Made an edit. My first comment was very poorly worded. I rip my movies so as to do what I please with the files. I have yet to find the ability to do this post 10.12 at the latest.
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Apple Says Multiple iTunes Libraries Are Not Supported in First Public Beta of macOS Catalina
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When upgrading to Catalina, part of the process is to take the iTunes library (XML) and convert it into a format Music can use.
So far (and I assume this is what they're referring to in the support note) there's no way to run the conversion again, so any other iTunes libraries are just abandoned as XML files that Music can't read. So, you can change the location of the newly-converted library in Music but not use that path change to read in old iTunes XML libraries.
However, Music can export XML files, so those of you using the iTunes library to share music and/or import your library into another piece of software can still do that.
I’m not sure if you’re responding to the first part of my post or the second... There’s currently no way I know of for changing where backups are stored in Mojave’s other than some creative symbolic linking. I haven’t looked at the Catalina public beta, so hadn’t seen the preference you shared, but it does appear there are some controls that aren’t yet connected.
Of course, the support document is rather ambiguous on this point
please ensure you have access to an officially supported version of macOS prior to the general availability of macOS Catalina this fall. The initial macOS Catalina Beta only opens the previously selected iTunes Library on your Mac.
They make a statement about the beta’s behavior, but give a warning about the general release in the fall...
I never really thought about it because Im so used to the cludge of having my movies on another disk with a folder trick to make iTunes see them. It sounds as if ultimately you will be able to have a TV library and a Music library that are not the same file. Theres value in that.
Now, will home sharing continue in AppleTv and iOs, and if so will the same mac be able to share out different music and TV libraries?
Now, will home sharing continue in AppleTv and iOs, and if so will the same mac be able to share out different music and TV libraries?
No, it doesn't split anything. The structure of the iTunes library is unchanged. Both Music and TV apps show the same path to the library: Music/iTunes/iTunes Media. Inside iTunes Media, as always, are separate folders for the various types of media.
I haven't seen what happens if I were to start from scratch (no pre-existing library). It is quite clear, however, that it does NOT split an existing library.
The path shown in those apps' preferences state it's the media path, not library path. The libraries are not there.
Clicking on an album in the new Music app brings you to a whole new page, where previously it operated much like a drop down menu.
The "Libraries" to which you refer are database lists. Those have indeed been "split." In my case, the Apple TV Library file is all of 33 KB. It resides in [user]/Movies/Apple TV. There is now a Music Library file in [user]/Music/Music. Mine is all of 6.3 MB. Meanwhile, I have 68.44 GB of media content in the iTunes Media folder.
The file structure that is the iTunes Library remains, by default, at [user]/Music/iTunes. It continues to contain all media files, and the structure of that library remains unchanged.
We differ on what "library" means. To me, it's the place where my 68.44 GB of media files reside. They are right where they always have been. To you, it's the location of the file that contains the catalog list.
Here's the way I look at things. Does your local public library consist of the books, music, periodicals, etc. on the shelf, or is it the online "card" catalog? If the catalog crashes, you can still go to the library shelves (or folders) and find the books, music, etc. you want. What good is that online catalog if the physical library burns down? Libraries are important for what they contain. I remember when public library systems went from physical card catalogs to online catalogs. That change did not affect the books on the shelf - they stayed right were the had been. It changed only the means by which we could search for what was already sitting on the shelves.
Yes, for me, Library is the library file (that used to be an XML file) whereas my directories full of music are just directories full of music. Which I call my music collection.
You can come up with a books analogy but in MacOS terms the file is called "Music Library.musiclibrary" and is the music library
You can come up with a books analogy but in MacOS terms the file is called "Music Library.musiclibrary" and is the music library
Funny, I remember when iTunes switch over to the xml library and the havoc that caused, especially with third party apps that could no longer work directly on the iTunes library.
Yes, for me, Library is the library file (that used to be an XML file) whereas my directories full of music are just directories full of music. Which I call my music collection.
You can come up with a books analogy but in MacOS terms the file is called "Music Library.musiclibrary" and is the music library
I hope you don't mind if I continue the dialog.
First, a rose by any other name... Who cares what you call something? In the end, it's the function, not the name, that matters. The function of "Music Library.musiclibrary" is catalog (or index). This isn't just an analogy. Catalogs are catalogs, contents are contents, whether they're stored as bits and bytes or on scrolls of papyrus. If you lose the contents, the catalog is nothing more than a historical curiosity or a guide for re-acquisition. But as long as the contents exist, you can make a new catalog.
And while language is a flexible thing, I doubt you'll find many dictionaries that define "library" as anything other than a collection of books, recordings, films, periodicals, etc. (or the structure housing those materials), or a thesaurus that considers "library" and "catalog" to be synonymous.
I wrote and edited non-fiction print books for about 15 years. Every one of them had a table of contents, every one had an index. Without a doubt, those were both essential tools for getting the most out of the books. Publishers hired professional indexers to be sure that job was done well. If you asked an indexer to review a book... he/she might well go thumbs up or thumbs down on the strength of the index alone. But speaking as the person responsible for the contents of the book... if the contents sucked, who but an indexer would care that the index was beautifully done?
Meanwhile, Tim Berners Lee hatched this www thing. All sorts of fabulous and useless content, and it soon became hell to find the good stuff. People dedicated entire sites to carefully curated link-lists of useful content. For a while, it was even possible for book publishers to make a buck publishing guides to that content - things moved slowly enough that most links were still valid by the time the book came off the press. The snowball grew, and only web-crawling bots could keep up with the ever-changing contents. "Indexing" fell to Google's coders and site designers practicing the latest SEO techniques. Today, I'd wager a fair percentage of the population thinks Google is somehow responsible for the content it helps us find. Yet as critical as a good search engine is for using the web, if there was no content, we wouldn't need that index.
Let's bring it back to iTunes. Based on all the posts I've read at MR over the years, whether it's music fans curating their iTunes libraries, or photographers grumbling about how they hate the way Apple buries image files inside the Aperture/iPhoto/Photos libraries (or waxing eloquent about how important it is for them to control the folder structure of their media libraries)... If you asked any one of them what's more important, the index list or the media contents... what do you think they'd say?
Having read countless "help me" posts here in MR, I'm going to guess what we'll start seeing in a few months... "Help! I copied the Music Library from my Music/Music folder to my new Mac, and all my music is gone! It's only 6.3 MB!! I had over 100 GB of music!"
I know it will happen, because I recently helped a friend who had managed to do the opposite, with "iTunes Classic." Sometime, years ago, she moved her iTunes Media folders to an external HDD, but left the iTunes Library ITL and XML files on the internal HD. She connected that external drive to a new Mac, but did not transfer the ITLs and XMLs before wiping the drive of the old Mac (Backup? What's that?). So when she opened iTunes for the first time and selected that external drive as the location of iTunes Media folders... "I know all that music is there, but it's not showing up in iTunes!" In the end, fixing it wasn't too hard. iTunes > File > Add to Library... (in the new Music app it's become Music > File > Import...).
But yeah, I just said, "Add to Library." That's what Apple chose to call it, even though functionally it's "Add to catalog." And Music > Preferences > Files has variants on the old iTunes equivalents, "Keep Music Media folder organized. Places files into album and artist folders...." and "Copy files to Music Media folder when adding to library." What's a salmon to do, but keep swimming against the current?
Clicking on an album in the new Music app brings you to a whole new page, where previously it operated much like a drop down menu.