Creating Playlist by Artist

[Doug183]

I have a large library, 30,000 plus songs, 145 gigs. I am trying to automate the creation of playlists by Artists. The Apple script (from Apple I think) "Make playlist by Artist" gives me an Applescript of error 'Times Out" while doing these lines:

tell source "Library"
tell playlist "Library"
set the master_list to the artist of every track

Anybody else have this problem and figure out how to fix it?

Question #2. This script seems to make normal playlists. Can I edit the script so it makea the Playlists Smart with "Live Updating?"


One note: At 30,000 songs, i-tunes is not yet slowing down. I have 512mb of RAM in a dual 800mhz Quicksilver running running 10.2.3. I also ran this same library on my Lombard powerbook running 10.2.3 with no slowdown. Just soem more info.

Thanks
Doug

[deeg]

its not possible to currently create smart playlists via applescript which is a pain...

theres a couple of methods to overcome the timeout issue...

1. you can add a timeout value to your code...

with timeout of 600 seconds -- (thats 10 minutes.. adjust as required)
<your code>
end timeout

2. use a reference to your library rather than creating a list.. this is a better option because even if you over come the timeout problem a list of 30000 items is going to cause a "stack overflow" error.. its just too big for applescript.. i get them with my library of circe 7600 songs.. by creating a refernce to the library you dont make the list but you can still access all the info on the songs.. have a look at http://www.malcolmadams.com/itunes/itinfo/selection01.shtml (here) on doug's itunes scrpting site for more info...

[thenightfly42]

Originally posted by Doug183
I have a large library, 30,000 plus songs, 145 gigs. I am trying to automate the creation of playlists by Artists.
Is there a reason why you don't just use Browse by Artist? It's already done, assuming your tags are good.