Ellipsis button on smart playlists

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Level 1

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Ellipsis button on smart playlists

Does anyone know how to use this new feature on a smart playlist? I'm guessing it's designed to give you more flexibility when createing a playlist. I hit the help button to find context-specific help but the help file doesn't even mention this ellipsis button.

Armando

Dell Latitude D620, Windows XP Pro, itunes 9

Posted on Sep 24, 2009 11:38 AM

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Answer 1

varjak paw

Level 10

182,668 points

Sep 24, 2009 11:57 AM in response to ramsv

Here's one explanation:

http://theappleblog.com/2009/09/15/itunes-9-smart-playlists-are-now-smarter/

Regards.

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Answer 2

ramsv Author

Level 1

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Sep 24, 2009 12:19 PM in response to ramsv

Thank you, that's a pretty good explanation.

I've been trying for ages to create a playlist that does the following and I thought this new feature would allow me to do it but haven't been able to get it to work so far:

- Contain only songs from my favorite artists (added manually to my smart playlist: artist contains "xyz"), so I have added 15 of my favorite artists.
- It so happens that I have in my library interviews given by some of my favorite artists (genre: interviews, artist "123").
- So I want to remove the interviews from my favorite artists from this "favorites" smart playlist.

Here's what I tried:

- artist contains "123" (multiple lines for each artist)
- used the ellipsis button to add a new condition: genre is not interview.

What itunes is doing is adding every song from my library that is not an interview regardless of the artist. Any help?

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Answer 3

varjak paw

Level 10

182,668 points

Sep 24, 2009 12:38 PM in response to ramsv

Since I don't have any interviews I can't test this but try this:

Match all of the following rules

Genre is not (interviews)

then under that (via the ellipsis addition)

any of the following rules

Artist is/contains "abc"
Artists is/contains "def"
etc.

That might do the job for you.

Regards.

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Answer 4

Oct 17, 2009 9:45 PM in response to ramsv

I thought this new feature would solve my problem, too, but I still haven't been able to find a way. Here's my problem. I wanted to make a sort of Pop/Hip-Hop/Dance playlist, but not include Michael Jackson/Jackson 5/The Jacksons. (I have those tagged as "Pop." So I have a list like the following:

"Match ANY of the following rules:"

Genre...is...Pop
Genre...is...R&B
Genre...is...Hip-Hop/Rap
etc.

I tried the ellipsis like this...

"Match ANY of the following rules:"

Genre...is...Pop
.ALL of the following rules:
...Artist...is not...Michael Jackson
...Artist...is not...The Jackson 5
...Aritst...is not...The Jacksons
Genre...is...R&B
Genre...is...Hip-Hop/Rap
etc.

This didn't work. It included all artists who weren't Michael Jackson/The Jackson 5/The Jacksons, regardless of the genre rules I made. Can anyone give me some tips? I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks for checking out my post. 🙂

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