iTunes 12 - Change default columns in playlists?

Sadly Apple appears to want to treat us, the user, the customer, like idiots. Simpletons that need to be given simple choices and not allowed to veer off Apple's carefully manicured path to media management nirvana.

I began to despair when Apple ill-advisedly removed the ability to create multiple windows from the base iTunes instance, and now further strait jacket measures are being introduced in the name of hygene and simplification.

When will Apple learn that there are many types of user - the basic - to whom you give it all as uncomplicated, vanilla and simple as possible - and then there are progressively higher levels of power users who want to do things in a certain way.

I would suspect, I would hope, that Apple as a cusotmer orientated business would like to keep its cusotmers happy - so stop treating us all the same and stop culling useful functionality just because your 'style' and UI fashionistas feel that is how Itunes should look and function. Yes the overall look and feel can follow a theme - but stop 'streamlining' for the sake of it without considering the impact because if you keep this up you will leave the vast majority of customers with a product they don't want to use.

I am hovering now at that point myself - having invested a lot of time in playlist and album art importing - Apple may hold me a bit longer - but if the company keep making silly decisions around cripling what was originally a pretty good product - then all bets are off.

If you want to please your discerning users, Apple, reintroduce selectable columns across all screens, allow multiple windows and then simly have a series of modes where the user can choose to lock down what they see - its not rocket science, many other solutions (even your bog standard AV) do it?

We know Apple purports to be the style doyens when it comes to UI design - but there comes a point where iTunes actually ceases to be a proper music / media manager and becomes an emaciated marketing platform for a bunch of half-baked Apple product I don't want and will never use - Apple can start down the righteous path again by making it optional to remove that space consuming and largely mindless 'heart' column

I suspect you didn’t quite follow what I wrote.

A hollow Voice says wrote:

Thanks, Chris, but that's the default I want to change.

So change it.

Any new playlist created will use however Music is set up when you create the playlist.

I don't want to do it after-the-fact (which I'm doing manually, anyway).

The applescript is a way to change your existing playlists to match.

You won’t need to use it if Music is already set the way you want.

There should be a simple, clean solution to this which Apple should provide

There is.

Select Music and set the columns, the order and the width you want.

Any new playlist created will use this same set up.

I don't know about "Default" playlists, however you can change the columns in the playlist via the following procedure.

Select the "Playlists" tab.

On the extreme right there is a selector - it contains "Playlist, Songs, Artists, Composers and Genres".

Select the Songs option, and all columns will be available to display. RMB click in the column title to select which ones you want.

Simples.

When you create a new playlist, it uses the current settings that the Music tab is using.

You can use this script -> http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=assimilateviewoptions

to change/update an existing playlist to match.

I agree with all of what you are saying. But I mean, how difficult is it to set a default setup for your library and have it consistent with how you like it to be?

Even if there was an option to have 'all playlists have the same consistent view settings', I would be ok with arranging how I like it ONCE. Not dozens of times for each of my playlists and any new ones I make. I'm sure those who are not even power-users would be confused by why this is not standard, but perhaps they don't mess with it enough to bother and just let it be.

... Unlike us who come searching the internet to complain and find a fix for such a simple concept.

You are correct - it does not need to be a dissertation - but it does need to be bit more than a simple list of demands - a'la "here, fix this" - because there actually needs to be a mind shift and that takes a bit more explantion and context setting.

In a world heading towards standardization, mobile device type formats and common datasets across disparate devices, I can understand a design brief that encompasses a set of common principles that makes the experience essentially defaul to the smallest device and in some ways most ADD consumer - who does not want or care about how the information is presented and has moved way past anachronisms like Disk Numbers and date of release.

However with modern devlopment frameworks it is possible to have one's cake and eat it and not have to have every platform implementation slavishly forked off the limited, stylized mobile template - so I would like to think that Apple can appreciate that sometimes more 'tweakability' and more options is a better approach and ideally they should code differently for different platforms appreciating the breadth and diversity of the user base?

There should be a simple, clean solution to this which Apple should provide

There is.

Select Music and set the columns, the order and the width you want.

Any new playlist created will use this same set up.

Your suggestion is appreciated but my iTunes does not behave that way. Whatever columns I set in the Music view do not follow through to any other playlists, newly created or previously existing. The other suggestion further down this thread, to use the far right dropdown, which is both difficult to find and has no indication in the UI that it has an important function, only controls the columns for the open playlist; it, too, has no effect on any other playlist.

This lack of clear and simple or elegant functionality is weirdly non-apple. Someday we hope iTunes will be trashed and rewritten. Again.

David Bogie Chq-1 wrote:

There should be a simple, clean solution to this which Apple should provide

There is.

Select Music and set the columns, the order and the width you want.

Any new playlist created will use this same set up.

Your suggestion is appreciated but my iTunes does not behave that way. Whatever columns I set in the Music view do not follow through to any other playlists, newly created or previously existing.

It works fine here on the current version of iTunes (12.3.2), a year after my previous post.

Note this will not do anything to existing playlists.

This gave me the insight to solve the problem, thanks.

Playlists I created from a selection (in iTunes 12) were showing with album artwork next to each song. My older playlists were showing songs in single grey lines as usual. I wanted the new playlists to have the single line format. I thought this some sort of property of the playlist itself and tried copying songs and creating a new playlist, but with the same results. Turns out is is a sticky view option (say what??) of the playlist.

To understand what this means, choose a playlist and in the drop down menu in the upper right hand corner pick the "Songs" option. Then it will show THAT playlist with the grey lines and this view will STICK to the playlist. Toggle to "Playlist" (very confusing name!) and you see the album artwork for each song which makes for taller rows. When you return to the playlist the last view option selected will be remembered. Repeat with another playlist to nail the concept.

Very confusing.

I don't think there is a solution.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

bladeraptor wrote:

If you want to please your discerning users, Apple

If you want to tell Apple, tell them here -> http://www.apple.com/feedback/

Feedback form is not big enough - I tried