Playlist Folders on 5G iPod... Here's a trick to do it.

[MrZebra77]

Having 292 Playlists on my iPod, I've been wishing for Playlist Folders since before it was implemented in iTunes. And when it was, I used it but was dissappointed that it would not propagate to the iPod.

Then less than a week ago it hit me...

The iPod Notes Feature!!!!!!

Using the iPod Notes Feature, it is possible to recreate the Playlist Folder Tree on the iPod and considering mine has a lot of similar variant playlists (A "Root" playlist would then have a Star Variant, 3 Stars And Up, 4 Stars And Up Variants) which means a lot of copy and paste involved doesn't make it as labor intensive.

Now if someone could write a program that would sync the playlist tree structure to Notes Files, that would be awesome!

 

[Mawdryn]

Hugh???

Notes are simply text files that you can display on the screen. They have no other function I can see. I don't follow at all how they could possibly help you make "nested playlists" on a device with a flat folder structure. Sure, you can make a text file of your playlist folder structure if you want to, and you can view that text file on the iPod, but I can't imagine how that could be of any use.

 

[MrZebra77]

Notes are not just plain text, they support some HTML tags too!

The first step is to create a folder under the Notes folder on your iPod for each playlist folders you have, and then create any sub-folders you have.

Once you reach the last level, where the actual playlists are, you create a text file that looks like the following and name it index.linx:

<title>Folder Name</title>
<a href="ipod:music?playlist=Playlist1">Playlist 1</a>
<a href="ipod:music?playlist=Playlist2">Playlist 2</a>
<a href="ipod:music?playlist=Playlist3">Playlist 3</a>
<a href="ipod:music?playlist=Playlist4">Playlist 4</a>
...

It's important that the playlist name after the playlist= is spelled exactly the same as it is in iTunes (Copy-Paste the name to be sure) but what shows up after (Right before the </a> can be written however you like, might be easier to recognize if you put the exact same thing, but it doesn't have to.

Also, if some folders have names that contain characters which cannot be used in folder names (Ex: /\? ...) then you can create a index.linx file for the folders too, just put the folder name in the href="" tag.

 

[S2_Mac]

And here's an example of a Notes file for playing songs.

It's through this feature that outfits like museums can use iPods as "walking tour directors" -- the iPod can be locked into only displaying notes, and the markup in the notes can then play audio files and movies, link to pix, etc. You can find out more by Googling for "ipod museum mode".

 

[taxmen]

You mention iTunes implemented folder tree, how can I access this feature ?