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hifivoice

macrumors member
Jan 2, 2009
32
28
Column Browser - It's back in - fully functional - 10.15.2 beta - also the mini player with artwork is exactly like it was in iTunes

Very good news! Is it also possible to display the cover art in front of the song list?
 

mikzn

macrumors 68040
Sep 2, 2013
3,005
2,293
North Vancouver
Very good news! Is it also possible to display the cover art in front of the song list?

No that has not been added back - there is no place to select "Show Artwork" in the song - View Options

The only place Artwork shows in the column view is in the top center as per the screen shot above

There is a new ability to show "Up Next" on the right side as a column view that can be toggled on and off - and there it shows an icon of the artwork for each track individually
 
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kirkmc

macrumors member
Nov 4, 2012
97
119
"also the mini player with artwork is exactly like it was in iTunes"

The MiniPlayer is exactly the same as it was with the first Catalina release, and even in the betas. What you may think is different is that initially it would open with only the controllers visible; you could just drag from the top of the controller window to expand it and display artwork.
 
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mikzn

macrumors 68040
Sep 2, 2013
3,005
2,293
North Vancouver
"also the mini player with artwork is exactly like it was in iTunes"

The MiniPlayer is exactly the same as it was with the first Catalina release, and even in the betas. What you may think is different is that initially it would open with only the controllers visible; you could just drag from the top of the controller window to expand it and display artwork.

Yes I know that - been working with it from the early betas - perhaps poor choice of words - changed / edited - my post - thanks

I was mostly just letting folks who might want to see a screen shot of that (mini player) as well.

My excuse is - I was not "thinking clearly at the time" because of a feeling of overwhelming euphoria and elation caused by the return of the "Column Browser" :p
 
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Sowelu

macrumors 6502a
Aug 15, 2008
813
1,012
New York City
So, wait... did I just read that the Music app doesn't retain playlist song order/sequence after syncing to your iPhone or iPad? Isn't that the very purpose of a playlist? It is to me. I guess I need to hold out a bit longer...
 
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ErikGrim

macrumors 604
Original poster
Jun 20, 2003
6,522
5,145
Brisbane, Australia
Just as an FYI, Doug of Doug’s Scripts are starting to come around on Music. There’s a lot of updated scripts over at https://dougscripts.com. As well as some technical information on the state of ITL:

iTunes Library.xml v. ITLibrary
A couple of years ago, Apple added a new option to iTunes Preferences:

sharexmlwithothers.png


This, and the fact that the support doc for this feature referred to the "Legacy library XML", was Apple's way of telling developers that the XML was going to go away.

The iTunes Library.xml file is a condensed version of the iTunes Library database periodically exported as a property-list-like text file by iTunes itself, generally whenever a change occurred to the database: you played or tagged a track, created or deleted a playlist, and so on. It can easily be imported and parsed quickly by an application, even an AppleScript. You've probably used an AppleScript from this site that asked you to turn the "Share" option on, right?

A year or two before the "Share" option was added, Apple introduced the ITLibrary framework, which is an API that developers can use to get info about the iTunes library (and now the Music and TV apps) instead of having to use the iTunes Library.xml file.

So anyway, the XML has finally gone away, effectively, since it is no longer automatically exported.

I've been trying to incorporate the ITLibrary framework into my projects whenever I can, especially for apps that need to display lots of tracks or playlists (like Media Folder Files Not Added).

But ITLibrary was apparently last updated for macOS 10.13. And now that iTunes has been split out into the media apps, it's usefulness over the XML file has not been improved.

(And please. Don't let me hear anyone suggest some groovy way of exporting the XML automatically. Forget about the XML. Unless it's for backups or something.)

  1. ITLibrary does not know about Work and Movement tags.
  2. ITLibrary does not know the difference between playlists in the Music app and playlists in the TV app. You can ask for discrete music tracks or TV tracks or movie tracks, but not discrete playlists from either app.
  3. ITLibrary does not know what a subscription playlist is. It's an Apple Music playlist you have added to your library. ITLibrary sees it as a Regular playlist.
  4. Ditto Loved and Disliked for tracks
  5. Ditto Loved and Disliked for playlists
  6. ITLibrary does not distinguish among types of cloud tracks (uploaded, matched, duplicate, etc)
  7. ITLibrary does not provide a Track ID which is used to correlate the tracks in a playlist to their library entries and vice versa.
And I'm sure I've run into other minor impediments. Wait, bonus gripe: converting decimal persistent IDs to hexidecimal. (Strangely, the ITLibrary required you codesign your app in order to use it, but I'm not seeing this prohibition in Catalina. Am I missing something?)

It would be great if someone over there could give us a dusted up version of ITLibrary. Meanwhile, there's still AppleScript.
 
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rishi.talreja

macrumors member
Jan 6, 2014
59
35
Mumbai, India
Just as an FYI, Doug of Doug’s Scripts are starting to come around on Music. There’s a lot of updated scripts over at http://dougsscripts.com. As well as some technical information on the state of ITL:

That website is a must for anyone who manages a medium to large library! I've been trying all scripts updated for Music and trying to update a few here and there myself but that guy is great for putting most of them out there's for free.

Btw I think your URL and text field got swapped for the homepage making it a broken link!
 
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dvir971

macrumors regular
Feb 7, 2011
216
19
Israel
Cloud Library not working for me at all... When I try to activate it it tells me the "Genius" service is currently unavailable... Anyone else experiencing that?
 

ignaciobarrena

macrumors 6502
Dec 25, 2016
274
220
Okey, so I hate that when you go back from an album to the library view it doesn't remember the position on the library and I have to scroll back manually... that's awful like what are you doing Apple????

Why we don't have a simbol or any mark to know if Music app is connected to Apple Music servers? in iTunes we had it so we can try to reconnect..

I'm very disappointed with this app, it doesn't do anything better than iTunes. I hope they can update it to have a smooth experience, it's disappointing..

Is any of this fixed with 10.15.2 beta?

thanks!
 

cmChimera

macrumors 601
Feb 12, 2010
4,308
3,844
Okey, so I hate that when you go back from an album to the library view it doesn't remember the position on the library and I have to scroll back manually... that's awful like what are you doing Apple????
Honestly I'd rather them just go back to the album opening in-line without opening a window. The very idea of having the back button seems like a useless extra step.

Is any of this fixed with 10.15.2 beta?

thanks!
No.
 
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ignaciobarrena

macrumors 6502
Dec 25, 2016
274
220
Honestly I'd rather them just go back to the album opening in-line without opening a window. The very idea of having the back button seems like a useless extra step.

No.

Damn, I hope they start to fix this beta app, I can't believe that after all these years almost all of the apple services apps (Music, TV, Home app, News...) are soooo bad compared to the competence.
 

SteamyDinkins

macrumors newbie
Nov 29, 2012
27
15
So, wait... did I just read that the Music app doesn't retain playlist song order/sequence after syncing to your iPhone or iPad? Isn't that the very purpose of a playlist? It is to me. I guess I need to hold out a bit longer...
Yep, this is a bad bug with Music and iOS syncing (among various bad bugs with Music and iOS syncing). I've reported it to Apple via the developer bug program, and have also been in contact with Executive Relations and advanced product support, so I know they are aware of the issue.

That doesn't mean it will be fixed, though.
 
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magic1educ

macrumors newbie
Nov 13, 2019
1
0
I just can't import the anything from the old iTunes to Music app no matter what.
Tried "holding option key while opening the app, select the iTunes library file, create new Music."
Tried the above method many times, still no music, no playlist, no nothing is inside.....
checked the Error Log App, something like "Assertion failure: err == (9044)" and "ch> (PREFS changed before library is loaded)"
have no clue.....
 

Hergesheimer

macrumors member
Dec 29, 2014
84
32
The Netherlands
After reverting back to Mojave, I am now on Catalina for good 🤪.

How can I pick two ore more albums at the same time in the album view? I used the alt key and the arrow keys before. In Catalina it doesn’t seem to work anymore. Many thanks.
 
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Boredomer

macrumors newbie
Nov 15, 2019
1
0
I can add and delete music from my iPods (5th Gen and Classic), but there are several things I could absolutely do in iTunes that are no longer possible (PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong):

search files on the iPod
edit metadata on files on the iPod
play files from on the iPod
 

mikzn

macrumors 68040
Sep 2, 2013
3,005
2,293
North Vancouver
I can add and delete music from my iPods (5th Gen and Classic), but there are several things I could absolutely do in iTunes that are no longer possible (PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong):

search files on the iPod
edit metadata on files on the iPod
play files from on the iPod

You can view the iPod music files in Music App - it shows as a column view ( 5 columns) but AFAIK there is not way to edit meta data from within music on the iPod / iPhone nor can you play them from the music app

Probably because the sync app is now part of the finder?
 

danfoy

macrumors newbie
Feb 23, 2011
5
3
Nottingham
Opening a whole new view for each album, and then kicking you back to the top of the album list when you back out again, is beyond annoying. I can sort of understand the inline album view being pushed back to the next version to release in time for Catalina, but kicking you to the top of each list is just too much.

We went through this before when they re-wrote iWork based on the codebase for the iPad version of the apps. Pages for instance lost distraction-free mode (one of its best features) and contained bugs such as stripping images out of the document if they were placed within tables. It took around two years for the removed features to be reinstated IIRC, and I hope Music is fixed a lot sooner than that.
 
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