hey all,
I hit upon the Top 20 smartlist idea listed on SmartPlaylists.com while trying to figure out good ways to find my recent favorite music. This is obviously a good strategy, but the problem exists that you have to rate it 5 stars manually. The iRate applescript is also a good idea, although I don't want total playcount and date added to figure into my current favorites list.
Obviously a feature that is needed in iTunes by many (if you look on the some messageboards) is a recent PlayCount or most oftened listened to just in the last N, where one could define recent or last N days, weeks, etc. Since this isn't a reality, I wanted to know if this applescript idea was possible:
an applescript that took the value in Last Played (to make it less time consuming it would only check the Recently Played smartlist), turned it into some value that could be compared to a value string, have it copied to the comment field (without erasing the current comments). Then to have it work with the Top 20 smartlist function, if a certain number of values appear within the range "System Time" to "System Time - 7 (14?) days" the song's rating is automatically boosted to 5 stars.
To illustrate: say I want any song played 3 or more times in the last week to be considered a current favorite. Everytime I hook my iPod to my computer at night, I run the applescript, it checks the last played of every song I played recently (that day, that week, whatever), creates a comparable value out of it, and copies it to the Comment field. It then checks every songs Comment field for ones that have 3 values that fall in the value range that represents "system time" to "system time - 7 (or maybe 14) days". Any song that does match gets its rating changed to 5 starts.
Obviously this last part is only useful in conjunction with the Top 20 Smartlist. However, one could also implement it in some other way I suppose.
To keep the Comments field from overflowing, the last function the applescript could perform is that any values that are out of the range I mentioned would be deleted from the field. This script wouldn't take into account if you played the song several times since you last ran it, but if you ran the script at least once a day (after you've connected/updated your iPod if you have one), then as long as you listed to that song once that day, it would work.
This all sounds like it would take a long time to run, but I don't think it would, especially if you limit it to a Recently Played list. You would have manually run it, but it beats the hell out of having to rate every current favorite song to 5 starts manually.
Here's the catch: I have NO idea how to write Applescript right now, nor do I have even the slightest bit of time to really roll on this idea. Is there anyone who could tell me if A) this idea is possible, and B) someone who could try to write it?
Thanks.
I hit upon the Top 20 smartlist idea listed on SmartPlaylists.com while trying to figure out good ways to find my recent favorite music. This is obviously a good strategy, but the problem exists that you have to rate it 5 stars manually. The iRate applescript is also a good idea, although I don't want total playcount and date added to figure into my current favorites list.
Obviously a feature that is needed in iTunes by many (if you look on the some messageboards) is a recent PlayCount or most oftened listened to just in the last N, where one could define recent or last N days, weeks, etc. Since this isn't a reality, I wanted to know if this applescript idea was possible:
an applescript that took the value in Last Played (to make it less time consuming it would only check the Recently Played smartlist), turned it into some value that could be compared to a value string, have it copied to the comment field (without erasing the current comments). Then to have it work with the Top 20 smartlist function, if a certain number of values appear within the range "System Time" to "System Time - 7 (14?) days" the song's rating is automatically boosted to 5 stars.
To illustrate: say I want any song played 3 or more times in the last week to be considered a current favorite. Everytime I hook my iPod to my computer at night, I run the applescript, it checks the last played of every song I played recently (that day, that week, whatever), creates a comparable value out of it, and copies it to the Comment field. It then checks every songs Comment field for ones that have 3 values that fall in the value range that represents "system time" to "system time - 7 (or maybe 14) days". Any song that does match gets its rating changed to 5 starts.
Obviously this last part is only useful in conjunction with the Top 20 Smartlist. However, one could also implement it in some other way I suppose.
To keep the Comments field from overflowing, the last function the applescript could perform is that any values that are out of the range I mentioned would be deleted from the field. This script wouldn't take into account if you played the song several times since you last ran it, but if you ran the script at least once a day (after you've connected/updated your iPod if you have one), then as long as you listed to that song once that day, it would work.
This all sounds like it would take a long time to run, but I don't think it would, especially if you limit it to a Recently Played list. You would have manually run it, but it beats the hell out of having to rate every current favorite song to 5 starts manually.
Here's the catch: I have NO idea how to write Applescript right now, nor do I have even the slightest bit of time to really roll on this idea. Is there anyone who could tell me if A) this idea is possible, and B) someone who could try to write it?
Thanks.