iTunes 11: tips and tricks

[Savannah]

1 - I use the "Sort Album" field extensively for all my albums, as I have the album release date contained within this tag, e.g. "1963-11-22-With The Beatles". This means that for every artist I can view my albums chronologically, or I can even view my entire library chronologically. I assume that in a simple list view this is unaffected, and I can still see this, and that it will still show these albums chronologically on my iPod when it is sync'd? How does the loss of coverflow work? With the new album cover view, will I be able to show my album covers on screen chronologically still? (As you can maybe tell, chronology is a BIG deal for me!).

The only way to sort a playlist in any way more complicated than by the basic artists or album title, (eg I like to use last played date, play counts, even just random), is to use the list mode, which does not have any artwork viewable at all, and doesn't even separate different albums. Grid mode and the new artist mode does not even display any data other than artist, album and track names and numbers. So I went back to 10.6 until this basic functionality is ever restored.

 

[n1kn4k]

How do I access all of my devices while plugged in?

 

[ColombianLove41]

I'm not sure if this is the spot to ask but I can't find my pages docs to save them to my pc in iTunes? A helped would be awesome, thanks

 

[Jesse Hollington]

How do I access all of my devices while plugged in?

When you have more than one device connected, the button normally used to access your device should instead show an indication of multiple devices (e.g. "5 devices" or "2 iPods"), and clicking on it will display a drop-down menu from which you can select the individual device you want to manage.

Alternatively, you can simply turn the sidebar back on by going to the View menu and access your devices as you would have in prior versions of iTunes.

See our article, Instant Expert: Secrets & Features of iTunes 11 for more information.

 

[Jesse Hollington]

I'm not sure if this is the spot to ask but I can't find my pages docs to save them to my pc in iTunes? A helped would be awesome, thanks

To transfer files to and from an iOS devices via iTunes, you need to connect the device and then go to the "Apps" section for your device in iTunes. In iTunes 11, this involves selecting your device as shown in the previous post, and then clicking on the "Apps" button that appears near the top of the screen. This is the same screen you would normally use to add or remove apps to or from your device.

If you scroll down from there, below the actual listing of apps, you will see a list of all of the apps on your device that support iTunes File Sharing. Pages should be listed among them, and selecting it will show a list of Pages files on your device that you can then transfer back to your computer.

Keep in mind, however, that Pages, Numbers and Keynote require that you actually export the file to iTunes File Sharing before you can access it in this manner. See iWork for iOS: About iTunes File Sharing for more information.

 

[blueboy714]

Question - if I uninstall version 11 will it delete the library files with it (itl, artwork files, etc. in iTunes directory? Just give me back the grid view and thumbnails of the album artwork and I'd be happy.

Also - is it just me or since Steve Jobs died it seems Apple is trying to become like Microsoft (bugs, stupid releases, etc.) and Microsoft is trying to become like Apple (online store, Version 8, etc.)?

Thanks

 

[Cold Irons]

An uninstall will leave your iTunes Library.itl file and everything else intact.

Pretty sure that when you first run iTunes 11, it converted the itl file to a version 11 specific format. There should be a backup of your previous itl file in the folder Music/iTunes/Previous iTunes Libraries. It will have the date when you did the install added to the end of the file name.

 

[blueboy714]

An uninstall will leave your iTunes Library.itl file and everything else intact.

Pretty sure that when you first run iTunes 11, it converted the itl file to a version 11 specific format. There should be a backup of your previous itl file in the folder Music/iTunes/Previous iTunes Libraries. It will have the date when you did the install added to the end of the file name.

Is it just the ITL file that is affected by a version change? Not the XML or ITDB files?

If that's the case it would have saved me some time. Oh well, when Apple fraks up iTunes 12 I can try it. Hopefully, they'll get the "bugs" out of iTunes 11 first.

 

[manchali]

Anyone know how to refresh the thumbnails? For playlists, grid view, some of the thumbnail artwork is showing up wrong. Songs have been manually tagged with correct artwork but certain songs for some reason do not show the correct artwork. The correct thumbnail shows up in now playing window.

Incorrect thumbnail issue persists in 11.0.2

I like the new composer view covered in this helpful article. Thanks for that! One question, in what order are the albums being displayed? How can you make them display alphabetically under that new view?

 

[J.Whelan]

great tip i really love the apple brand. it really is the best.

 

[brikuency]

Can you confirm whether there are any issues with Smart Playlists? I use a customized version of your approach, and would be upset if my smart playlists didn't update properly.

Thanks,

 

[cjmnews]

2 years later and another version newer, no there are no new issues with smart playlists. All the old ones remain.