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Add custom Grid view images to iTunes 8 Apps
iTunes new Grid view has pre-made graphics for all of the default genres in iTunes, but it may not cover the way you define your music. Normally, if you have genre that iTunes does not recognize, it will just use cover artwork available from your music library to display that genre. Luckily, if you'd like to create or change any of the genre images it's easy.

In your favorite image editing program, create a 256x256, 72ppi image for the genre of your choice. Save the file as genre-yourgenrename.jpg (example: genre-newwave.jpg). Next, go to the Applications folder, Control-click on iTunes and select Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu. In the new window that opens, navigate to iTunes » Content » Resources. Drag and drop your image into this directory.

To get iTunes to recognize your image, you will also need to edit the genres.plist file in the Resources directory. (As always, back the original up for safety, edit at your own risk, etc.) Now just add in the following string:
<dict>
    <key>matchString</key><string>yourgenrename</string>
    <key>resourceFile</key><string>genre-genrename.jpg</string>
</dict>
Obviously, replace yourgenrename and genre-genrename.jpg with the appropriate names you use in iTunes and the name of the image you created earlier.

Save the plist and you're done. The next time you open iTunes and are in Grid view, set the view to Genres, and your artwork will come up. If you just want to replace the artwork that comes in iTunes, create your new artwork and replace the existing image in the Resources folder, making sure the name matches.
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Add custom Grid view images to iTunes 8 | 3 comments | Create New Account
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Add custom Grid view images to iTunes 8
Authored by: bryguy on Sep 16, '08 08:48:35AM

Probably would be a good idea to backup your JPEGs and a backup of your customized plist in another location - you might lose those when iTunes updates



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Add custom Grid view images to iTunes 8
Authored by: ABMAC on Sep 16, '08 11:18:52AM

After saving my images using the JPEG 6.0 library in GraphicConverter, I found out that iTunes apparently doesn't recognize the format. You have to save your .jpg files using the QuickTime library.



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More Keys to Use
Authored by: CajunLuke on Sep 16, '08 09:57:46PM
To make your genre apply to TV Shows or movies, use
<key>kind</key><string>tvshow</string>
or
<key>kind</key><string>movie</string>
To force an "exact string match" (not really sure what this means), use
<key>exactStringMatch</key><true/>
This option is only used by default in the "classic TV shows" option.

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