iTunes: random album playlist

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
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#1

Okay, I give up. I thought I had a decent handle on scripting, but apparently not. Before I post the code that I have, let me explain what I’m trying to do. I like to have entire albums on my iPod. As of yet, you can not auto-fill an iPod by album. So I figured I would make a playlist once a week consisting of random albums. The albums will be determined by a random selection of songs which meet certain criteria (basically making a smart playlist, and then grabbing the albums that those songs come from). Then, once a week I will simply drag that playlist to my iPod. So, here’s what I have so far:




set theAlbum to getAlbum()
set ID_list to getIDs()

make_playlist out of ID_list

on getAlbum()
	tell application "iTunes"
		get album of some track of playlist "Library"
	end tell
end getAlbum

on getIDs()
	global theAlbum
	tell application "iTunes"
		set ID_list to (database ID of file tracks of library playlist 1 whose album is theAlbum)
		return {}
	end tell
end getIDs

on get_location for tune_ID
	global library_ref
	tell application "iTunes"
		return first file track of library_ref whose database ID is tune_ID
	end tell
end get_location

on make_playlist out of ID_list
	tell application "iTunes"
		activate
		set new_playlist to make new playlist with properties {name:("iPod Mix " & (current date))}
		repeat with tune_ID in ID_list
			tell me to get_location for tune_ID
			duplicate {result} to new_playlist
		end repeat
	end tell
end make_playlist

This runs with no errors. If I follow the results I can see that it makes a list of database IDs for an entire album (only one at this point). It also creates a playlist successfully. But it won’t add (or duplicate) the tracks into the playlist. So thats where I am.

Also, if subroutines are not the answer here (or are overkill) I apologize. I’m going thru Sal’s book, and well… yeah.

Thanks in advance!

#2

Hi,

you can duplicate only file tracks, not the location alias.
The handlers are indeed too “sophisticated”


tell application "iTunes"
	set theAlbum to album of some track of playlist "Library"
	set fileTracks to (file tracks of library playlist 1 whose album is theAlbum)
	set new_playlist to make new playlist with properties {name:("iPod Mix " & (current date))}
	repeat with oneTrack in fileTracks
		duplicate oneTrack to new_playlist
	end repeat
end tell
#3

Brilliant! Thank you so much. I knew this should have been a simple script. Now I just need to make the random selection a little more refined.

Thanks again!