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[Bruce Perrin]

To: blgentry. I've assembled the following rules to help me; but they might help with future inquiries from Mac customers. This combines your help with some trial and error on my part.

(1) Import Playlists & Track Ratings From iTunes: File menu (at top) -> Import Playlist -> iTunes Music Library.xml. MC21 did not import the iTunes Playlists, but somehow the iTunes Ratings came over, which saved me a lot of work. The Smartlists and the most important Playlists were recreated manually.

(2) Audio/Files/Playlists etc. - Put columns in order: Artist/Name/Duration/Album/Rating/Genre/Bitrate/File Type -> uncheck the other default columns (esp. Filename) under “Playlist Header -> Sort By” (my preference). Then sort by Artist, from A-Z.

(3) iTunes’ Get Info Screen: MC’s equivalent is Highlight File -> Action Window -> Tag. Click on upper left hand corner of Tag field -> Show All Tags -> tick Album/Artist/Comment/Genre/Name/Playlists -> uncheck the rest (my preference).

(4) Database Search: MC searches all Tag fields, including Comment. Very useful.

(5) Edit Smartlist: Select the Smartlist -> Control-Click -> Edit Smartlist.

(6) Add New Playlist: Action Window -> Build Playlist.

(7) Send File To Playlist: Control-Click -> Send To -> Playlist -> select Playlist. (clumsy)

(8 ) Delete A File: Control-Click -> Delete -> Option 2: Delete from Media Library & send to Recycle Bin.

(9) Add Cover Art To New File: Find best image on Internet (e.g. from Album Art Exchange) -> drag it to Desktop -> select file in MC -> Control-Click -> Cover Art -> Add from file -> select Mac Desktop -> Open -> Yes.

(10) Copy Cover Art From One File To Another: (1) Select track that has art to be copied -> Control-Click -> Cover Art -> Copy to Clipboard -> go to new track -> highlight -> Control-Click -> Cover Art -> Paste from Clipboard.
Or: (2) Highlight track(s) -> Control-Click -> Cover Art -> Save Cover Art to external location specified in Options -> Mac Finder -> your user name -> Library -> Application Support -> J River -> Media Center 21 -> Cover Art -> Albums. The Cover Art jpg’s from MC will be there. Create a new folder for each Artist and drag the jpg images into it. This creates a separate copy of all my Album Art, which can be used for future track additions from one of these albums.

(11) Display Cover Art While Playing A File: Highlight file -> Return (on keyboard) -> Playing Now. Then: Player (at top) -> Display Options -> Cover Art Scale -> Stretch, will display the whole cover while playing the song.

(12) Resize Cover Art While Playing A File: This does not appear to work in MC 21.0.8. The image does not get resized; the printing at the bottom of the screen does.

(13) Display Volume Level (ReplayGain) For A Particular Track: Select file -> Tools -> Advanced Tools -> Analyze Audio -> Volume Level (e.g. -7.46 dB) will be displayed in its Tag field.

(14) Gapless Playback: Tools -> Options -> Audio -> Track Change -> Use Gapless for sequential album tracks.

(15) Print A Playlist: Select tracks to print (in a Playlist) -> Edit -> Copy -> go to Mac Pages document Playlist.pages -> Paste -> edit as necessary.

(16) Burn CDs & DVDs: MC cannot burn blank CDs. Use Disco for Mac (free; external software).

Please correct me if any of this is wrong; otherwise you might like to work on (1), (7), (12) and (16) above, for future versions of MC. Cheers, Bruce.

[JimH]

Thanks for taking the time to do that.

[blgentry]

Wow, quite a list!  I have some comments and suggestions inline below...

(1) Import Playlists & Track Ratings From iTunes: File menu (at top) -> Import Playlist -> iTunes Music Library.xml. MC21 did not import the iTunes Playlists, but somehow the iTunes Ratings came over, which saved me a lot of work. The Smartlists and the most important Playlists were recreated manually.

If your playlists and SmartLists in itunes are complicated, you *can* export them one at a time.  Select the playlist and have itunes export it as XML.  Then import it with MC21 and it will give you that playlist under Imported Playlists.  You can drag it out of there and put it where you want it.  For a small number of lists, recreating manually seems to be the best way.  Plus it teaches you how to use MC a little. 

(7) Send File To Playlist: Control-Click -> Send To -> Playlist -> select Playlist. (clumsy)

Yes, this *is* rather clumsy.  It's ok for creating a few small playlists.  For more extensive playlist creation, I prefer two other methods:

1.  Split views. You can split the screen vertically, or horizontally and have the playlist in one of the Splits and your Music View in the other split.  Then you can just drag and drop between them.  Clicking on a Split makes that the Active View (for keyboard shortcuts and things like that).  To get started go to View > Split View > Show 2 Views .

2.  Tabs.  MC has a Tabs system just like a web browser.  Look at the top of the window just underneath the Text display and the scrubber bar.  You'll see a little tab indicator that says the name of your current view.  It might say Playing Now, or Albums, or something like that.  Just to the right is a button.  Click that button and it will add a new Tab.  Now you can switch between tabs by clicking on their headers (the name we were just talking about).  So building a playlist is now much easier.  Open a playlist in one tab.  Switch to the other tab.  Find some songs, highlight them, and copy with Command-C .  Switch to the other tab.  Click where you want the new songs in the playlist.  Paste with Command-V.   Move the songs around if you want.  Repeat until satisfied.  You can close tabs by clicking the little X at the right edge.

(9) Add Cover Art To New File: Find best image on Internet (e.g. from Album Art Exchange) -> drag it to Desktop -> select file in MC -> Control-Click -> Cover Art -> Add from file -> select Mac Desktop -> Open -> Yes.

Easier method:

1.  Find album art in web browser.
2.  Right click on art and select "Copy Image".
3.  Right click on Song in MC .  Cover Art > Paste From Clipboard (image URL or file)

(11) Display Cover Art While Playing A File: Highlight file -> Return (on keyboard) -> Playing Now. Then: Player (at top) -> Display Options -> Cover Art Scale -> Stretch, will display the whole cover while playing the song.

Playing Now always shows cover art, unless you make the Playing Now song list cover the entire screen.  So you really only have to set this option once.  If you make your album art approximately the same size as you keep the display area, you don't have to stretch.  Meaning:  The area I use for Cover Art in Playing Now works out to be about 500 x 500.  So I always find art that's around that size. Then it automatically is the correct size.

(12) Resize Cover Art While Playing A File: This does not appear to work in MC 21.0.8. The image does not get resized; the printing at the bottom of the screen does.

I'm not sure what you are trying to do.  The display area, just above the list of songs in Playing Now, has only two options for album art size:  Normal and Stretch.  Normal shows it at "native" size.  Stretch resizes it on the fly to whatever size you have made the display area.  You can change the size of the display area by dragging the divider bar between the list of songs and the display area.  Drag it up or down to change the size of both.

(13) Display Volume Level (ReplayGain) For A Particular Track: Select file -> Tools -> Advanced Tools -> Analyze Audio -> Volume Level (e.g. -7.46 dB) will be displayed in its Tag field.

This works.  But all of the Volume Level and associated measurements are stored as Tags.  So you can show them in any view as a column if you use them frequently.  Right click on the column headers and you can select Volume Level to be shown in any view.   If you use this number a lot, keeping it in a view is easier.

Of course you can always open the Tagging Pane also and see it's value there.

Glad you've had good success with this Bruce.  Enjoy MC! 

Brian.