the applescript method

(*
get the name and artist of each track in the current playlist
and put the whole danged list onto yr clipboard

to make it super-handy, turn on script menu and drop this script into your itunes scripts folder
<username>/Library/Applications/iTunes

use at your own risk, disclaim, etc.

CC noncommercial sharealike attribution
drinknerd 12/29/2007
*)

tell application "iTunes"
 set myresult to ""
 activate
 repeat with myTrack in tracks of view of first browser window
  set myresult to myresult & name of myTrack & tab & artist of myTrack & return
 end repeat
end tell

set the clipboard to myresult
say "done"

how to process an exported playlist

this is the no XML, no AppleScript method

1. select the playlist
   
2. menu: [File][Export...]
   
   (system will open a dialog titled "Save: iTunes")
   
3. set the 'save as' filename to "myPlaylist.txt" (optional-- but it makes the example easier)
   
4. set format to "Plain Text"
   
5. press [Save]
   
6. open the terminal
   
7. cd to the directory where it was saved (I think default is Documents)
   
8. here's the magic: (enter it all on one line)
   
awk 'BEGIN {RS="\r"; FS="\t"; OFS="\t"} {print $1, $2 }' myPlaylist.txt

   or
   
awk 'BEGIN {RS="\r"; FS="\t"; OFS="\t"} {print $1, $2 }' myPlaylist.txt > cleanedPlaylist.txt

   

itunes 7 yay! boo! almost

yay:
I am oddly obsessed with the cover art flipper in the new itunes. I spend far too much time gathering artwork for the items that it fails to automatically grab.

yay:
new, useful, metadata added: skip count, last skipped

boo!:
asshats! 'skip' does not reliably get set. as far as I can tell, it gets set SOMETIMES if you skip to next between 3 and 10 seconds into the fucking song. SOMETIMES? dickweeds. it's not a hard field to implement. if you want to be wussy about "ooh I don't want to sully a song by marking it skipped" then give a fucking preference ignore skips before N seconds or after N seconds, so I can set it to "all skips count as skips".

though it would be useful (hmm.. maybe I'll write a script to squirrel it into the comments field) to know just how much I hate a song, based on the mean time at which I skipped from it. heck -- numbers are cheap, particularly if they're hidden -- I want to know not just the mean, but also the deviation -- that way scuds can be ID'd (wow. I really fucking hate that song -- not only that, but it takes me 10 full seconds to realize it) (or... wow. I really need to trim that stupid 60 second artsy blank tail off that song)