How To Select All Songs In An Album To Play Them?

Question

How can I easily select all songs in one album to play them?
Now I have to click the checkbox for each individual song. Surely, there is a shortcut for this??? I keep the library sorted by album. And, no, I am not going to do playlists.
And, by the way, why isn't there a detailed manual showing how to use the product?

Answer 1

cochranjk2 wrote:
If you turn on the Browser while in that list view, then the album art continues to display when you select a single album from the browser pane.
The browser has three columns. The right hand column lists the albums without album art. I found no way to change that behavior. Yes, I can search for the album by name, but that's not what I would normally do.
The album art continues to be displayed in the area below the Browser.
Why are you closing the Browser? You can navigate away from the window with the Browser in it and edit data on any of your other tracks. When you come back, the album you selected will still be selected, and it will stop playing at the end.
(I'm also not sure what you mean by "go back to the Library". When you turn on the Browser, you're still in your Library; it's just a different view mode. Are you navigating to a different playlist?)
I close the browser so I can see the list of tracks and albums in the library. With the browser open and one album selected (to play it), it is the only album visible in the library. I found no way to "navigate away from the window with the browser" - the browser is the only view of the library available at that point. I am not using playlists at all (except for syncing with my iPhone and occasionally to burn a CD) so, no, I am not navigating to a different (or any) playlist.
Aha. That's easy enough to fix: create a playlist (called "Editing" or something) containing all of your music. (You could make it a smart playlist, using the rule "Date added is after 1/1/1900"). Then, while leaving the Browser open in your main library window, you can navigate to your Editing playlist to do all your editing. Then your album will remain selected, and keep playing, in the main library.
iTunes's functionality is dependent on playlists. There are solutions to the problems you are having, but trying to solve problems without using any playlists is like asking for help with organizing things on the Desktop without wanting to use folders.
Here's another solution: Leave everything checked, as I said above. Create an empty playlist, and tell Party Shuffle to use that empty playlist as its source. Then, if you highlight tracks, control-click them, and choose "Play next in Party Shuffle," Party Shuffle will add those tracks and play only them, then stop (because it will try to draw the next track from the empty playlist, and not find anything). I just tested this; it works fine.
Sorry, but I have no idea what you are talking about. After messing around for 20 minutes or more, trying the iTunes (pitiful) help, and finding nothing usable about "Party Shuffle" (the so called help describes things I was unable to locate -- no Party Shuffle playlist, no source pop-up menu, etc.), I quit.
Step-by-step:
1) In Preferences > General, make sure the "Party Shuffle" checkbox is checked in the "Show:" options.
2) Close Preferences, then select the Party Shuffle icon in the Playlists column on the left of your iTunes window. It's probably populated with random songs from your library at this point.
3) Create a new playlist (command-N), but don't add any songs to it. Name it "Empty" or something similar.
4) In the Party Shuffle playlist, in the lower left-hand corner, there is a drop-down menu labeled "Source". Select your Empty playlist from that menu. (iTunes will probably warn you that the playlist you selected is empty.) Note that the Party Shuffle playlist depopulates, because it is drawing its music from an empty playlist.
5) Return to your library, highlight an album (or any group of songs), and control-click any of the tracks. Select "Play next in Party Shuffle" from the contextual menu that appears.
Party shuffle will play the tracks you selected. When it gets to the end of the selection, it will try to draw a random track from the Empty playlist, and fail, and stop playing. You can then continue to edit song information in your library, or navigate to the Party Shuffle playlist if you want see what's playing and look at the album art that's being played.
This solution does exactly what you asked for.