Hi Will, iTunes and iPods don't really see folder structure, except in the case of podcasts, although you can organize your playlists into folders in the sources table of iTunes on your computer. If you import a set of mp3 files for an audiobook into iTunes, they will appear as individual tracks in your Music Library (i.e., no folder structure maintained). To move them into your audiobooks library, select all tracks and use Get Info (Command-I). You'll be prompted with a dialog window asking are sure you want to edit multiple items. Either press carriage return or navigate to the yes button and press it (VO-Space). If your focus isn't in the dialog window or Get Info window, use window chooser menu (VO-F2 twice) to select it. Navigate (VO-Right Arrow) to the "Options" tab and select it (VO-Space). On the "Options" tab, VO- Right arrow to the pop up button for "Media Kind". Use VO-Space to press the pop up button then arrow down to change the selection from "Music" to "Audiobook". Navigate (VO-Right Arrow) to the pop up buttons for "Remember position" and "Skip when shuffling" and set these to yes, too. These three options will: (1) move tracks to the audiobooks library in iTunes and on your (recent model) iPod, (2) turn bookmarking on, and (3) keep these tracks out of music shuffle play.
If you want to keep your audiobook as multiple mp3 tracks, then the easiest way to play them on your iPod is to use a smart playlist and use two rules like: <Album> <contains> <name of audiobook> and <Play count> <is> <0>. You should check that the playlist tracks appear in the order you want. Remember that iTunes sorts alphabetically, so if you have folders named "Disc 1", "Disc 2", etc. and beyond "Disc 10" you might want to use leading zeros for the disc numbers -- otherwise your audiobook volumes may have "Disc 10" and "Disc 11" appearing just after "Disc 1" and before "Disc 2". (If you only have numbers running from 1 through 9, or fewer, this isn't a problem.) Play the audiobook on your iPod Nano 4G using the smart playlist. The live updating feature of the smart playlist means that as soon as you finish listening to one track, its play count will increase to 1, and it will fall off the smart playlist. The first track in the smart playlist will always be the current (unfinished) track, and it's position will be bookmarked when you stop listening. Of course, you can also find these tracks on your iPod in the album, artist, genre, audiobooks, and other categories, too. And any tracks you've finished listening to will also still be on the iPod -- just not on your smart playlist. What's really slick is that if the smart playlist is one of the playlists you sync, the next time you connect your iPod to your computer, all the tracks you've listened to will automatically be removed from the iPod Nano, since they no longer meet the "Play count is 0" rule. If you want to reset the play count to 0, just select the tracks in your iTunes songs table and use the contextual menu (VO-Shift-M) and choose "Reset Play Count". For more details on making smart playlists, see the earlier post in the archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/macvisionaries%40googlegroups.com/msg01294.html (Introduction to Smart Playlists in iTunes) The other way to handle your audiobooks is to merge your tracks. There's a shareware tool called Audiobook Builder ($9.95) that automates this process, including setting the status of tracks to show up in the Audiobooks section of iTunes/iPod. It also has other features like support for chapter markers if you rip from CD. I think Alex may also have a project in the works to do something like this. Cheers, Esther P.S. If you're interested in trying Automator, you could import selected files into iTunes in (regular) playlists of your choice with an Automator workflow that uses two actions: "Find Finder Items" and "Add Songs to Playlist". The first specifies the folder or directory to check and the second names the playlist (new or existing), and brings the music tracks into iTunes in the specified playlist. On May 25, 2009, at 5:23 AM, william lomas wrote: > > hi i have a book where each disc is a folder and within the folder > are the files in mp3 pertaining to the disc. > If I import all this folder into ITunes would an IPod nano see it as > an artest and then each disc as a folder, under the artest, if that > makes sense? > Will > Or could I just make the book appear under the "audiobooks" section of > my Nano > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
