Kirk McElhearn - Take Control of iTunes 11: The FAQ

Welcome to Take Control of iTunes 11: The FAQ , version 1.2, published in October 2013 by TidBITS Publishing Inc. This ebook was written by Kirk McElhearn, and edited by Michael E. Cohen and Tonya Engst.

This ebook shows you what iTunes can do for you and how to bend it to your will. With a special focus on audio and video, it covers all aspects of organizing and tagging files, viewing content in iTunes, and creating playlists to sync to an iOS device. If you want to become an iTunes power user, this ebook is for you.

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Copyright 2013, Eyes of the World Limited . All rights reserved.

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You may get stuck if you dont understand a few basics. Please note the following:

Menus: Where I describe choosing a command from a menu in the menu bar, I use a shortcut. For example, the shortcut for the menu command that creates a new playlist in iTunes is File > New Playlist.

To describe opening a contextual menu, I tell you to Control-click an item on the screen. If your mouse offers a right-click option, or you use a trackpad or other means of opening a contextual menu, you should use whatever method you like.

Keyboard shortcuts: I mention keyboard shortcuts often, as may people find them to be faster than using the mouse or trackpad. For example, to run the File > New Playlist command, you could press Command-N. You can see this in the menu beside the command. (In Windows, shortcuts that I specify with the Command key use the Control key; see .)

Preferences: I discuss a number of settings found in the iTunes Preferences dialog. To open the dialog on a Mac, choose iTunes > Preferences. (In Windows, its Edit > Preferences.) You can view the different preference panes, such as General, Store, and Advanced, by clicking their icons at the top of the dialog.

Selecting items: I often tell you to select tracks in iTunes, in order to perform some operation on them, such as tagging. To select a single track, click it; it will be highlighted. To select multiple tracks that are next to each other, click the topmost track, hold down the Shift key, then click the bottom one. To select non-contiguous tracks (tracks that are not next to each other), click one track, hold down the Command key, then click the others. To select all visible tracks, either press Command-A or choose Edit > Select All.

Path syntax: I occasionally use a path to show the location of a file or folder in your file system. For example, on a Mac, iTunes is found in the Applications folder. The path to iTunes is: /Applications/iTunes . The slash at the beginning of the path tells you to start from the root level of the disk. You will also encounter paths that include a ~ (tilde), which is a shortcut for the users home directory.

On a Mac, for example, if a person with the username henry wants to find his iTunes Media folder in its default location, he would start in his home folder, open the Music folder, and then open the iTunes folder. The path to that folder is ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media , which is another way of writing /Users/henry/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media .

In Windows, the paths to the iTunes directories are slightly different, and the slashes tip the opposite way, but the same logic holds. For instance, the default path to the iTunes Media directory in Windows Vista is C:\username\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media , and in Windows 7 its C:\Users\username\My Music\iTunes\ .

iOS devices and iPods: At times, I discuss using an iOS device with iTunes. In all cases, when I write iOS device without specifying a model, I mean any iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad. Unless I mention a specific type of iPod (classic, nano, touch, shuffle), any comments I make cover the entire family of devices. (I admit that writing iOS device throughout this book is not felicitous, but it seems to be the best solution to cover all such devices.)

Im a Mac user, and that the screenshots in this book are all taken on a Mac. However, iTunes for Windows is almost exactly the same as the Mac version of the program. With the exception of a handful of very small points, and the bonus chapter at the end, everything I discuss applies to both the Mac and Windows versions of iTunes.

One notable difference is the keyboard shortcuts you use. When I talk about pressing the Command key on the Mac, together with another key, to perform an operation, Windows users should press the Control key. When I say to press the Option key, Windows users should use the Shift key. Check the iTunes help for a full list of keyboard shortcuts.

Most of the new content in version 1.2 of this ebook relates to changes in iTunes 11.1, which Apple released in September 2013 in tandem with the release of iOS 7. iTunes 11.1 has one major addition, one interesting new addition, and one small new feature:

iTunes Radio is now available. This feature lets you create radio stations so you can listen to streaming music. A chunk of the Play chapter now looks at iTunes Radio, starting with .)

The new Genius Shuffle feature lets you start a random Genius playlist with a single click or keypress. I talk about it in .

iTunes 11 now integrates with Notification Center, in OS X 10.8 or later. You can have Notification Center display banners or alerts when a new track starts playing. I tell you how to set this up in .

I also added a sidebar, , where I discuss TuneSpan, a utility that can help you migrate some of your iTunes media onto a separate volume.

This version of the book covered important changes made by Apple in iTunes 11.0.3:

Album List View has returned, though not under that name. iTunes now offers a separate setting that allows you to display artwork in the list views, which makes these views more practical and less spartan. I discuss this in .

The MiniPlayer has additional controls and behavior, as I describe in .