AppleScript to determine album ratings from song ratings and no. of tracks?

Question

Hi
I am wondering if it would be possible to write an AppleScript to determine the album ratings for my albums in iTunes in the following way:
All of my music collection comes from CDs I have ripped. I rip the whole album and then delete tracks I don't like. The number of tracks in the original album is preserved in the Track # field, e.g. Track 1 of 10, etc. All multi disc albums have been given the same name, i.e. they are recognised as the same album with Disc Number preserved, i.e. Disc #1 of 2, etc.
The Album Rating would then be the sum of the rating of every song that is still in my iTunes Music Library divided by the total number of tracks in the original album (with multi disc albums counted as one album).
So, for example, if I had an one disc album which originally had 10 tracks, that I only kept two songs from, and one of these tracks had a rating of 5 and the other 3, the album rating would be as follows:
5+3/10 = 0.8
Ideally this value would then be written to the Album Rating tag in iTunes. I think the best iTunes can do is display half-star ratings, but I wonder if it will still sort the Albums by Album Rating based on the actual value of the above calculation, i.e. an album with Rating 4.52 would be sorted higher than an album with rating 4.48, but both would show in iTunes as having 4 and a half stars?
The next best option would be for the script to generate a text file of the Album Ratings sorted by rating with the highest first (in fact it would be good to have this in addition to the values being written to the Album Rating tags)
The difference between this script and the built in method used in iTunes is that iTunes doesn't account for deleted tracks, so in the above example the Album would be rated 4, even though 8 tracks had been deleted.
I hope this is clear and would be grateful for any help in getting this script together.
Thanks,
Nick.

Answer 1

Here's an improved version of the script that should fulfill your needs (the modifications are in blue). The script now sorts the Album Ratings (via Numbers.app) and save them to a text file on the desktop, with no rating greater than 80. As previously, you must choose at least one track.
--BEGINNING OF SCRIPT
*tell application "iTunes"*
--Make a list of all the selected albums:
*set theAlbums to {}*
*set theAlbumsRef to a reference to theAlbums*
*set tempList to album of selection*
*set thePreviousTitle to ""*
*repeat with thisTitle in tempList*
*set thisTitle to thisTitle as text*
*if thisTitle is not thePreviousTitle then*
*copy thisTitle to the end of theAlbumsRef*
*set thePreviousTitle to thisTitle*
*end if*
*end repeat*
*set numberOfAlbums to count theAlbums*
--Make a list containing one track for each selected album:
*set theTracks to {}*
*set theTracksRef to a reference to theTracks*
*repeat with thisAlbum in theAlbums*
*copy (track 1 whose album is thisAlbum) to the end of theTracksRef*
*end repeat*
--Set the album rating of each album contained in the selection:
*set theRatings to ""*
*set k to 0*
*repeat with thisTrack in theTracks*
*set k to k + 1*
*if k mod 25 = 0 then beep 1* -- for audio feedback
*set thisAlbum to item k of theAlbums*
*set numberOfTracks to 0*
*repeat with k from 1 to (disc count of thisTrack)*
try
*get (track count of track 1 whose (album is thisAlbum) and (disc number is k))*
*set numberOfTracks to numberOfTracks + result*
*end try*
*end repeat*
*set songRating to 0*
*repeat with R in (rating of tracks whose album is thisAlbum)*
*if R > 80 then set R to 80*
*set songRating to songRating + R*
*end repeat*
*set thisRating to round (songRating / numberOfTracks)*
*set album rating of thisTrack to thisRating*
*set theRatings to theRatings & (album artist of thisTrack & tab & thisAlbum & tab & (thisRating as text) & return)*
*end repeat*
*end tell*
--Save the album ratings to a text file (on the dekstop):
*set theTextFile to POSIX file (POSIX path of (path to desktop) & "iTunes Ratings")*
*open for access theTextFile with write permission*
*set eof theTextFile to 0*
*write theRatings to theTextFile*
*close access theTextFile*
--Use application Numbers.app to sort the text file by rating:
*tell application "Finder" to set NumbersWasOpen to (process "Numbers" exists)*
*tell application "Numbers"*
launch
*open theTextFile*
*tell table 1 of sheet 1 of front document*
*sort by column 3 direction descending*
*set theSortedRatings to ""*
*repeat with j from 1 to numberOfAlbums*
*set X to value of cell 1 of row j*
*if X = 0 then set X to ""*
*set Y to value of cell 2 of row j*
*if Y = 0 then set Y to ""*
*set Z to (value of cell 3 of row j) as integer*
*set theSortedRatings to theSortedRatings & X & tab & Y & tab & Z & return*
*end repeat*
*end tell*
*close front document without saving*
*if not NumbersWasOpen then quit*
*end tell*
*open for access theTextFile with write permission*
*set eof theTextFile to 0*
*write theSortedRatings to theTextFile*
*close access theTextFile*
theSortedRatings
--END OF SCRIPT
Please let me know if anything doesn't work as expected.
Message was edited by: Pierre L.