Grid View is probably the most eye-catching new feature of iTunes 8. It's like laying out all your albums on the living room floor—great for seeing everything you've got, without the hassle of having to pick it all back up. More picturesque than List view and not quite as moving as Cover Flow, Grid View is the middle road to discovering (or rediscovering) what's in your iTunes library.
iTunes offers four different ways to see your collection: grouped by Album, Artist, Genre, or Composer. Click each named tab to see the music sorted by that category. Here's how to work the Grid:
Hover the mouse over any tile on the grid to get a clickable Play icon that lets you start listening to the music right there.
Double-click a cover in Album view to display both the cover and song titles in List view.
If you have multiple albums under the Artists, Genre, or Composer tabs, hover the mouse across each tile to see the different album covers.
Adjust the size of the covers and art by dragging the slider at the top of the window.
One thing about Grid View, though: It's pretty darn depressing unless you have artwork on just about everything in your collection. (If you don't and see far too many generic musical-note icons in there, Chapter 5 shows you how to art things up.) And if you hate Grid View, don't use it—iTunes just defaults to whatever view you were using the last time you quit the program.
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