Thinking about moving to itunes, basic advice please

[julianbramley]

Ayup
Now then
This is a wee bit chicken and egg.
I run Vista and have loads of music organised in straightforward folders with each folder being an album and the files inside are individual tracks.

I have heard horror stories about everything becoming very disorganised once imported into itunes.
Recently I gave a friend a usb memory stick with a few albums on and apparently itunes scattered them all over.

I obviously won't know until I try it, but I don't want to try it if it's going to shuffle my collection!

Thanks in advance for any help.

Julian

[Mr Larrington]

IIRC iTunes defaults to something akin to:

disk:\iTunes\Artist\Album as a directory structuire, so everything is easily findable from outside iTunes.

Nutty will be along in a minute to pour cold water all over this 

[Dave]

IIRC iTunes defaults to something akin to:

disk:\iTunes\Artist\Album as a directory structuire, so everything is easily findable from outside iTunes.

Nutty will be along in a minute to pour cold water all over this 

Yup. /Music/Artist/Album/##_Trackname.format

If you dump a load of files into the iTunes window it will auto-file them for you using that format. This is A Very Good Thing. If you've got a pre-existing filing system for your music files, iTunes can ride roughshod all over it though, which you may not like.

For me, though, it works very well. The integration with the iPod is awesome. People will disagree, but for me it's a perfect example of a piece of software that Just Works.

[bikenerd]

On the Mac, under Preferences, there's a box that says something like "Allow iTunes to organise your music".  If you untick this then iTunes just works on playlists, i.e. the playlist remembers all the locations of the files.  To create a playlist I just create a new playlist in iTunes, highlight all the files in Finder* and then drag and drop them onto the new playlist.

* I think this might be called Explorer under Windows.  Does Windows now do drag and drop properly?  (Haven't used it since about 1999!)

[Dave]

Does Windows now do drag and drop properly?  (Haven't used it since about 1999!)

It does when you work with iTunes.

Actually, d&d seems to work pretty well everywhere. (Define 'properly' )

[nuttycyclist]

...
Nutty will be along in a minute to pour cold water all over this 

     
(but I'm purposefully trying not to labour on the three items of baggage that got left in another place iTunes/France/trains - here is supposed to be a happy place)

...
For me, though, it works very well. The integration with the iPod is awesome. People will disagree, but for me it's a perfect example of a piece of software that Just Works.

Yeah     
 - "Here's my iPod with lots of music and synchronised last time with my iTunes.  Let's plug it in to the computer to re-charge it.  Oh look, it's just ripped all music purchased from iShop off my iPod leaving just the CDs I imported".

As for software "that just works" why do I have to download a 50mb to 70mb "upgrade" every time I open it?

[Mr Larrington]

- "Here's my iPod with lots of music and synchronised last time with my iTunes.  Let's plug it in to the computer to re-charge it.  Oh look, it's just ripped all music purchased from iShop off my iPod leaving just the CDs I imported".

Turn off automatic synchronisation?

As for software "that just works" why do I have to download a 50mb to 70mb "upgrade" every time I open it?

You don't have to download the updates if you don't want them, y'know

[rower40]

Tangent (again!)
I use SonicStage and a Sony "Network Walkman".

Artists' names often confuse it; there are separate entries for
ZZ Top
and
Z Z Top

Also
Huey Lewis & The News
and
Huey Lewis and the news

But the piece-de-resistance is
Hazel O'Connor

So I probably should have done some manual editting when I loaded these onto my PC before transferring the whole lot onto the Walkman.

[Dave]

For me, though, it works very well. The integration with the iPod is awesome. People will disagree, but for me it's a perfect example of a piece of software that Just Works.

Yeah     
 - "Here's my iPod with lots of music and synchronised last time with my iTunes.  Let's plug it in to the computer to re-charge it.  Oh look, it's just ripped all music purchased from iShop off my iPod leaving just the CDs I imported".

Never happened to me. PEBCAK?

As for software "that just works" why do I have to download a 50mb to 70mb "upgrade" every time I open it?

'Cos you don't open it very often? There have been three updates this year. Two bugfixes and one to add features.

[nuttycyclist]

For me, though, it works very well. The integration with the iPod is awesome. People will disagree, but for me it's a perfect example of a piece of software that Just Works.

Yeah     
 - "Here's my iPod with lots of music and synchronised last time with my iTunes.  Let's plug it in to the computer to re-charge it.  Oh look, it's just ripped all music purchased from iShop off my iPod leaving just the CDs I imported".

Never happened to me. PEBCAK?

As for software "that just works" why do I have to download a 50mb to 70mb "upgrade" every time I open it?

'Cos you don't open it very often? There have been three updates this year. Two bugfixes and one to add features.

Dave - .  PEBCAK indeed

I'm ducking out of the thread as I am avoiding the iTunes rubbish.   But if you ever find yourself over at ACF you'll find a thread there where I was trying to re-install that rubbish and it took up most of my night.  The frustration oozes from the screen

...
You don't have to download the updates if you don't want them, y'know

It wouldn't run at all without them.  And as I said on ACF at the time it ripped all the downloaded music off the player when I finally did get it up and running.   Which, I suppose is better than a previous time when it corrupted the player altogether.

[Dave]

Dave - .  PEBCAK indeed

Sorry. It was uncalled for. I'll play nice from now on

I'm ducking out of the thread as I am avoiding the iTunes rubbish.   But if you ever find yourself over at ACF you'll find a thread there where I was trying to re-install that rubbish and it took up most of my night.  The frustration oozes from the screen

I know, I remember reading it  I could feel your pain. It felt like the last time I installed Tracklogs - great software, but an absolute PITA to install...

[nuttycyclist]

I'll play nice from now on

Excellent