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com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist?
#13125 12/03/10 12:19 PM
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In response to my

Quote:
The one issue I have run into is not being able to locate and perpetuate iTunes's equalizer settings.

dkmarsh posted

Quote:
@artie: com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist (But let's not get into a disucssion of that here; if there's more to say on the topic, please start a new thread.)

so...

I have, on more than one occasion, imported ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist into a new installation, without having made any changes to the ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music folder for which it was created, and found that I had to reset all of my Equalizer Presets anyhow. frown

Is there some arcane procedure I'm not following ?

Thanks.

Edit: I just opened the file in TextWrangler, and it doesn't look like it contains anywhere near enough info to be storing the equalizer, i.e. "Vocal Booster" et al, settings for the 1,400 songs I've got in my iTunes Music folder.

Last edited by artie505; 12/03/10 01:06 PM.

The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist?
artie505 #13129 12/03/10 02:49 PM
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The eq plist holds settings for the eq sliders only. It has no knowledge of which songs those settings get associated with.

The connection between a particular song and a particular eq is held in the "/Users/you/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library" file... which is more easily viewable by other programs (like TextWrangler) in the xml version of same: "/Users/you/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml"

Re: com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist?
Hal Itosis #13148 12/03/10 11:46 PM
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Quote:
The eq plist holds settings for the eq sliders only. It has no knowledge of which songs those settings get associated with.

Yeah, I figured that out.

A question, though: when I associate a particular eq preset with a particular track via iTunes' File menu -> Get Info command -> Options tab -> Equalizer Preset pop-up menu, a Finder search for recently modified files shows only the track itself; neither ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library nor ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml appear in the search results, but according to

mdls ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library

metadata attributes kMDItemContentModificationDate and kMDItemFSContentChangeDate both accurately reflect the change.

Is this some kind of characteristic of database files, or what?



dkmarsh—member, FineTunedMac Co-op Board of Directors
Re: com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist?
Hal Itosis #13152 12/04/10 05:25 AM
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Originally Posted By: Hal Itosis
The eq plist holds settings for the eq sliders only. It has no knowledge of which songs those settings get associated with.

The connection between a particular song and a particular eq is held in the "/Users/you/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library" file... which is more easily viewable by other programs (like TextWrangler) in the xml version of same: "/Users/you/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml"

Yep... That was the only thing left when the file turned out to not be what it sounded like it was. tongue (I've never touched my sliders, so I assume the file's current contents are default settings.)

It seems odd to me, though, that all of a songs (Is) metadata (the correct word?) other than its Prefs > Options > Equalizer Preset and, I think, Volume Adjustment are attached to its file in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music and can be easily restored, while the only way to restore equalizer and volume settings appears to be by importing an existing ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml (Edit: or is it ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library, or is it both) file (as opposed to populating [a] new one[s]).

Last edited by artie505; 12/04/10 05:31 AM.

The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist?
artie505 #13153 12/04/10 07:47 AM
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Originally Posted By: artie505
It seems odd to me, though, that all of a songs (Is) metadata (the correct word?) other than its Prefs > Options > Equalizer Preset and, I think, Volume Adjustment are attached to its file in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music and can be easily restored, while the only way to restore equalizer and volume settings appears to be by importing an existing ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml (Edit: or is it ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library, or is it both) file (as opposed to populating [a] new one[s]).

The rationale there is that the "info" part (such as artist, album, song, composer, year) consists of fairly objective qualities, set in stone by nature... whereas the "options" part (like EQ, vol., start/stop times, and ratings) could be viewed in a more subjective light, wherein different users might desire different values.

As far as the other thing goes, iTunes can (presumably) work from either equally well... whereas the XML file is more easily understood by 3rd-party wares. [it might/could also serve as sort of a "safety/temp" backup, while iTunes writes out its frequent updates to the binary version.]

Last edited by Hal Itosis; 12/04/10 07:58 AM.
Re: com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist?
Hal Itosis #13154 12/04/10 08:04 AM
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Oops! Single user environment here...the thought of other users never occurred to me.

So that means that multiple users accessing the same ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music would each have their own...(Edit:) what? ~/.../iTunes Library and ~/.../iTunes Music Library.xml, I guess... Are you certain that the former stores eq. and vol. settings? That somehow doesn't ring true, and since I couldn't find any way to open it other than by launching iTunes I couldn't investigate. I wonder if it doesn't pick up all of its info from the .xml? (I'm going to have to log in to my test account later and see exactly what happens.)

And the whole subject seems to be buried in some degree of obscurity, because I searched for, and couldn't find anything about, restoring equalizer and volume settings.

Last edited by artie505; 12/04/10 09:52 AM.

The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist?
dkmarsh #13155 12/04/10 08:18 AM
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Originally Posted By: dkmarsh
A question, though: when I associate a particular eq preset with a particular track via iTunes' File menu -> Get Info command -> Options tab -> Equalizer Preset pop-up menu, a Finder search for recently modified files shows only the track itself; neither ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library nor ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml appear in the search results, but according to

mdls ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library

metadata attributes kMDItemContentModificationDate and kMDItemFSContentChangeDate both accurately reflect the change.

Is this some kind of characteristic of database files, or what?

Since I don't know the answers to that, please accept one of the following for the moment...
-- I'm on my iPad now, so I can't check. wink
-- I don't trust Finder, so Terminal is probably right. wink

::shrug:: on the track change. Seems unnecessary, but maybe there's a basic yes/no flag set on it which simply indicates whether the song has an assigned EQ or not. Perhaps that tiny amount of "self knowledge" is useful for some purpose. [but idunno]

Re: com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist?
dkmarsh #13161 12/04/10 09:17 PM
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Originally Posted By: dkmarsh
a Finder search for recently modified files shows only the track itself; neither ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library nor ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml appear in the search results

Finder (actually, Spotlight) considers these "System" files, and won't show them unless you explicitly include {System files}{are included} as a search parameter.

Tip: "System files" is considered an obscure search term, so it's not included by default in the criterion popup menu (the one that initially says "Kind"). You need to select "Other...", which brings up a sheet with a long but thankfully alphabetized list of search terms.

Tip: That list is so long it's hard to scroll through. Fortunately, there's a search field right there on the sheet, so you can search for "sys" to jump straight to it. Searching for search terms! Who'd'a thunk it? I love it!

Tip: When you find it, there's a checkbox associated with it. Putting a check mark in the checkbox keeps it in the menu, so you never have to search for it again.

Re: com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist?
ganbustein #13162 12/04/10 09:48 PM
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Quote:
Finder (actually, Spotlight) considers these "System" files...

*Sigh.*

I do have System files in the menu; I eyeballed it, said to myself, "naw, I'm looking in my home directory," and never gave it another thought. Did you already know those to be System files (and if so, how?), or did you hypothesize that that was the case (and if so, whence came your intuition?)?



dkmarsh—member, FineTunedMac Co-op Board of Directors
Re: com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist?
artie505 #13170 12/05/10 06:55 AM
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I just activated iTunes in my test account, and Hal is correct about where eq. and vol. settings are stored.

The settings are, like he figured, individual user cofigurable, and, in fact, when I dragged ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library & iTunes Music Library.xml from my main account to my test account the settings, which came with them, were greyed out. (I first dragged iTunes Library over, and the settings came with it, so they are, indeed, duplicated.)


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist?
dkmarsh #13197 12/06/10 05:16 AM
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Originally Posted By: dkmarsh
Did you already know those to be System files (and if so, how?), or did you hypothesize that that was the case (and if so, whence came your intuition?)?

I was almost certain they were. Preference files are considered "system files", and these are essentially preference files even if not in ~/Library/Preferences.

A "system file" appears to be anything that a user would not normally open. Thus, a "system file" is pretty much anything that is neither a document, an application, nor a folder. Anything in /System, /private, /bin, /sbin, or /usr is also a "system file" unless you start the search inside the folder. (From within /System, a search for filenames containing "Finder" turns up /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app even without looking for system files.)

But I hate the taste of egg on my face, so before posting I did a search in ~/Music for items containing "Library" in the name (so I'd have a conveniently short list), and tried it with and without system files, to confirm that I would be giving good advice.


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