How to make a Smart playlist that plays holiday music if in a certain month

I'm trying to make a smart playlist with the ability to update with holiday songs playing when it's their season. Genre=holiday or Christmas if month=12 or December and genre=Halloween if month=10 or October. Can it be scripted?

jescis wrote:
I'm trying to make a smart playlist with the ability to update with holiday songs playing when it's their season. Genre=holiday or Christmas if month=12 or December and genre=Halloween if month=10 or October. Can it be scripted?
Sure but its just as easy to select the playlist then click Play when you want.
Here's something to play with;
set current_month to month of (current date)
get current_month
tell application "iTunes"
          if current_month = "December" then
                    set play_list to "Christmas" -- Change to your Christmas playlist name
          else if current_month = "October" then
                    set play_list to "Halloween" -- Change to your Halloween playlist name
          else if current_month = "January" then
                    set play_list to "New Year" -- Change to your New Year's playlist name
          else
                    set play_list to "Music" -- Play your Music playlist
          end if
          get play_list
play user playlist play_list
end tell

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Smart Playlist: I want to make a smart playlist that plays songs by artists included in other playlists. How?

Here's an example: I have a smart playlist that only plays songs that have been played 2 or more times (Playlist A). I want to make another smart playlist (B) that plays songs by the artists included on playlist A but that are songs not included on playlist A because they have not been played two times yet.
I could do this by making a smart playlist that says to play:
Any songs
not included on Playlist A
by artists included on Playlist A
But for the life of me, I can not figure out how to do this simple thing. My options for Playlist are only "is" or "is not".
I hope that the reason for this is clear - I want to listen to other tracks by artists who have written songs I know I like.
Thanks for looking!

But I have to say, I don't know why that the "is/is not included in" field would not be an option. They oughtta add it!
The problem is that the Smart Playlist rules, although they look complicated, are really oriented to analyzing individual tracks. So "is this track in Playlist A" is easy to do, but "is this track by an Artist for which there is at least one track in playlist A," is currently undoable. However, you can make suggestions to Apple by using the iTunes Feedback page:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html
Thanks you solved my question.
Enjoy the music!

I need a COMPLETE tutorial on how to make a smart playlist with 'conditions'

Ok, I have read discussions in the Support Communities, looked on iTunes Help and I think my brain is going to explode. I need a simple (for dummies) tutorial on how to create a smart playlist with 'conditions' and Live Updating. For example: instead of going through my Library music list and unchecking all my Christmas music and all my Comedy stuff so it won't play year round and at innapropriate times and having to skip them manually when playing on my ipod touch or my iphone4 in my car or through headphones or home sharing and using my AppleTV.
Also, if my comedy is individually all unchecked (in my iTunes Library), and I have a regular playlist in my ipod and one in my iphone (titled Comedy), when I go to the playlist list in my ipod or phone (when not connected to my Mac), and select shuffle: will that playlist play all the way through even though they are all unchecked?
AND, if I have 'sync only checked songs and video' box UNCHECKED in my summary page for a device what exactly does that do? Or more precisely, WHY would I want or not want that box to be checked?
I really hope someone can help me as I am a complete idiot when it comes to understanding long explanations.

katinak67 wrote:
AND, if I have 'sync only checked songs and video' box UNCHECKED in my summary page for a device what exactly does that do? Or more precisely, WHY would I want or not want that box to be checked?
If the box is unchecked, it won't do anything. It will sync everything.
If it is checked, songs that are unchecked will nto get sync'd to the iPod.
katinak67 wrote:
For example: instead of going through my Library music list and unchecking all my Christmas music and all my Comedy stuff so it won't play year round and at innapropriate times and having to skip them manually when playing on my ipod touch or my iphone4 in my car or through headphones or home sharing and using my AppleTV.
Select all the Christmas stuff, right click - get info.
Set the sure the Genre is Christmas.
Go to the Info tab and set Skip when Shuffling to Yes.
Do the same for Comedy.
Create a new smart playlist (named My Music or something similar).
Match all rules;
Genre is not Christmas.
Genre is not Comedy.
Play this playlist on the iPod/iTunes to listen to everything except Christmas & Comedy.
Or if you have Shuffle turned on, just listen to anything and Christmas & Comedy will get skipped.
Also, if my comedy is individually all unchecked (in my iTunes Library), and I have a regular playlist in my ipod and one in my iphone (titled Comedy), when I go to the playlist list in my ipod or phone (when not connected to my Mac), and select shuffle: will that playlist play all the way through even though they are all unchecked?
It depends.
In iTunes, unchecked items will get skipped.
If unchecekd items get sync'd to the iPod (you do NOT have Sync only cheked items ticked), they will play unless you have them set to Skip when shuffling.

How can you make an smart playlist that uses another smart playlist when I can't see them all

My whole family uses itunes. I want to make a playlist that uses other playlist. However, when I start a smart playlist and click playlist is I get a dropdown menue that doesn't show all my playlists. My wife's name happens to start with a V so all of hers are at the bottom and don't show up.

Once the list of playlists is on your screen you can use the Page Down/Page Up and Arrow Down/Arrow Up keys to access values that aren't shown.
tt2

How do you make a "purchased" smart playlist that is sorted by "date purchased" and not "date added"

I'm getting quite frustrated with how iCloud works.
My "purchased" playlists that comes with the iphone when you purchase a song does not work half the time and never syncs accross devices. Also is it possible to make a smart playlist that orders the songs by "recently purchased" and not "recently added"? I don't get why iCloud messes everything up. It really has ruind the music app. Nothing is stable or easy to use. If anyone has this issue or has a solution I would be very grateful! Thanks.

DOn't get me wrong, this is a great way to rebuild things, but the "Purchased" playlist is a speacil playlist and will "Reappear" on the next purchase you make.
You can build one for now, and then when you buy another song, use the playlist your creating now to go by and add to the "green" purchased playlist

How do I create a smart playlist that automatically gets updated when I add songs to other specific playlists?

Basically I have a number of playlists containing specific types of songs, and also have an "All Songs" playlist that contains everything from these playlists. It would be really helpful if the songs I add to the smaller playlists could also be added to an "All Songs" smart playlist automatically. How would I do this? I tried to make a smart playlist by selecting "Playlist" "is" "[names of each playlist]." But nothing happened. Is there something more I'm supposed to do? I'm not really familiar with how smart playlists work, so I may be doing something wrong.
Thank you!

I tried to make a smart playlist by selecting "Playlist" "is" "[names of each playlist]." But nothing happened.
Check up at the top of your smart playlist rule for "All Songs". Is it currently saying "Match all of the following rules"?
If so, change the all to any, as per the following screenshot:

How to highlight or make a Smart Playlist of missing music files?

I recently converted my library from Mac to PC and out of the 45000 songs there are around 1500 missing. It'll take forever to search my library for the ! next to each missing sing. Anyway to simply get all the missing songs in one list?

You really don't get it, do you.
I really do: You can't bring yourself to say "OK, my solution is not practical or helpful". You're dancing all around it.
I wasn't meaning to "lecture" you but I was - and am - really annoyed. I'm sorry, but I honestly felt that your solution was more about you feeling a need to be technically correct when clearly it was an unhelpful answer and I'm not going to go along with that. And it looks like you're not going to admit your solution was unhelpful.
I might seem to be over-reacting but the thing is it's not just this thread.
I have noticed that there is a lot of this going around on these forums and it's annoying because it derails perfectly sensible questions and wastes a lot of time. It's happened quite a few times to me and the common thread seems to be those who engage in this behaviour have a whole lot of "discussion board points".
What you should have asked is, "Is there an available field in the tags of a movie file that I can use in a Smart Playlist to select for only HD movies". And I would have given you a one-word answer. NO
Yes, I should have. Technically. Semantically. I suppose. Sure.
But anyone can get that from "How can I make a smart playlist of only HD movies?" without assuming I'd want to first manually select all the movies. That's the purposes of the joke quote which seemed to be lost on you. I wasn't just randomly quoting you know, I was making a point.
If only you'd given me a one word answer. Now that would have been helpful.

Smart playlists that grab a random selection make zero sense.

Because the random selection only ever happens ONCE making it utterly useless.
For example: I have created a smart playlist that grabs 1 hour's worth or randomly selected 3 - 5 star rated tracks from my music library. But it NEVER re-randomises! This makes no sense.
Also: this forum remains very broken (it is impossible to login using another Apple ID once logged into another ID) and the Bold, Italic and Underline buttons don't work (I'm using Camino Version 1.6b3pre (1.8.1.12pre 2008012000) ).

Yeah, I've been to Doug's scripts before - great site.
As for just hitting the spacebar - no help when I want a falling asleep playlist. I don't want to wake up hours later to discover iTunes still playing in the middle of the night. Thanks anyway
You know - I do not properly comprehend the thinking behind having random selection mean random ONCE, then the same FOREVER

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The challenge is is not to determine which of the tracks that have been played in the last X days has been played most since the beginning of time, but which have been played most in the last X days. iTunes can do the first one but it simply doesn't have the power to do the second.
tt2

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When you say you can't play the songs from the iPhone playlist, can you see the playlist on the iPhone? Is the song visible in the playlist? Is it visible under "Songs" in iTunes on your iPhone? Is it visible in "Albums" on your iPhone? Is the song in iCloud?

Smart Playlists Stop Playing After Each Track

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Make sure the little boxes to the left of the song names are checked. If you need to check all the songs in a single view at once, hold the CTRL key and check any one of the boxes.

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thanks

Dale:
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Do you Twango?
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I've written an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. It's compatible with iPhoto 08 libraries. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.

How to make a smart album from a particular time zone?

I would like to make a smart album that contains photos taken in a particular time zone. But I could not find out the way to add a rule to read time zone information. Could anyone tell me how to retrieve the time zone information from the filter panel of Aperture 3?

to add a rule to read time zone information.
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Is there a way to make a smart "playlist" of specific books in my iTunes library, and copy ONLY THOSE books to an iOS device? I own an iPad and an iPhone but I want different books on different devices.

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How to make a Smart playlist that plays holiday music if in a certain month

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