I use Apple Music, but because I don’t use iCloud Music Library (long story), I’m not allowed to make playlsits or bookmark artists. However, I can use the Share button to get a URL to the artist in itunes.
Is there a way I could automate compiling a list of links and artists names, and have KM build a playlist palette that would make it easy for me to choose the bookmarks i want? If possible, I’d like to be able to categorize them, so I can limit them to smaller groups.
Apple Music is Apple’s competition to Spotify ($10/month). It’s built into iTunes on the desktop. Apple has an optional built-in service called iCloud Music Library which uploads all your music to Apple’s servers, then deletes all your local music and forces you to listen to Apple’s version on the cloud. There are problems with this, including that they substitute low-fi recordings.
So no bueno for me on the iCloud Music Library. I still pay and listen to Apple Music. However, to twist your arm, Apple doesn’t allow you to favorite/playlist/bookmark any new streaming music you discover unless you turn on iCML. PITA.
All I want to do is discover new music/artists, and then have a convenient way of finding them later. There’s a “Share” button associated with every artist or album page. One of the choices gives a link that will open itunes to the correct streaming page.
Here’s a sample link:
It gets you back to the page where you were listening. You can then press play.
I’d like to use KM to build a self-configuring palette for iTunes that would load category/name/link data from a text file, and present me with a set of category buttons which would click through to a set of artist/album buttons that would fire the URLs.
The execution of this in KM is way above my pay grade, but I figured I should ask.
and present me with a set of category buttons which would click through to a set of artist/album buttons that would fire the URLs.
I'm sure this is perfectly clear in your mind, and I have an idea of what you're saying, but could you mock up a simple example so we're sure we're talking about the same thing? Thanks.
Sorry my Vulcan Mind Meld doesn’t work well over the internet.
Here’s a video that gives an idea of what I’m suggesting.
I’d like something more self configuring. I’m thinking:
-Copy the URL
-Hotkey - KM prompts me for Category & Title
-KM appends this data to a text file that KM will read from later to generate palettes.
Later, when I want to find something I bookmarked:
-Hotkey - Palette comes up with category choices (parsed from text file)
Select from Palette by mouse or keyboard
-Palette disappears, replaced by Palette listing Category items (parsed from text file)
Select from Palette by mouse or keyboard
-KM fires item’s URL(parsed from text file) which opens item in itunes
Optional things that would make it more convenient:
-Prefab category “List” which will display an alphabetized list (parsed from text file) of all the link-associated titles. Faster, and good fallback if I forget where I filed something.
-On input prompt, asking for category is from popup menu, with list of existing categories, plus “Add New.” Adding New would present a text field for user Input. This would prevent misspellings and redundant categories.
-I’m also going to fish around and see if there’s a more KM-friendly way to get the title and the URL instead of doing it by hand.
You provide it with a list of items, in one of several formats, and it displays a “Spotlight”-type dialog that lets you search and select an item. Once you’ve selected an item, you can do whatever you want with it.
I could envision a macro that reads a list of categories from disk, and sends them to a Spotlight search prompt.
When you pick a category, it could load all the songs for that category and display another search prompt, letting you pick the song. When you pick the song, the dialog could return the URL for that song, and then you have the macro launch the URL.
I’m not exactly sure how you would store the songs so that you could get the songs for a particular category, but I’m sure it could be worked out.
I’m sure there are other ways of doing this, but if you like this idea and need help to implement it, let me know.
That's an amazing bit of development, Dan! Hat's off to you!
When you pick a category, it could load all the songs for that category and display another search prompt, letting you pick the song. When you pick the song, the dialog could return the URL for that song, and then you have the macro launch the URL.
Sounds good. I'm going to give this a try.
I'm not exactly sure how you would store the songs so that you could get the songs for a particular category, but I'm sure it could be worked out.
Yeah, you've already done the hard part. Thanks very much for sharing this.
