how to see entire filename when playing

[pipuli]

I would like to see the entire filename that I am playing, not like

Paradise city
GunS 'N RoSeS
Appetite FoR destruction

but guns_and_roses-paradise_city.mp3

is this possible?

[sPod]

Oh, pipuli, you are indeed a strange individual.
Let's see, iTunes doesn't have a feature like that. I wouldn't exactly call it a feature, more of a downgrade. Why would you want sloppy file names like that, anyway?

[podboy]

The only way of doing that is by finding a program that will remove the ID3 tags to each mp3. You can do this manually by right clicking on a song in itunes, Hit get info, and then delete all the spaces (artists, album, year, etc)

[Flid]

To a degree, I can understand Pipuli's reasons. I've recently moved from a file-tree based mp3 player to the tag-based world of iPod. In general, if you're searching for a specific song, tag browsing is great. BUT... if you're used to having large multi-artist playlist... the tag based approach is *very* frustrating, as youi only get the song name.

As a work around, you could use re-tagging software to rename ALL "Song Names" to "Artist - Song", and this gives you the ability to see properly what goes on in playlists.

It's a major gripe I have with how the iPod handles playlist. It would be soooo simple for apple to tweak the firmware to improve playlist capabilities. Oh well.

If you want further guidance on re-tagging, let me know.

[pipuli]

cheers for your replies. I guess I have to think about that deleting id3 tags. I just hate havinh 30 gigs of music and not knowing what some songs are.

[Jeeves]

The logic behind this is actually pretty simple as it's very Apple-esque. Filenames are ugly and we all know things shouldn't be ugly, they should be pretty. So, in an attempt to make sure they're pretty, "filename display" isn't an option. They try and make you use the ID3 tags to sort all your music, which is all well and good, however, some of us have inordinate amounts of music and the idea of tagging 160GB of mp3's with ID3 tags is murder.

The method that the iPod and (in turn) iTunes uses is fine if you use it to start your collection. If you're like me and have a massive running collection, iTunes is nothing but a royal pain in the ### and trying to tag all of my music is just downright impossible.