Make smart playlists in iTunes?

WOW! That's utterly brilliant Pierr. Problem solved! You even use a classical composer as an example.

I'd wondered about using the GUI interface, but I've been a bit leery of that. Your code looks as though it's pretty darned close to what I need.

Thanxalot!

PS I apologise for losing the e off the end of your name.

Vive les Canadiens!

Doesn't work, Pierre. I've usually found GUI scpt encounters bruising, even apparently non-deterministic.

Same thing here. Early on I did get the PL names (appended to the end of the scpt 'cos I hadn't run it from the menu bar). Later I did get a new un-named SPL made (about once or so). Now I can't get that far again.

GUI scripting seems to cost a great deal of time making very slow progress. Do I need to assign a hot-key to run it?

Hello Pierre, I'm glad to be able to tell you it's working beautifully. I wanted "Composer Contains", so this is what is now working:

(code which gets "comp" from existing unsmart PLs)
.....
tell application "System Events" to tell process "iTunes"
keystroke "n" using {option down, command down} -- invoke new smart PL dialog
tell scroll area 1 of group 1 of window 1
delay 0.5
click pop up button 2
delay 0.5
click menu item "Composer" of menu 1 of pop up button 2
delay 0.5
keystroke comp --insert my composer
delay 1
keystroke return --finish Composer which finishes SPL pop up
delay 1
keystroke return --finish SPL name in sidebar
end tell

The GUI is a bit hard to predict, for example since the cursor was already in the 3rd field, I could just use keystroke to enter the string, even though I'd used your "click pop up button 2".

Obviously I'll have to take out the liberal sprinkling of Delays, but at the moment I'm just sighing happily. Thank you VERY much sir!

In case anyone else wants to do what I did, here's the final form of my scpt. But it has a couple of bug workarounds, so it may not work beyond iTunes 8.1.1 (6). Good luck!

(* Make smart PLs from unsmart Composer-based *)

(* Doesn't test if unsmart PL name actually IS a composer contained in Music PL. Would take too long. *)


(* - - - - - - - >>> !!!! TURN OFF AirPort !!!!! <<<- - - - - - - else you can get killed by e.g. Software Update *)


tell application "iTunes"
delay 3 -- Delay 3secs to get a chance to click the iT window after launching the scpt.
set allPLs to (get every user playlist)
repeat with thisPL in allPLs
if name of thisPL is not "Music" then
(* extract 1st word (surname) of unsmart PL name... *)
if smart of thisPL is false then
set comp to name of thisPL
set comp to words of comp -- ludicrous - takes 4 operations to get word out of Unicode text
set comp to (comp as string)
ignoring hyphens
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to " " --necessary for words
set comp to word 1 of comp -- got 1st word at last
end ignoring

tell application "System Events" to tell process "iTunes"
delay 0.5
keystroke "n" using {option down, command down} ---- <---- <---- create New smart PL

(* change Artist to Composer *)
delay 0.5
tell scroll area 1 of group 1 of window 1
delay 0.5
click pop up button 2
delay 0.5
click menu item "Composer" of menu 1 of pop up button 2 -- Change Artist to Composer
delay 0.5
keystroke comp & quote -- the quote stops iT auto-complete filling in the whole name etc. See ASCII below
(*Cursor is still in TF1 of SA1 of G1 of W1, so keystroke comp works almost regardless of where we are*)
end tell
(* Change Random to Album *)
delay 0.5
click pop up button 1 of window 1
delay 0.5
click menu item "Album" of menu 1 of pop up button 1 of window 1
(* as soon as you change above menu item, Checkbox 3 (to left of 25) gets set. Bug?
Solution: Click Checkbox 3 of w1 later (below)
It seems NOTHING can change the 25 to e.g. 999 (another bug?) *)

(* Now we can complete the Composer *)
delay 0.5
keystroke (ASCII character 8) -- rubout the quot in the PL name with a Backspace character

(* workaround the Limit to 25 checkbox bug *)
delay 0.5
click checkbox 3 of window 1 -- uncheck the "limit to 25"
(* The above WILL DO THE REVERSE OF WHAT I WANT if they ever fix the bug above *)

(* finish comp and close the New SPL window *)
delay 0.5
keystroke return

(* Now we need a Return to finish the new SPL Name in the sidebar *)
delay 1
keystroke return

end tell
end if
end if
end repeat
end tell

beep 3 -- Say we're all done
(*
tell application "Script Editor" -- TEST
activate
end tell*)
-------

As I said, Good luck!

David Whitford