Export to iTunes library.xml

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fvdpol
Posts: 28
Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:48 am
Location: The Netherlands

Re: Export to iTunes library.xml

Post by fvdpol »

MagGyver wrote: Thu Jul 19, 2018 12:41 pm Thanks for this! I'm so tickled that there are others out there with this same need who are proficient at coding :)

Has anyone else tried this out yet? I'd love to know. I went through so much hassle when I had to downgrade my Traktor version for compatibility that I'm probably a little gunshy about giving this a go...
Much appreciated! I'm happy to see that my contribution to DC's original work is being used by others. Happy to contribute to the community.

I try to keep an overview of compatibility with the various versions if MediaMonkey/Traktor (and hopefully other software like Serato, VirtualDJ etc.) on the script/plugin readme. See: https://github.com/fvdpol/MM-ExportITunesLibraryXml

Please let me know which applications/versions of software you have positive/negative feedback, so I can include that in the documentation.

Also please share if you have specific bug reports, feature requests etc.
MagGyver
Posts: 114
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Re: Export to iTunes library.xml

Post by MagGyver »

I'm happy to report that your updated script is working perfectly. I even updated MM and Traktor to the most recent versions (4.1.21.1875 and 2.11.13 respectively) and it's still working fine. Thank you so much for putting in the work on this - my workflow just got easier again when preparing for DJ gigs! :D
fvdpol wrote: Fri Jul 20, 2018 4:07 am
Much appreciated! I'm happy to see that my contribution to DC's original work is being used by others. Happy to contribute to the community.

I try to keep an overview of compatibility with the various versions if MediaMonkey/Traktor (and hopefully other software like Serato, VirtualDJ etc.) on the script/plugin readme. See: https://github.com/fvdpol/MM-ExportITunesLibraryXml

Please let me know which applications/versions of software you have positive/negative feedback, so I can include that in the documentation.

Also please share if you have specific bug reports, feature requests etc.
DJ Maggie
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MMW5, MMA
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Peke
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Re: Export to iTunes library.xml

Post by Peke »

Fyi Addon is approved.
Best regards,
Peke
MediaMonkey Team lead QA/Tech Support guru
Admin of Free MediaMonkey addon Site HappyMonkeying
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subturtle

Re: Export to iTunes library.xml

Post by subturtle »

Hey guys,

So I have just started to use mediamonkey and need to export my music as an itunes xml file to use in Traktor. I first used the old version of this script and traktor crashed when opening it. Having found this thread I downloaded the new installation package and installed it.
However, Traktor now says 'unknown exception during Itunes import' when I try to refresh/load the itunes library. It isn't crashing but the library won't load. Has anyone else had this problem? Is there something else I need to do to get the script working besides installing the mmip file?

From searching on google I found that other people had this message from traktor when their itunes libraries had asian characters in it (altho they weren't using it with mediamonkey, just using itunes -> traktor directly). I didn't find a solution to this problem, though.

Can anyone help me with a solution here please? Very anxious to get my library working for a show soon.

Thanks.
fvdpol
Posts: 28
Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:48 am
Location: The Netherlands

Re: Export to iTunes library.xml

Post by fvdpol »

subturtle wrote: Fri Aug 17, 2018 2:22 am ...However, Traktor now says 'unknown exception during Itunes import' when I try to refresh/load the itunes library. It isn't crashing but the library won't load. Has anyone else had this problem? Is there something else I need to do to get the script working besides installing the mmip file?
Hi subturtle, thanks for giving the iTunes export a try. I had similar issues related to specific unicode characters in the library. Unfortunate the logging from Traktor is quite verbose :-(

Would it be possible to share your library xml with me so I can analyse it on my system? I'll PM you my email address.
fvdpol
Posts: 28
Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:48 am
Location: The Netherlands

Re: Export to iTunes library.xml

Post by fvdpol »

fvdpol wrote: Fri Aug 17, 2018 2:14 pm
subturtle wrote: Fri Aug 17, 2018 2:22 am ...However, Traktor now says 'unknown exception during Itunes import' when I try to refresh/load the itunes library. It isn't crashing but the library won't load. Has anyone else had this problem? Is there something else I need to do to get the script working besides installing the mmip file?
Hi subturtle, thanks for giving the iTunes export a try. I had similar issues related to specific unicode characters in the library. Unfortunate the logging from Traktor is quite verbose :-(

Would it be possible to share your library xml with me so I can analyse it on my system? I'll PM you my email address.
Analysis of subturtle's xml file showed that some of the special characters (like smileys) were not correctly encoded. The technical reason was that so-called utf-16 surrogate pairs where not yet handled.

Pre-release version 1.6.1 is available on github: https://github.com/fvdpol/MM-ExportITun ... l/releases
Octobird

Re: Export to iTunes library.xml

Post by Octobird »

Oooouhhh....thanks sooo much for keeping this script updated. Initially I thought I'm stucked with the non working early version of it. I just kinda finished my jailbreak out of Apple Prison Inc. Away from the Macbook, away from iTunes. Quite a journey. And this was one of the last things I needed to get my old workflow with smart playlists and Traktor back. Three thumbs up!

The Playlists are still in a quite chaotic order and the subfolders do not match all the time. I have a lot of Playlists sharing the same name but in different folders (with different smart attributes). So kinda hard to find. But I get the workaround by giving them unique name extensions.

Thanks for all the work!

Peace. Eric.
fvdpol
Posts: 28
Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:48 am
Location: The Netherlands

Re: Export to iTunes library.xml

Post by fvdpol »

Thanks Eric/Octobird for sharing that the plugin helps you with your workflow.
Octobird wrote: Tue Sep 04, 2018 8:00 am The Playlists are still in a quite chaotic order and the subfolders do not match all the time. I have a lot of Playlists sharing the same name but in different folders (with different smart attributes). So kinda hard to find. But I get the workaround by giving them unique name extensions.
Could you give me some specific examples on where the behaviour exported scripts do not match your expected behaviour?

I found that Native Instruments Traktor expects the folders in iTunes XML to be (obviously...) structured in same way as iTunes does. While the concept of nested playlists in MediaMonkey is somewhat different:

iTunes:
  • playlists can be 'manual' playlists or auto playlist using some rules -- similar to MediaMonkey
  • folders are a special object that can contain playlists or folders. in the XML the folder contains the contents of all children
MediaMonkey:
  • playlists can be 'manual' playlists or auto playlist using some rules -- similar to iTunes
  • playlists can be nested: a playlist can contain tracks (as per above) but also child playlists
Workaround:
To emulate the iTunes folders in MediaMonkey I'm using following construct in MediaMonkey:
  • create an Auto Playlist that will serve as folder
  • move/add the child playlists under this Auto Playlist
  • set the rule (advanced tab) 'is playlist' and checkmark the child playlists
  • if you select the Auto Playlist you should see all tracks from the child playlists
  • Traktor should recognise this as folder and show folder with the child playlists underneath
Can you please let me know if above works for you?

Thanks,
Frank
Wim.R

Re: Export to iTunes library.xml

Post by Wim.R »

Hi Frank,

First of all, I'd like to thank you for all your efforts keeping this script up-to-date. I've been using MM for a couple of months, together with this plugin, and it works great. I've noticed you're still quite actively trying to improve the script, and so far I've come across these issues:

1. It doesn't seem to be able to export empty playlists (playlists without any song in it). If a mother-playlist is empty, it will export the children playlists 1 level higher (as if the mother-playlist didn't exist). I work around this issue by using a dummy-song.

2. Sorting of playlists. Take for example 3 playlists: A (created on 10/09/2018), B (created on 11/09/2018) and C (created on 09/09/2018).

Mediamonkey sorts these playlists alphabetically:
- A
- B
- C

After export, Traktor sorts playlists according to creation date (or probably according to some unique number attached to a playlist). Thus the result in Traktor:
- C
- A
- B

Do you know a workaround to be able to change the sorting in Traktor?

Kind regards,

Wim
fvdpol
Posts: 28
Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:48 am
Location: The Netherlands

Re: Export to iTunes library.xml

Post by fvdpol »

Hi Wim,
thanks for your report.

I logged your issues in the tracker on Github: https://github.com/fvdpol/MM-ExportITun ... Xml/issues
Wim.R wrote: Wed Sep 12, 2018 6:27 am 1. It doesn't seem to be able to export empty playlists (playlists without any song in it). If a mother-playlist is empty, it will export the children playlists 1 level higher (as if the mother-playlist didn't exist). I work around this issue by using a dummy-song.
Do you see this behaviour only with nested playlists? How do you know the issue is caused by the export and not by Traktor mis-interpreting the files --- as iTunes does not support nested playlists (see my post https://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewt ... 19#p449169)
Wim.R wrote: Wed Sep 12, 2018 6:27 am 2. Sorting of playlists. Take for example 3 playlists: A (created on 10/09/2018), B (created on 11/09/2018) and C (created on 09/09/2018).

Mediamonkey sorts these playlists alphabetically:
- A
- B
- C

After export, Traktor sorts playlists according to creation date (or probably according to some unique number attached to a playlist). Thus the result in Traktor:
- C
- A
- B
Correct, the script exports the playlist ordered by the (internal) playlist id. I'm not aware of any workaround. I'll have a look at adding this feature next time I'll find some time to work on the plugin :-)

Frank.
Wim.R

Re: Export to iTunes library.xml

Post by Wim.R »

Thanks Frank. No need to hurry, the plugin already works very well :p

About your question:
fvdpol wrote: Wed Sep 12, 2018 3:38 pm Do you see this behaviour only with nested playlists? How do you know the issue is caused by the export and not by Traktor mis-interpreting the files --- as iTunes does not support nested playlists
I've noticed this behaviour both with nested and unnested playlists. I don't know if this is caused by the export or Traktor.
fvdpol
Posts: 28
Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:48 am
Location: The Netherlands

Re: Export to iTunes library.xml

Post by fvdpol »

Wim.R wrote: Thu Sep 13, 2018 8:13 am About your question:
fvdpol wrote: Wed Sep 12, 2018 3:38 pm Do you see this behaviour only with nested playlists? How do you know the issue is caused by the export and not by Traktor mis-interpreting the files --- as iTunes does not support nested playlists
I've noticed this behaviour both with nested and unnested playlists. I don't know if this is caused by the export or Traktor.
I did some analysis, and was able to confirm that the export works fine (as per original Apple iTunes on MacOS); the behaviour you are seeing is due to the way Traktor works. So this is not something that can be fixed/corrected in this plugin/script.

Details from my analysis can be found in the Github issue https://github.com/fvdpol/MM-ExportITun ... l/issues/6
Peke
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Re: Export to iTunes library.xml

Post by Peke »

1.6.1 approved
Best regards,
Peke
MediaMonkey Team lead QA/Tech Support guru
Admin of Free MediaMonkey addon Site HappyMonkeying
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fvdpol
Posts: 28
Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:48 am
Location: The Netherlands

Re: Export to iTunes library.xml

Post by fvdpol »

I just build a new pre-release of version 1.6.2 of the Export to iTunes XML addon. Would appreciate some feedback before I mark this as stable.

Changes:
  • Added Options dialog
  • Dynamically configurable options for export at shutdown and periodic export
  • Dynamically configurable filename and directory
  • Documentation updates -- include explanation on MediaMonkey's playlist behaviour versus iTunes
  • Refactor logic to write playlists:
    • correctly handle playlists with duplicate names
    • export using same sort order as MediaMonkey
    • export parent before children (as per iTunes behaviour)
Especially the changes on the playlist logic should solve issues observed by 'Octobird' and 'Wim.R' D :-)

Download available on Github:
https://github.com/fvdpol/MM-ExportITun ... tag/v1.6.2

cheers,
Frank.
Biggus_Dickus
Posts: 96
Joined: Tue Jun 26, 2018 12:46 am

Re: Export to iTunes library.xml

Post by Biggus_Dickus »

Hi,
is there a way to let script export songs only (without playlist export)?
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