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Topic: iTunes 10 (Read 77012 times) previous topic - next topic
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iTunes 10

Reply #150 –
Quote from: googlebot on
It's trivial to make a program performing well if all that is displayed is text and one image at a time

Saying that such imaginary program is trivial to make is just too pretentious (even if you use java)

Quote from: googlebot on
(e.g. Foobar)

AFAIK it uses native windows controls in HQ code which may be the reason for it unbeatable performance

I don't know about what kind of images are you talking about, because you can have as many images as you like in your layout, but let's say that you want images in playlist view (like in you previous post in this thread) - any other playlist view, except default one, has it as option. To mimic grid view (or whatever it is called in iTunes) with album covers you can try EsPlaylist

iTunes 10

Reply #151 –
I see no use in continuing a discussion on this level.

Can't you just realize that lots of people choose their software solutions with the intent of making certain tasks done; not as a weapon in an ideological war?

iTunes 10

Reply #152 –
Quote from: Hansen on
Can't you just realize that lots of people choose their software solutions with the intent of making certain tasks done;


And people do, using programs of their own choosing. I can care less what people use, plus choice is good. I only have problems when someone push a certain device and program as the "Jesus" combo.

iTunes 10

Reply #153 –
Quote from: Hansen on
Can't you just realize that lots of people choose their software solutions with the intent of making certain tasks done; not as a weapon in an ideological war?


As far as I've seen, you've been the least realistic in this whole thread. Even other "supporters" can see the flaws. Who's being ideological? And no, not even Photoshop installs the same amount of crap iTunes does at startup in Windows. And the other annoying "big" company's updater, google updater, doesn't try to con you into installing other software that you already haven't installed. And Apple even had to tone it down cause when they started weaseling in the "Apple Updater" software, they were trojan-horsing Safari by enabling it by default. Which unsurprisingly resulted in many users installing it on their Windows machine when they may not even have wanted it. I personally have had to uninstall it for people who didn't know what the hell it was doing there, nor what it even was used for.

iTunes 10

Reply #154 –
Quote from: Hansen on
I don't push anything. I just explain why I find iTunes to be the best choice for my needs, and defend those who don't want to use time doing things manually, if they're easily managed by software in the background.


Because you are exaggerating things. Using other programs are no way as hard and time consuming as you make it out to be.

Quote from: Hansen on
Other applications can do some of what iTunes do, but then I need several applications to do it all. Which would mean I have to waste time switching between apps, choosing what apps to use for each task,


"Jack of all trades, master of none."

What is wrong with using many single purpose apps? With this setup, one can choose the best of the breed for each task. I firmly believe in the KISS principle and the Unix philosophy:

  1. Small is beautiful.
  2. Make each program do one thing well.
  3. Build a prototype as soon as possible.
  4. Choose portability over efficiency.
  5. Store data in flat text files.
  6. Use software leverage to your advantage.
  7. Use shell scripts to increase leverage and portability.
  8. Avoid captive user interfaces.
  9. Make every program a filter.

Quote from: Hansen on
and generally waste time on tasks that could have been managed automatically in the background.


How is using different programs less automated? Please give me an example.

iTunes 10

Reply #155 –
Quote from: cpchan on
What is wrong with using many single purpose apps? With this setup, one can choose the best of the breed for each task. I firmly believe in the KISS principle and the Unix philosophy:


These principles are indeed worthy of respect, but I wonder (this is a genuine question) to what extent and in what way they are applicable now.

I remember reading, as an early example of the power of Unix (when it was just beginning to appear on the desktop with this new 68000 chip), an account of how you could use classic two-letter commands to produce a list of Chinese restaurants in the neighbourhood (assuming, of course, that you had a lot of relevant data in a correctly-formatted text file). Would we do that now? We might, but we'd probably prefer a graphical front end controlling the different small programs, at least.

Flat text files would be wonderful; but some of the data we manipulate on the desktop (or, indeed, on the pocket device) just wouldn't work, would it? Would flat text files for music or photographs be possible (probably yes) or efficient (presumably not).

I think that both the kind of things we do with computers and the population of users have expanded so much that the classic Unix mode is really now a part of the past that we can admire and enjoy, like Gregorian chant, but not live with everyday.

And perhaps the problem with iTunes on Windows is a result of something like the application of the Unix philosophy. iTunes, I'm told, is a front end for various services, rather than a monolithic app. For decent commercial reasons Apple wanted it on the majority desktop OS. I guess they could have rewritten it to use the equivalent Windows services, or they could have ported Quicktime and so on. Presumably the latter route was easier (and they also wouldn't have to wonder whether changes to Windows services would break iTunes--purely inadvertently, of course). The result is what is seen as bloat.

The granularity of the iTunes lump is a lot coarser than the granularity of the Unix programs, of course, but you can't imagine Photoshop functionality being broken down into something managed by a shell script, either, I think.

And then, of course, as a counter-example from the classical age, there is Emacs.

iTunes 10

Reply #156 –
Oh, joy. I thought Apple had stopped doing this after they caught flak for it, but they still do. Apple updater still tries to trojan-horse Safari and MobileMe by checking them by default when running an update.

BTW I stumbled upon this earlier. This is the sort of rationalizations someone must invent to justify in his mind this kind of weasely behavior. The guy is even more obtuse in the comments.

iTunes 10

Reply #157 –
Quote from: MichaelW on
These principles are indeed worthy of respect, but I wonder (this is a genuine question) to what extent and in what way they are applicable now.


It is still used everyday or else people won't be using pipes, redirections, sed and awk from the commandline and shell scripts on a daily basics. Also, what do you think is gluing your Linux system together? Just look at your /etc hierarchy- they are plain text files and try grepping for sed and awk in the files in /sbin sometime. Also, everything is a file in Unix- every aspect of your system appears as plain text files (look at /proc, /sys). Example, try this:

Code: [Select]
cat /proc/cpuinfo


on your system.

Quote from: MichaelW on
Would we do that now? We might, but we'd probably prefer a graphical front end controlling the different small programs, at least.


You uses what is appropriate for the task at hand- sometimes it is a graphically frontend, some times it is the shell. A typical design pattern in Unix/Linux is to write a backend as a commandline program/programs (what can be used from the commandline and in shell scripts) and have multiple frontends (which these days is most likely GTK2, QT4 and maybe ncurses). With shell scripts, we can also automate and repeat tasks with cron and at. Also, there is a return to plain text data in computer science these days is the form of xml. Even Open Office and MS Office is going the xml route.

Quote from: MichaelW on
Flat text files would be wonderful; but some of the data we manipulate on the desktop (or, indeed, on the pocket device) just wouldn't work, would it? Would flat text files for music or photographs be possible (probably yes) or efficient (presumably not).


Of course not everything can be express as text, you only use plain text files when possible and appropriate. For music, the appropriate use of plain text file will be playlists (such as the m3u format) and perhaps the media library database (flat file or xml). For example, the database of mpd.

Quote from: MichaelW on
I think that both the kind of things we do with computers and the population of users have expanded so much that the classic Unix mode is really now a part of the past that we can admire and enjoy, like Gregorian chant, but not live with everyday.


Not for everyone, but most programmers, system admins and power users still prefer the flexibility and power of the commandline and use it everyday in conjunction with GUI apps. And yes, I do listen to Gregorian chants.

Quote from: MichaelW on
And perhaps the problem with iTunes on Windows is a result of something like the application of the Unix philosophy. iTunes, I'm told, is a front end for various services, rather than a monolithic app.


I doubt it is that modular since, IIRC, it is still mainly a carbon app. However, if it is written in Cocoa and if it uses bundles  heavily, that can be loaded/unloaded on demand by the user- then it is a different matter. 

Quote from: MichaelW on
And then, of course, as a counter-example from the classical age, there is Emacs.


Only if you misunderstand what Emacs is- it is huge if you think of it just as a text editor. However, Emacs is really a virtual LISP machine that specializes in manipulating text streams. It consist of a core LISP interpreter (and functions where speed is essential) written in C, the rest is actually implemented in Emacs LISP. Each major-mode in Emacs can be consider a separate program. I invite you to browse through EmacsWiki to see what Emacs can do.

iTunes 10

Reply #158 –
Quote from: andy o on
Apple updater still tries to trojan-horse Safari and MobileMe by checking them by default when running an update.
FWIW Google includes Chrome when one tries to download Google Earth. The option can be disabled, but is enabled by default.

iTunes 10

Reply #159 –
Quote from: Kees de Visser on
FWIW Google includes Chrome when one tries to download Google Earth. The option can be disabled, but is enabled by default.


Sigh... so much for "do no evil". It pains me to see great sites going to shit once they become more and more commercialized. It reminds me of Yahoo- it used to be a great site during the NCSA Mosaic and early Netscape days.
 

iTunes 10

Reply #160 –
@cpchan

True, O Sage (at least, I presume true--I am not a sysadmin, except in the sense that my wife sometimes asks me to fix her laptop), but I was thinking more of the people on the street than the wizard in his lair.

Edit: I was replying to #158, not #161. But I can remember the first time I telnetted to the catalogue of the Library of the English Faculty at Oxford--never had such a thrill since, I could imagine myself reaching out through the cables. Ah me, those WERE the days.

iTunes 10

Reply #161 –
Quote from: MichaelW on
True, O Sage


Please don't call me that. I am just a humble seeker/user- we learn new things everyday. However, SAGE is the acronym for the System Administrators Guild sponsored by USENIX. You might be interested in The Linux System Aministrator's Guide.

Quote from: MichaelW on
but I was thinking more of the people on the street than the wizard in his lair.


You don't need to be a wizard to use the commandline- most people learn it piece meal. A great intro is Rute.

Quote from: MichaelW on
Edit: I was replying to #158, not #161. But I can remember the first time I telnetted to the catalogue of the Library of the English Faculty at Oxford--never had such a thrill since, I could imagine myself reaching out through the cables. Ah me, those WERE the days.


Ah, those were the day. Or use gopher.

iTunes 10

Reply #162 –
Quote from: klonuo on
To mimic grid view (or whatever it is called in iTunes) with album covers you can try EsPlaylist


EsPlaylist cannot show album art greater than stamp size. It also wastes a lot of screen estate for large spaces between covers. It comes nowhere close to iTunes' capabilities for graphically scrolling through collections. Even if you exclude cover flow, which I don't use.

iTunes 10

Reply #163 –
What is stamp size? It can display artwork (or any other grouping image like genre, artist...) in size you set (adjust first empty column title) without space between images too, if you disable right-side info. It can treat playlists or whole library or both.
I don't think author made the component to replicate iTunes behavior, but to provide new features possible in foobar as it is lot more than just grid display of images. But can mimic some similar concepts like that one in iTunes, or similar in Winamp or other media managers.

There is abandoned component that I think was inspired by that grid view: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=636883
Although I guess it won't provide some smooth effects like the ones you are used to in iTunes, but it looks like decent rip

iTunes 10

Reply #164 –
While discussing replication: Can you replicate Facets concept in iTunes?

I don't think so - to me it's so bloated media management system with shiny kids features that I can't imagine anyone using it except if confined with other Apple products. But even then I can imagine other solutions

I buy CDs or purchase at artists portals (please consider this idea instead directing you money to some off-road collectors which does not provide you artistic product, well unless you want to listent to some Gaga of course)

iTunes 10

Reply #165 –
Quote from: romor on
...to me it's so bloated media management system with shiny kids features that I can't imagine anyone using it except if confined with other Apple products....
...I buy CDs or purchase at artists portals...


To me that's a bit condescending to those who may like and use iTunes for whatever reasons. I'm not certain why everyone has to get all evangelical about all of this. I'll sleep just as well whether people use iTunes or not. (In fact if everyone has a divine epiphany of sorts and switches to F2K or some other media player, and Apple goes out of business tomorrow, I have reasonable faith that my life will continue as before.    )

I like to buy the CDs too (if possible.) I far prefer the physical media to digital content of the lossy type. I know I've said this before, but I'm more than capable of creating my own MP3s or AACs if the need arises.)
The Loudness War is over. Now it's a hopeless occupation.

iTunes 10

Reply #166 –
Quote from: romor on
I don't think so - to me it's so bloated media management system with shiny kids features that I can't imagine anyone using it except if confined with other Apple products. But even then I can imagine other solutions


It's not entirely shiny kid's features though. On OS X, itunes can be scripted via applescript (or if that's a kid's language, which it is, via python with appscript). So for instance you can write a quick script to autorate tracks based on eg frequency of playing or whatever. It's an extra interface via which you can programmatically control itunes to do all sorts of things (I use it only for simple things such as autorating, exporting the names of all the album titles in my collection into a text file, automatically setting the track number to be the first number in the filename and so on, but that's just because I do nothing complicated with my music collection).

But perhaps then it's OS X itself is the kid's toy?

iTunes 10

Reply #167 –
Quote from: romor on
While discussing replication: Can you replicate Facets concept in iTunes?


I suspect that it isn't worth my time to make a response -- esp. considering the assumptions you seem to make about anyone who uses iTunes (kiddie features, Gaga and the rest of the rubbish you came up with). Here it goes anyway .

[a href="http://img299.imageshack.us/i/23723262.png/" target="_blank"].
"Lifting Shadows Off a Dream"

iTunes 10

Reply #168 –
After your edit you could also delete your post, instead showing your useless bitterness upon my opinion on iTunes
I did not insult anybody, nor selling anything, nor care if you use it and fail in providing example functionality I asked

iTunes 10

Reply #169 –
Quote from: romor on
After your edit you could also delete your post, instead showing your useless bitterness upon my opinion on iTunes
I did not insult anybody, nor selling anything, nor care if you use it and fail in providing example functionality I asked


Well, I thought the screenshot showed the facets quite clearly. Sorry if you didn't see them, or if you were looking for something more.

Also, I found it a bit insulting that you made the assumption that iTunes features' are simply 'shiny kid's features'. I find many -- obviously, not all -- features to be quite useful. But I am not a 'kid'. I find it insulting to be thought of as one simply because I may use those features.

In addition to this, I object to the idea that buying from iTunes does not provide one with an 'artistic' product, and that one should only purchase from the iTunes store if buying Lady Gaga's music. To me, the tone of your post seemed to carry with it the assumption that music bought from such a medium does not have much value. Forgive me if this was not your point.

Simply put, I felt that your post carried with it certain generalisations that touch a nerve of mine. Namely, the assumption iTunes users, Lady Gaga, and so-called 'kids' are all part of one homogeneous group. That idea, I believe, is rubbish.

NB: I do not listen to Lady Gaga's music, but I do not disrespect her, anyone who listens to her music, nor, for that matter, anyone who considers themself to be a kid.
"Lifting Shadows Off a Dream"

iTunes 10

Reply #170 –
Example of simply installing iTunes and its piggyback system driver suite causes completely unrelated programs (for mounting disk images) to break on 64 bit systems:

http://forum.sysprogs.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=532

It is really annoying. WinCDEmu is one of the few one-click CD image mounters, that works flawlessly on 64 bit Windows, since it has got signed drivers.

I thought I'd share that. It's not just hypothetical, that installing all sorts of system drivers for a simple music player is not desirable. iTunes has too leave my system now. For some features I will miss it.

iTunes 10

Reply #171 –
Quote from: greynol on
So if Amazon decided to make a media player then it would be ok.  Last time I checked you had to install software from Apple if you wanted to buy something from the iTunes store, or have I been dreaming all this time 


I know I am late in responding (been busy at work, damn night shifts will be the death of me) but I guess I didn't explain my thoughts clearly enough.

Quote from: greynol on
Before you respond, take a moment and consider that iTunes is a massive program.  For those using Windows it installs system-level drivers.  Its installation includes at least 4 separate programs (beating your Amazon comparison by one).  Speaking of Amazon, what are the other two programs, your web browser and what else?


I have no doubt that downloading the iTunes+QuickTime bundle installs 345X10^30 programs, drivers, etc.  I am not denying that or giving Apple an excuse to take over my computer with a million different background processes going on at once.  My take on it was this: I have already purchased an iDevce and thus have given into Apple's software world.  Now, in order to use the Amazon mp3 store, I have to run FireFox and the Amazon mp3 downloader on top of all of that.  You must install Amazon's mp3 downloading program if you want to buy full albums without purchasing the songs individually, there is no stepping around that.  So, for someone like myself that is already balls deep into the iDevice universe, it is just easier to use a service built into software I have already been forced to install instead of running two more things on top of that (FireFox and Amazon's downloader).  All Amazon's program does is work with Amazon's .amz (or something along those lines) files that point the software to Amazon's servers for proper download.  It will then download a file and add it to my iTunes library, download another file and add it to my iTunes library, and repeat the process until an entire album is downloaded.  I don't have to do this if I am purchasing individual songs.  However, they often have whole album purchases at lower prices than purchasing the individual songs.  For example, Amazon had a $5.00 album on sale that I wanted.  Buying the whole album (thus being required to use Amazon's software) was $5.00 total, it would have cost me $11 had I purchased each song individually through FireFox without going the "buy album" route.  Since my system is already being taxed enough, I would rather just stick to using iTunes instead of FireFox and Amazon's program (which simply imports into iTunes anyway) along with iTunes and all of Apple's background programs.

Quote from: greynol on
As far as tracks only available on iTunes, one thing is for certain, they weren't performed by the Beatles.


Maybe it has something to do with the time period I grew up in but I just don't see the Beatles as being the end all of music. 

iTunes 10

Reply #172 –
sweet! i love itunes 10! (foobar too!)

iTunes 10

Reply #173 –
When iTunes 10.0.1.22 was released in late September and I upgraded, to the dismay of many including myself, it seemed that Apple did away with the Genius Sidebar (The sidebar that suggested songs on the iTunes Store similar to music you currently have selected (highlighted) in your iTunes library) in favour of their new Ping Sidebar.

It looks like Apple is working on restoring the Genius Sidebar in iTunes 10.0.1.22 (Now called the iTunes Sidebar):

[a href="http://s106.photobucket.com/albums/m277/tigsworld/web/?action=view&current=itunes.jpg" target="_blank"]