- The iTunes Interface
- Play CDs
- Import CDs
- Create Your Own Playlists
- Burn an Audio CD
- Play the Radio
- The iTunes Store
- Manage and Play Videos in iTunes
- The Source List
- The Detail Window
- View the iTunes Libraries
- Search the iTunes Libraries
- View Options
- Close, Minimize, and Zoom Buttons
- Controller Buttons
- Video Controller Buttons
- Party Shuffle
- Quick Links
- Share Music Over a Local Network
- Print CD Jewel Case Inserts, Song Listings, or Album Listings
- Song Information and Options
- Status Display
- Rate Your Songs
- Export Playlists as Plain Text, Unicode, or XML Files
- iTunes Preferences
- Music File Formats
- iTunes Visualizer
- iTunes Equalizer
- Connect an iPhone, iPod, or Apple TV
- Back up the iTunes Libraries
- Menu Commands
- Favorite Keyboard Shortcuts
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Song Information and Options
Get information about songs and videos, add lyrics and comments, adjust the volume control, and make other adjustments in the Information window.
To open the Song Information window:
- Select one song or video, or multiple songs and videos.
- Type Command I to open the Information window.
If you make a single song selection, the Information window contains seven tabs: Summary, Info, Video, Sorting, Options, Lyrics, and Artwork.
Summary
The Summary pane gives information about the selected item. To get information about other songs in the selected playlist without leaving this window, click the “Previous” or “Next” button (circled below-left).
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Info
The Info pane provides additional information, as you can see, above-right. There is also a “ Comments” field in which you can add your own comments, such as “Used as theme for Ben’s graduation movie.”
Mark items as a compilation (circled, above-right) to group them together.
When you mark a song as part of a compilation, a new folder is created in the iTunes Music folder named “Compilations,” and the song is placed in a sub-folder named for the album the song came from.
When you mark a CD as a compilation CD, a new folder named for the CD is placed in the Compilations folder. This causes any song you import from the CD to be marked as “Part of a compilation.”
Compilations can be copied to an iPod, shared with others by copying them to another computer, or burned onto a CD.
Video
If you select a video, the Video pane, shown below-left, lets you enter information about the video, including the video type and episode number.
Use the Video Kind pop-up menu to set the video type for the selected video. This information helps iTunes determine where the video should be stored. Movies are stored in the Movies library and Music Videos are stored in the Music library. This menu is only available if you added the video to iTunes manually. Movies and videos purchased from the iTunes Store already include this information, and it cannot be changed.
If you selected a TV show, you can enter information in the “Show,” “Season Number,” “Episode ID,” and “Episode Number” fields. This information helps iTunes organize your “TV Shows” library.
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Sorting
Override the default sorting options for any song, video, or album by entering information in the Sorting pane (above-right). The boxes in the left column contain information about the item (the same information displayed in the Info pane). By default, iTunes will sort the song using this information. Enter information in the boxes in the right column to override the default sort information without modifying the existing song information.
Options
The Options pane allows you to set the Volume Adjustment for individual songs. This is cool when you’re a serious rocker, and cranking up the other volume controls just isn’t loud enough.
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Use the Equalizer Preset pop-up menu to select one of the preset equalizer settings for the selected song. You can also set this in the main iTunes window if you’ve configured “View Options” to show the Equalizer column (as explained on page 229).
Set My Rating for the selected song between one and five stars. This setting can also be set in the iTunes main window if you’ve configured “View Options” to show the Rating column.
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Set a Start/Stop Time for a song. In the event you want to play or import just a section of a long song, enter the “Start Time” and “Stop Time” in a minutes:seconds format (00:00). To determine which time settings you need, first play the whole song. Watch the “Status” display at the top of the iTunes window, and write down the beginning and ending “Elapsed Time” of your desired music segment.
If you selected more than one song, the “ Multiple Song Information” window, shown on the right, combines all the previous information and options into one window. The “Volume Adjustment” affects all selected tracks.
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Lyrics
You can paste song lyrics into the Lyrics pane and then display them on your Mac and your other Apple devices, such as an iPod or iPhone. This is a great way to memorize your favorite songs.
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Finding lyrics and manually adding them to every song is rather cumbersome. Fortunately, there are several free tools that automate the process, such as the “Sing that iTune!” widget (http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/music/singthatitune.html).
Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes (http://dougscripts.com/itunes/) is a great resource for automating iTunes. There are over 400 AppleScripts available for iTunes, including scripts that automatically find lyrics and add them to your iTunes songs.
Artwork
The Artwork pane displays the artwork associated with the selected item. Songs and videos you buy from the iTunes Store automatically include the artwork, and it appears in this window. This artwork also appears in the Artwork pane of the main iTunes window (far right). Click the Artwork button, circled in the example, to show or hide the song artwork. To see a full-size version of the artwork in its own window, single-click the artwork.
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When you manually import songs and videos into iTunes, those items won’t have any artwork. You can search the iTunes Store for artwork. From the Advanced menu, choose “Get Album Artwork.” iTunes will contact the iTunes Store and download any artwork it can find.
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