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Creating family-safe iTunes playlists Apps
I have a rather large iTunes collection and an iPod. With today's music, often there are songs that contain harsh language. So, when my daughter asks me can she listen to my iPod I worry that she will hear stuff that she shouldn't. However, I have found a way of creating a play list that is "G-rated."

In the comments field type in 'Rated G' for songs that meet your requirements. Then, simply create a smart playlist that looks for "Rated G" in the comments field.

Now, when my daughter asks to use the iPod, I simply choose that play list and I worry a lot less.

[Editor's note: Looking at this hint in from a general perspective, using the comment field and creating playlists based on comment search results offers a lot of possibilities...]
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Creating family-safe iTunes playlists | 9 comments | Create New Account
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Great for another reason
Authored by: figz on Feb 05, '03 11:33:57AM

This hint is great for another reason. My girlfriend and I share a single iTunes Music Library. Now I can secretly selected all her crappy songs, do a Get Info, and add a comment like "bad" or "sucky" to all of them. Then I can add a new parameter to all my Smart Playlists to exclude songs with that comment in them!



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Great Idea, But....
Authored by: mjones1040 on Feb 05, '03 11:44:10AM

It seems to me that this is a good idea, but it will not prevent a child from accessing the other songs on the ipod. You are basically just filtering out certain songs for listening purposes. The other songs are still available to anyone that knows how to use the ipod.



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Great Idea, But....
Authored by: jecwobble on Feb 05, '03 02:17:19PM

I think what the author is saying is that when his daughter wants to use the iPod, he reloads it with only the G rated playlist.

While this is a great hint, I only share my iPod with my wife. But, both my children have user accounts on my computer. I have also set up iTunes to share a common library of MP3s with all users. Does anyone have any ideas on how to limit access to certain songs within a library? Right now, I have set up both kid's accounts to access only specific applications and games- iTunes is not one of them, but my son would probably like to listen to music (if I let him know it's possible....).



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Great Idea, But....
Authored by: Eravau on Feb 05, '03 06:31:47PM
You could make the "off limits" songs be owned by a group that the kids aren't a part of. Create a new group called something like parents with NetInfoManager. (If you need more information on that let me know.) Then go to the files that are "off limits" and make sure their owner is jecwobble (or whatever your local username is), the group is parents (or whatever you call your new group of you and your wife), and that the permissions on the files allow reading only by the owner and group. For example:
cd directory_with_off_limits_music
chown jecwobble off_limits_files
chgrp parents off_limits_files
chmod 0640 off_limits_files


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Great Idea, But....
Authored by: ret on Feb 05, '03 11:36:00PM
Excellent suggestion. My criticism (although I'm loathe to use that word) is a more general one about the hints posted here (and elsewhere) that require use of the chmod command. For the life of me I don't understand why they are always posted with the octal value for the permissions. Given the number of Unix newbies who use these hints, why don't more people post the marginally longer, but far more understandable chmod u=rw,g=r,o= ... syntax? If you're unaware of it, you can set permissions on files by describing who (u for user, g for group, o for other), how you're changing them (+ to add, - to remove and = to set explicitly), and the permission(s) you're adding (r for read, w for write, x for execute). You can combine the parameters as well, eg chmod ug+rwx,o=r myscript.sh, or perhaps chmod +x myscript.sh. man chmod for more. Just my 2c worth of beef ;-) RET

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This script might make it easier
Authored by: robJ on Feb 05, '03 12:05:02PM

I don't use my laptop for music very often so scripting iTunes isn't something that I do on a regular basis. With that said, this quickly composed script might be useful in adding a rating to the comment field of every track in a playlist. The script could probably stand some tweaking/error checking but tests indicate that it works ok as is and it can easily be modified to suit your needs. It requires that a playlist window be open and frontmost.

-- begin script --
set trackRating to "Rated G" -- change as desired

tell application "iTunes"
set frontmostWin to class of front window -- Check class of front window
if frontmostWin is not playlist window then -- Quit the script if it isn't a playlist
display dialog "Please open a playlist window and run the script again." buttons {"OK"} default button 1
return
end if
set playlistName to name of front window -- Get the playlist window name
set trackList to tracks of playlist playlistName -- Get a list of the tracks
repeat with thisTrack in trackList -- Add the comment to every track
set oldContent to comment of thisTrack
if oldContent is not "" then
set comment of thisTrack to comment of thisTrack & ". " & trackRating
else
set comment of thisTrack to trackRating
end if
end repeat
end tell
-- end script --



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This script might make it easier
Authored by: Xeo on Jun 05, '03 01:11:58AM

Seems to me, if you are creating a playlist of acceptable songs, why not just "Cmd-I" on the whole playlist and set the comment for all the tracks at once. Seems a bit easier than using AppleScript.



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giving an ipod to a kid?
Authored by: Anonymous on Feb 05, '03 01:06:32PM

how do you feel safe just giving the ipod to the kid? maybe i'd feel safe if i duct taped it to the kid....but then they'd probably fall in top of the ipod.



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giving an ipod to a kid?
Authored by: panicX on Feb 05, '03 06:08:59PM

show a little respect, will you?



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