kituneswin: iTunes Smart Playlists

Summary:

Smart playlists are playlists in iTunes that are made by selecting certain criteria in the Smart Playlist dialog.

This can be brought up either by holding Shift and hitting the Add Playlist button in the left corner. This is the button that usually looks like a plus sign ➕, but when holding shift becomes a gear sign (*), or hitting 'create new smart playlist' in the File or iTunes menu.

The options are rather simple. For a quick idea, right-click the preset 'Recently Added' playlist. The options are just 'songs added' 'in the last' '2 weeks.'

Limitations:

When making a Smart Playlist in iTunes, your options are somewhat limited. A Smart playlist takes a number of descriptors/criteria like Genre, Playcount, Ratings, etc. From these, it can either create a playlist of songs/files that includes ALL of these criteria or ANY of these criteria.

However, if you would like to make a playlist that includes, for example, all Rock that is five stars with all Pop that is three stars, one smart playlist would not be able to accomplish this. You'd get one of the two following playlists:

* A playlist that was either Rock or Pop or five stars or three stars which would include way too much music.
* You'd get one that would try to find songs that are Rock and Pop and five stars and three stars. A song that is both three stars and five stars does not exist.

So, to remedy this problem, you can make three smart playlists. Make one for 5-star rock, and another for 3-star Pop. Make the final smart playlist to include the other two "sub playlists."

Updating:

iTunes Smart Playlists support Live Updating, so that as soon as a song fits (for example, is added in the last two weeks) it'll be added to the playlist.

iPods don't officially support this, but some models and/or firmware will 'live update.'


For advanced ideas, check out http://www.smartplaylists.com/



I deleted one of the default playlists!

Because the iTunes playlists are just simple Smart Playlists, recreating them is no big deal.

The defaults are:

*60's Music
Year
is in the range
1960 - 1969

*Recently Added
Date Added
Is in the last
2 weeks

*Top Rated
My Rating
is greater than
*

*Recently Played
(uncheck the 'match' box)
Limit to
25 songs
recently played


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Details on the dialog box

Match (any/all):
Checking this box means that the option beneath will take effect, not just the 'limit to' options (and everything underneath them). When there is more than one option selected, 'all' means that every condition has to be met, 'any' means that any one of them will do. Keep in mind that marking 'all' with conflicting condtions (Genre is Rock + Genre is Pop) will result in empty playlists. Likewise, 'any' with conflicting condtions (Genre is not Rock + Genre is not Pop) will result in your entire library as the playlist.

Plus/Minus:
The plus ➕ adds another condition. The minus ➖ (which is usable only when are are two or more conditions) removes the condition.

Album/Artist/Comment/Composer/Genre/Grouping/Name:
These are all text tags, any one of them is changable in Get Info. The options are Contains/Does Not Contain, Is/Is Not, Starts With/Ends With, all pretty self-explanatory.

BPM/Bit Rate/Disc Number/My Rating/Play Count/Sample Rate/Size/Time/Track Number/Year:
These are number based tags and library info. Some are based on the file, some on the info you can change, some on library info. The options are Is/Is Not, Greater Than/Less Than, all simple, and In The Range, which opens a second box, so that you can choose between two times/numbers/dates, etc.

Compilation/Podcast:
These are both true/false options. Compilations are based on the Get Info tag, Podcasts are only files downloaded through iTunes' Podcast service. Description is also a podcast-only option.

Date Added/Modified/Last Played:
All date based, so they offer Is/Is Not, Is After/Is Before, Is In The Last/Is Not In The Last/Is In The Range.
Playlist:
This is very useful. There's only one option, Is/Is Not in a dropdown of all of your playlists. The reason it's so useful is that iTunes does not offer true and/or options, so you can only choose to have everything or anything. So, for example, you can't have Genre is Rock or Pop, just not Country. The workaround is to have one playlist of 'Genre is Rock or Pop' and another of Genre is not Country, and in playlist1.
It's also useful if you have an iPod smaller than your iTunes library, where you can make a set of 'iPod-only' playlists, with one playlist being the base (limited to the size of your iPod), and have all other playlists based on that instaed of the entire library.

Category:
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with reporting by King Cole