Hi Raul, Aedan, Steve, and Others,
To answer Aedan's question about how to have your iPhone remember
position in a playlist of mulitple part mp3 audiobooks without first
joining them, in iTunes you can create a "smart playlist" with the
shortcut "Control+Option+N" under Windows or "Command+Option+N" on a
Mac. A smart playlist is a playlist created using rules, instead of
by directly selecting entries. In the case of Aedon's example of 150
mp3 book files, the rules could be:
1, "Album" "is" <name of audiobook>
2. "Plays" "is" 0
To create the smart playlist under iTunes, he'd use the shortcut to
open a smart playlist dialog window, create the two rules, then exit
the window and either type in a name for his smart playlist or accept
the default.
1. Control+Option+N (Windows) or Command+Option+N (Mac) to create a
new smart playlist
2. Navigate to the "Rules Section" of the smart playlist dialog window
(on a Mac: VO+Right Arrow and Interact)
2. Change the first pop up button from "Artist" to "Album" (on a Mac:
VO-Space, then press "a l" or use the up arrow key to move to the new
selection; follow whatever method your screen reader has for dealing
with combo boxes)
3. Navigate (e.g., VO+Right Arrow on a Mac) to the next pop up button
(which can be left as "contains" or changed to "is" for a direct match)
4. Navigate (e.g., VO+Right Arrow) to the text box and type in the
name of the Album.
5. Navigate (e.g., VO+Right Arrow) to the end of the first rule, and
press the button (e.g., VO+Space) to "Add" a new rule. (There should
be three buttons at the end of a rule "Remove", "Add", and "Group".)
6. Navigate (e.g., VO+Right Arrow) to the pop up button for the start
of the second rule, and change it to "Plays" (e.g., VO+Space, press
"p" then arrow down)
7. At this point the rest of the rule is filled out to read "is" "0",
and we're done. I would simply press "Return" at this point to commit
changes (or "Escape" if I wanted to cancel). However, you can
navigate through the rest of the dialog window to read the options,
and the press the "OK" or "Cancel" button at the end. (Mac users,
stop interacting with the rules section to read on).
8. Type in a name for the smart playlist or accept the default.
The rest of the smart playlist dialog box contains check box options
for limiting the length of the playlist by size, time, number of
items, and pop up buttons for specifying your preferences for how to
match the limits (e.g. favor genres, most played tracks, recently
added material, etc.) The key item for our purposes is that "Live
Updating" is checked by default, and this mean that iTunes or your
iPhone will know when a track has been played, and automatically
remove it from your smart playlist.
So this solution has two parts:
1. The individual mp3 files were moved to the "Books" section of your
library, and made bookmarkable. (You previously selected these tracks,
used Control+I (on a PC) or Command+I (on a Mac), navigated to the
"Options" tab and
a. Changed the pop up button for "Media Kind" from "Music" to
"Audiobook" (which moves entries from "Music" to "Book")
b. Checked the box for "Remember Playback Position" (which lets you
bookmark your tracks)
c. Checked the box for "Skip when Shuffling" (which keeps book tracks
from being included if you "shuffle play" your music tracks)
2. The smart playlist keeps a list of your audiobook tracks, but the
last unread track is always at the start of the playlist. As soon as a
track is finished, its playcount is updated to "1" and the live
updating feature rolls it off your smart playlist. The track remains
on your device, but if you're playing the audiobook from the smart
playlist, you won't see it.
If you previously created a regular playlist for this audiobook, your
first rule could be: "Playlist" "is" <name of your audiobook
playlist>. In iTunes the context menu for each track lets your reset
the playcount to 0. So if you want to listen to a multi-track
audiobook again, you could simply reset the playcount of these tracks,
and your smart playlist is instantly reusable. Note that if you have
your iPhone set to sync your smart playlist that the tracks you have
listened to may actually be removed from your device the next time you
sync your iPhone to iTunes -- since they no longer meet the criteria
for inclusion in the smart playlist. So unless the tracks were
included in some other list (e.g. you checked that all audiobooks in
your library should be on your iPhone), you may not find them again.
HTH. Cheers,
Esther
On Sep 13, 2010, at 02:53, Raul A. Gallegos wrote:
Hi, I believe that the Bookmark app will handle audio books so that
your
position is remembered. Ester on list here posted a very nicely
written
how-to on this app. I don't have it myself, but it seems to be well
recommended.
Many thanks.
--
Sent from Raul's Thunderbird
Twitter: rau47
Facebook: rgallegos74
Home page: www.asmodean.net
On 9/13/2010 5:16 AM, Aedan Staddon wrote:
Hi, the problem I've found with doing that with multip files is
itunes
doesn't remember your posission in the whole group. I tried that with
a book made up of 150 files and every time I paused I had to remember
which file I was on and choose it when I started again. Is there a
way
of getting around this?
Aedan
On 9/12/10, Raul A. Gallegos <r...@raulgallegos.com> wrote:
Hi, just to add to this in case it was not mentioned already. I find
that if I have a book which is made up of many audio files, I
don't need
to merge them into 1. What I do is use a program like mp3tag from
www.mp3tag.de and give them all the audio book name in the album
name
and then when they are imported into iTunes, I can search by album
and
type the name of the book. Now I can select them all and change
them to
an audio book and they are seen as 1 book even though it's made up
of
many mp3 files.
Hope this helps.
Raul A. Gallegos
On 9/12/2010 4:21 AM, Aedan Staddon wrote:
Hi Steve,
There are a couple of things you can do. If the book is one file
you
can change it to an audio book by finding it in your itunes
library,
hitting applications and get infoo. Go to the options tab and
sset the
media kind to audio book. You'll need to check the other boxes like
remember posission as well. If the book is several files you'll
want
to join them with a program of yoour choice such as audacity or mp3
joiner or use mp3 to ipod audio book converter found at
www.freeipodsoftware.com to convert them into a single book. I hope
that helps, Aedan
On 9/11/10, Steve S<st...@crustysocks.com> wrote:
Hi guys, can anyone tell me how to import an mp3 audio book into
iTunes
and
then into the iPhone and have the book show as an audio book on
the
iPhone?
Whenever I import it, it goes into my music folder. Do I have
to convert
it
first?...or will iTunes do that for me? Any help would be greatly
appreciated, cheers Steve.
P.S. I use windows XP home.
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