iPod why is it checked or not checked

[CommonMan]

In iTunes the songs have boxes that are either checked or not checked. Can someone please explain what the purpose of these boxes and checks?

 

[spicyapple]

You can uncheck songs so that you can exclude them from smart playlists, automatic iPod syncing, etc. It's useful also when you play in shuffle/normal mode and want to skip over certain songs.

 

[CommonMan]

shuffle Normal Mode

Thanks Spicy. I'm trying to think how to use the check functions. Right now, I don't know how useful it would be since I mostly use the itunes to store music and to load my iPod. I copy and paste the songs to my ipod so would it matter if a song was checked or not? P.S. I noticed you changed your avatar.

 

[mkrishnan]

If you manually manage your iPod, you can still use it for skipping songs in playlists and shuffle play in iTunes, at least, but I'm not sure about on the iPod... I use it for sync'ing my iPod with a library too big to fit on it.

If you do decide to use it, it's also useful to know that option-clicking a checkbox (I think it's option, but it might be another modifier key like ctrl or something) will select or deselect all the songs currently in the browse view. So you can very quickly check/uncheck a genre or songs that meet search criteria or an album or so on.