iTunes - sorting playlists

[powerdave]

Hi, just a quick question really-
I'm trying to organise my playlists in the Source box. Does it have to do it alphabetically? I have a lot of 'Artist - Album' playlists and I was hoping I could group the artists still but make it list the albums in chronological order.

I know I could number them and stuff but was hoping I could get a drag and drop arrangement :) I'm using v4.7.1.

Thanks for any help guys!

[kaylee]

If you sort by Artist, it appears it will then sort by Album but alphabetically not chronologically as you are after.

I've had a look at Version Tracker (http://www.versiontracker.com) for a third party app/utility that might add the functionality to iTunes for finer control over sorting, but there doesn't appear to be any. Maybe an Applescript could help (someone else will have to help here because I don't know Applescript at all).

[sacear]

I would like to do the same function as you, but have not been able to do so yet in iTunes. I am currently using numbers at the begining of my playlist names to get them into the order I want. Not the solution I desire, but does work for now.

[Applespider]

I'm at work on the PC so can't try this out.

I thought that when you sorted on a column, the rest of the data remained in the order in which you'd sorted it last? So if you sort on playcount and then on artist, you ended up with the top playcounts at the top? I could be imagining this entirely.

If I'm not imagining it, then couldn't you sort on the 'year' column and then on the artist column? Have a look over on macosxhints - I've found lots of useful scripts over there in the past.

[sacear]

Applespider:
We're talking about organizing playlists in the Source "sidebar" of the main iTunes window, so I am not following what you are suggesting.

Edit: update...
I just tried what you suggested in the main iTunes window with my main iTunes library. Sorting is strictly by one criteria only. When I click on the Play Count column, I get the play counts from most to least (if I click the Play Count colunm again, the data just flips from least to most).

If I then click the Artist column it sorts alphabetically strictly by artist name only, with no regard or relation to the Play Count.

[Applespider]

Sorry - the coffee hadn't kicked in yet! I thought you were talking within a playlist!

[powerdave]

Thanks for the input. Its a shame the option isnt there, I guess I'll just number what I want arranged :)

Maybe they'll have it in the next version.