How do you use the Multiple Item Information dialog box ???

Question

How do you use the Multiple Item Information dialog box ???
Where are the instructions on how the information in the Multiple Item Information dialog box equates to ...
1. The way iTunes sorts tracks and albums
2. The reason to select a leading check box
3. Why there are Option selections (Yes /No) and leading check boxes.
4. Why some changes remain in the track info, but do not "take effect" in iTunes (Part of a compilation is an example)
Looked in Help, Support, went to the local Genius bar for an hour, even arrainged a call from apple support ...
Thanks

Answer 1

As Christopher says, it's a compilation. Different tracks are by different artists.
Setting the *Album Artist* field to *Various Artists* and setting *Part of a compilation* to Yes should be all that is required. Depending on your *Group compilations when browsing* setting ( I recommend On ) either should suffice but I suggest doing both.
Based on your commentary, I selected all the "O Brother" tracks, and checked the boxes for everything line that was blank in the Info and the Sort panes. Only exceptions were the album name and the disc number 1 of 1 and the artwork. I blanked and checked anything else.
That's not what I meant. When you select multiple tracks, only those values which +are already common+ to all tracks are displayed. Typically these will include Artist, though not with compilation albums, Album Artist, Album, No. of Tracks, Genre plus various sort fields. A blank value may indicate that different tracks have different values or it may be that the value is blank for all tracks. For the drop down values on the Options tab the value shown may not reflect the information in every tag. If values you expect to be common, such as Album Artist or the Album title are not displayed you can simply type these in and click OK. This will often be enough to group the album.
If you place a checkmark against the blank boxes and apply changes then you will clear those fields so you should only do this if that is the effect you want. Putting a checkmark next to an empty (representing different values) *Track No.* box, for example, will just clear the all the track numbers which is very rarely useful.
Adding then removing extra text is for a specific problem where despite all common values being identical across the tracks of the album iTunes seems to "remember" that it should see two albums. A typical example would be when an album originally listed as *Album CD1* & *Album CD2* is given disc numbers X of Y and then has the Album name changed to Album. I've seen iTunes merge all but one track into the new album, but insist on listing one remaining track separately, despite both albums having the same title. In this case I've found overtyping the album title again has no effect whereas changing it to AlbumX and then back to Album does what I was trying to achieve in the first place.
Don't forget that even properly organsied albums may still break up if you don't chose an album-friendly view. Sorting on the track name or track number columns can be useful in some circumstances but in general I revert to Album by Artist when browsing through my library.
tt2