entries by selecting the author in the file browser and typing the common terms for the album name in the search text field (Command-Option F to go there directly). Then, navigate to the songs table and select all (Command-A). "Get Info" (Command-I), and type in the album name. All tracks will now correctly share the same album name. HTH Cheers, Esther > > On Aug 31, 4:07 pm, Mark BurningHawk Baxter <[email protected]> > wrote: >> I've got an audio book I'm playing with Itunes. It's split up, >> annoyingly, into 266 five and six-minute segments. I'm at about the >> halfway point, and it's a pain in the bum to hit down arrow to scroll >> through the songs table every time I want to resume after quitting >> Itunes. Other than deleting the already-listened-to portions, is >> there a way to bookmark my position? The only thing I can think to >> do >> is, by hand, take ten or so sections and assign them different "album >> names," thus making the book into bigger chunks, but even that's a >> pain in the aforementioned bum. Ideas? >> Thanks! :) >> >> Mark BurningHawk Baxter >> >> Skype and Twitter: BurningHawk1969 >> MSN: [email protected] >> My home page:http://MarkBurningHawk.net/ > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
