iTunes 10 + Automator. Where's "Play action?

i don't have a solution. just wanted you to know your not alone. I am also seeing this error.

Same here, no ideas yet.

it looks like a lot of the actions for iTunes have been removed from Automator.
All that is there right now is:
Delete iPod Notes
Eject iPod
Export Movies
Filter iTunes Items
Get Selected iTunes items
New iPod Note
Text to Audio File
I would imagine that these limitations would change soon as there are still plenty of scripts available in the AppleScript Directory for iTunes. If your familiar with AppleScript (which I am not completely) you may be able to create your own action by writing an AppleScript statement and inserting it into your workflow/app with the "Run AppleScript" action.

The bad news is, iTunes 10 is missing the following actions:

Add Songs to iPod
Add Songs to Playlist
Ask for Songs
Change Case of Song Names
Get Selected iTunes Items
Get the Current Song
Import Audio Files
Import Files into iTunes
New iTunes Playlist
Pause iTunes
Play iTunes Playlist
Remove Empty Playlists
Set Info of iTunes Songs
Set iTunes Equalizer
Set iTunes Volume
Set Options of iTunes Songs
Start iTunes Playing
Start iTunes Visuals
Stop iTunes Visuals
Update iPod

The good news is, iTunes' AppleScript dictionary appears to still contain the ability to script all of these items, which means that it should be easy for now to create AppleScript actions to replicate these, and that it should at least be possible for these actions to return. Will they? I certainly hope so!

Shawn

Just got off the phone with Apple about this exact issue and they didn't have a solid answer for me. They recommended this discussion and that I encourage everybody to submit product feedback to Apple so when they go to do another update they bring back these actions. I have a few I lost as well that has screwed up a whole series of workflows I've created. Does anybody have any suggestions or ideas? Can Apple Script be useful here?

Thanks,
Chris

First I discovered this was when my Automator alarm clock failed!

What's the point of having any Automator actions if you don't have 'Play'?

So, I got my actions up and running with a few Applescript commands. Where I used to use the Get Playlist, and Play Item Actions, I just found/assembled/wrote a script to do the same thing, while shuffling the playlist at the same time. The script I used is below, and was input into automator using the"Run AppleScript" action

set play_playlist to "Playlist Name"

tell application "iTunes"
activate
set the_playlist to user playlist play_playlist
set view of front window to the_playlist
set the_playlist's song repeat to all
repeat 5 times
set the_playlist's shuffle to false
set the_playlist's shuffle to true
end repeat
play the_playlist

end tell

How can we submit our feedback to Apple? There doesn't seem to be an email channel that can be used. Do you have a case number that could be linked to?

Thanks,

Des Dougan

Some more information on this issue is available [here|http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20100903004553923]. Essentially, the version checking in the Automator actions isn't recognizing "10.0" as higher than "4.6". The linked article gives instructions for manually fixing your actions. Otherwise, hopefully we'll see a fix soon!

Shawn

**** with that, where are the rest of them? it's ****** insane

A MacOSXHints post contains the answer to this mystery. It seems that the version comparison routine in some Automator actions uses a string comparison instead of a numeric comparison, and since "10.0" is less than "4.0" when compared as a string, said actions are "incompatible" with iTunes 10.0.

That's the bad news. The good news is that the workaround is fairly simple: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20100903004553923

Here it is ddougan

iTunes/Provide iTunes Feedback

How can we submit our feedback to Apple?

Go here -> iTunes application feedback.

It's a problem with the numerical version of iTunes 10 being lower than 9, because the numeral "1"0 is lower than 9.

Here's a link to the fix.....

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20015540-263.html

I've done it and it works, but you have to do it for every action that is not working. Could take quite a bit of time for those of us that use Automator & iTunes alot.

Hope this helps.

I believe this is the same fix as "kslawsons" post earlier.

Message was edited by: Headgrunt