[Macworld]

Post your comments for Add a sixth star to iTunes ratings here

[rab777hp]

don't really see the point in this, i mean, i could just put in the comments "great song', or for simplicity's sake, a random character- like $ or %, or Ω, the possiblities go on

[trip1ex]

Yeah and if they give the guy 6 stars he'll want 7 a few years later. :P
Reminds me of Spinal Tap when they turn the volume to 11.
Oh and why couldn't you just make an all-time favorites playlist.

[rab777hp]

yes, in this way you can have an unlimited amount of 'stars'

[MadAxeMan]

The title of this article is grossly misleading - Bad Form!
It should be renamed as "How to use comments to create PlayLists in iTunes."

[Moof_in_Charge]

I don't see the point to this tip... The logic is flawed from the start.
You have 5 stars ... Why not designate the 5th star your all time favorite and denote 4 stars to songs you love ....
I mean the iTunes star system is not for you to "rate" songs from unplayable to your favorite!
(who keeps hanging on to songs they hate just so they could rate them in their iTunes library?)

[Jon Seff]

MadAxeMan said:

The title of this article is grossly misleading - Bad Form!
It should be renamed as "How to use comments to create PlayLists in iTunes."

As the editor, I felt it was more accurate to say what this particular post was showing people how to do, rather than calling it an overall column on using comments and smart playlists. There was no intention to mislead, but I understand your point.

[trip1ex]

Well isn't typing in a comment to designate an all-time favorite ( or pressing a script button to do it) the same thing as dragging the song to an all-time favorite playlist? I don't get it. Maybe I'm missing something though.

Sure you can search via the comment, but you can just look in your playlist too.

Oh and one can batch comment on a group of songs in a playlist. You don't really need Applescript.

Plus as another guy said just scale your scale downwards.

Personally I used the Automator to make poor-man's Watch folder like the Zune supposedly has just to show a Zune lover it could be done easily. :P

[kubomon17]

hmm yeah i could go through all this trouble...or i could just have a playlist of all my top favorites...yeah ill take option two
Message was edited by: Jon Seff

[MEHColeman]

Hey, I like this tip! Handy way of getting my current earworms to play more often with my smart lists.
I already use all the ratings, there isn't space to scale downwards.

[LouKash]

Turn on the hidden Half Star option:
defaults write com.apple.iTunes allow-half-stars -bool TRUE
Then you have a scale of 10...

[Wondercow]

Moof

I mean the iTunes star system is not for you to "rate" songs from unplayable to your favorite!

No? Then please tell me how I'm supposed to the star system. What is the right way for me to use this feature?

Quote

(who keeps hanging on to songs they hate just so they could rate them in their iTunes library?)

I do. I want to have my entire music collection available at any time. My entire collection: all songs from all albums so that when I listen to an album in entirety it's exactly that, in entirety. But, then again, maybe I'm doing it wrong.

[Rhywun]

I recently changed my rating system so that anything with at least one star is at least "good". Before I only considered 4 or 5 stars to be "good". This way I get to further differentiate just good from better to great to my favorites. And I don't have to waste time rating songs I don't care to hear again. And... it plays well with AutoRate (which is what inspired me to make the change).

[midnightbrewer]

Crazier still, he could create an "all-time favorite" tag. Kind of mnemonic, if you ask me (and better than the random symbol suggestion).

I agree that this article's flawed logic overshadows the underlying usefulness of the idea - for example, I like the idea of tagging songs that I'd like to listen to on my morning commute, when I probably want to hear something more upbeat and avoid skipping tracks that, although I like, might not be the best for me at that time of day. Mood and/or time-of-day tagging - great idea.