Mac OS X Power Hound, Second Edition

Smart Playlists

“Smart playlists” are self-creating lists of songs that update themselves according to rules you define—the number of times a song has been played, its rating, its genre, and other such criteria.

To create a new smart playlist, choose File → New Smart Playlist (Option-

-N); see Figure 8-19 for help. The Smart Playlist dialog box opens, letting you set the rules you’d like to use. When the dialog box closes, you can type a new name for your playlist.

Figure 8-19. Here’s another way to open the Smart Playlist dialog box: Option-click the + (New Playlist) button. When you’ve done it right, the usual + icon (left) becomes a gear shape (right).

Playlists that Play All Songs Once

Creating one of the most useful smart playlists—a playlist that simply plays every song once—sounds as easy as pie, but there’s actually a little more to it than you might expect.

Open the Smart Playlist dialog box (Option-

-N) and then proceed as shown in Figure 8-20.

A song is not considered fully played until it ends, so if you skip ahead with the “next song” button (the >> button above the volume bar), the skipped songs remain in the unplayed category and will therefore come up again. If, later, you ...