iTunes hackery

[quidire]

Hello all

I and my gf use the same PB, and we have a joint music collection. I merged our iTunes libraries by taking one, moving it to Users:Shared:Music:iTunes and creating symlinks/aliases at the original locations.

So now we have all our music in one place, all our playlists in one place (great for updating our iPod mini) but I want to find some way to make ratings a per-user data element.

I suspect this is impossible, esp if that information is stored on each file. Any work arounds that would allow us to tag music with our own individual opinions on their worth?

thanks
-RS

 

[jaseone]

I haven't got my PB with me at the moment but have a look around in your iTunes Music Library directory and see if there is a separate XML file for ratings but I have a feeling all the information is in the one .XML file so I think you are SOL.

 

[zim]

The ratings and play counts are stored in an xml file, found in your Users > Music folder. iTunes does not track which iPod played what so I don't see a way that you could do what you are thinking. My wife and I share a an account, so our play counts and ratings are all mixed.

What you could do is this... for any songs that you buy, set a group label of, your name. Any songs that she buys could be set with a group name of her name. You could then crate two smart playlist and track by only songs in your own personal group. songs that you both like could be put into both groups with your name, her name listed in the group area... just an idea. I use the group feature to track songs that belong to a genre but also specific to a style i.e. world as genre and irish as group or holiday as genre and rock as group.

 

[quidire]

Given that the ratings are in that xml file...

The following sounds unwise, but what if one created wrapper for iTunes, that executed a few text operations when it opened or closed; even w/ FUS, no user can run iTunes while another is doing so. Say these text operations included:
* on start, take all ratings data out of the iTunes xml file, record them in file ratings-cruft. Take ratings data out of ($USER)-ratings, add into iTunes xml file.
*on exit take all ratings data out of the iTunes xml file, record them in ($USER)-ratings

this wrapper may also be useful as it could operate such that if user B tried to run iTunes while it was open in user A's account, it would
*find out what the other instance of iTunes was doing (need to check iTunes' dictionary to see if Applescript allows for this)
* shoots up a dialogue box reading "User ($USER) is running iTunes and it is doing (such and such). Do you wish to close their copy?"
(I wonder if you can set the suid bit for an applescript file, and if it is heinously reckless to do so)
*if they say yes, a kill signal will be sent, the other instance of iTunes closes (and does its own ratings munging) and then this wrapper gets busy setting up iTunes for the current user.

thoughts?
-RS

 

[wPod]

the ratings and playlists are in the same file. so you could each keep that same file in your user directory username>Music>iTunes and then just shortcut your music library to the Shared>Music folder. (that is what i have done on my computer, so i maintain my own playlists while still allowing other users to see all of the music). the only thing is your playlists would not match up.

 

[quidire]

if we share the database file but have our own XML file will we run into problems if one of us adds a song (and thus user A's xml and the joint db file indicate it) but user B's xml file doesn't contain it?

Does iTunes expect the .xml file to be up to date?

-RS