iTunes track numbering

[Wrao]

(I think that's an acceptable way to label this thread?)

Is there a way to select a handful of songs and have them all get branded track #s automatically, like Say I select a whole album, and I want to get them tracked 1-12 without having to do each one individually.

[Luca]

You might have to wait for Automater in Tiger to do this. I'm sure you could also write a script to do it, but I have zero knowledge of AppleScript and I've never seen a guide that I've been able to follow.

[synotic]

For what it's worth.. I did this in like 5 minutes and barely tested it... it does it track by track so it's a bit slow... I tried to get it to change them all at once, but my AppleScript's rusty so I'm not completely sure how to do it. Standard warning about how this may delete your files or screw up your songs. And this isn't a joke warning, this might actually screw up the ID3 tags of your songs... Enjoy :) (if any applescripters out there want to suggest any fixes, please do):

tell application "iTunes"
if selection is not {} then
copy (track number of selection) to theTrackCount
copy selection to theTracks
else
return
end if
end tell

copy theTrackCount's length to theTrackCount

repeat with i from 1 to theTrackCount
tell application "iTunes"
copy (a reference to item i of theTracks) to theTrack
copy theTrackCount to track count of theTrack
copy i to track number of theTrack
end tell
end repeat

[PowerBook]

(I think that's an acceptable way to label this thread?)

Is there a way to select a handful of songs and have them all get branded track #s automatically, like Say I select a whole album, and I want to get them tracked 1-12 without having to do each one individually.

I don't think we'll see something like this soon, or something like it in Automator.

If anything, it would have to be a built-in iTunes feature, which would be so great. But the thing is, how would you arrange them in order if there's no track number? iTunes always lists things in a particular order, like by name or something, so I don't know how you would order anything if you would have to insert a track number anyway. :\

I always change things manually, unless it affects several songs - I'll select what I want (usually a whole album or genre) and Get Info on them. I appreciate doing that to make sure that several songs/albums/whatever have the same attributes.

[Wrao]

I don't think we'll see something like this soon, or something like it in Automator.

If anything, it would have to be a built-in iTunes feature, which would be so great. But the thing is, how would you arrange them in order if there's no track number? iTunes always lists things in a particular order, like by name or something, so I don't know how you would order anything if you would have to insert a track number anyway. :\

I always change things manually, unless it affects several songs - I'll select what I want (usually a whole album or genre) and Get Info on them. I appreciate doing that to make sure that several songs/albums/whatever have the same attributes.

hmm, well, the way I envision it working, would either be holding a modifier key, like opt or opt cmd, and then clicking on the songs in the track order, and that tells iTunes how to labels them, it could either do it as you do it, or maybe you hit return or something to activate the tally, upon which it would restart.

but like, a lot of times I end up with albums that are arranged correctly but, have no track numbers, and just selecting them and having those 10 number themselves 1-10 automatically would be groovy.

[PowerBook]

hmm, well, the way I envision it working, would either be holding a modifier key, like opt or opt cmd, and then clicking on the songs in the track order, and that tells iTunes how to labels them, it could either do it as you do it, or maybe you hit return or something to activate the tally, upon which it would restart.

but like, a lot of times I end up with albums that are arranged correctly but, have no track numbers, and just selecting them and having those 10 number themselves 1-10 automatically would be groovy.

That is a neat idea actually. Perhaps it would even work if you're re-ordering songs that already have track numbers.

I can't say that I've ever had albums with no track numbers (unless they were from those Napster days ...) but I can say that I've imported CDs that had mixed up the song titles, but were actually in the correct order.