iTunes 12

[Mike in Tvlle]

iTunes 12 (degrade, not upgrade) appears to have "lost" the means to determine how lists are selected and displayed. Any help on controlling listings appreciated.

I'm new to Forums, this is my first post, a search for relevant past posts has not turned up anything - actually, searching isn't simple - are there any FAQs etc on how to use these Forums??

Also, what do you mean by OSX Apps - do iTunes and iPhoto count as "apps" or as operating system? I tried to restore an earlier version of iTunes from Time Machine and it wouldn't allow it because "the OS requires it".

Another also: 98% of my iTunes collection is classical. iTunes doesn't handle classical library data at all well. Is there a discussion group etc on iTunes and the classics (I haven't found one)?

 

[MacInWin]

Welcome to the forums!

Do you mean the sidebar? Is that what you want when you say "lists?" If so, select Music then on the top bar above the list of tracks, click on Playlists and the left column will reappear sort of like it was in iTunes11. That same trick works on all the other pages in iTunes also.

Yes, by Apps we mean applications, it's just easier to type. The operating system is usually "OS," or Yosemite/Mavericks/etc. You can't go back on iTunes very easily. I saw one place where they had a process. The challenge is as you found, you cannot delete iTunes12 to reinstall iTunes11, so you have to play some games to make that work.

Can't help on the library data, but I will ask, what do you want to do with it? I know that for classical music iTunes tends to organize by artist rather than composer, which is not how classical music is typically approached. The only way I've seen to get around it is to right click on a track, then Get Info and edit the Sort fields to get the composer into one of the sort fields you can get to. It's not pretty, but seems to sort of work. I have an album of Adagio music that was clever enough to put the composer name FIRST in the track name, so those sort well, but the rest of my collection (modest at best) doesn't follow that pattern.

 

[chscag]

Also, what do you mean by OSX Apps - do iTunes and iPhoto count as "apps" or as operating system?

iTunes and iPhoto are applications which run in an operating system such as OS X Yosemite. You can not remove iTunes because the system will not allow it - which is why you can't overwrite it with an earlier version.

Classical music is a genre listed in iTunes so I'm not sure I understand your question about iTunes not handling classical library data. We do not break down our forums any further than what you see. Classical, Easy Listening, Rock, Country, etc, are all grouped together in one discussion group.

 

[chas_m]

Actually iTunes handles classical music surprisingly well, but the user does need to go to the trouble of customizing the columns to one's desires. For example, turning off the "artist" column and instead turning on the "composer" column, which is probably more important. As you probably know already, columns can be dragged by their title into the order from left-to-right you'd like to see them.

 

[MBP17•David]

I tried to restore an earlier version of iTunes from Time Machine and it wouldn't allow it because "the OS requires it".

I took an immediate dislike to v.12, and have now gone back to v.11.4 on Mavericks, but this is not a simple, nor a straightforward process, that involves changing permissions, dealing with system files, and downloading a fresh version of iTunes 11.4 from Apple - personally, I will not be comfortable, recommending this in an open forum, as there's a very real possibility of a complete system @#%$-up.

I suppose, if you're absolutely determined to revert to the previous version, you can, but as almost everyone here would say - new interface / layout / features take some time to get used to, and then one would feel this has always been that way ...