iTunes Web Infohound
Version 1.2.4
May 5, 2003
by Greg Townsend
Introduction
"iTunes Web Infohound" takes you to a few select websites (or in iTunes 4, the iTunes Music Store) from which you can get information about the album, artist, or song currently playing or selected in iTunes.
Requirements
iTunes 2.0 or later
AppleScript
Some of the sites require that Javascript is enabled in your browser to perform the searches (see Music Websites Accessed below) - if you are not sure, check your web browser's preferences.
Installation
You can run "iTunes Web Infohound" as a freestanding applet or as an iTunes Scripts menu item. If you want to do the latter, put the appropriate AppleScript file into your iTunes "Scripts" folder. In Classic OS, this folder should be in the same folder as the iTunes application file, or in the iTunes folder in the Documents folder. In OS X it is in the iTunes folder in your home Library. If the Scripts folder does not already exist, you can create it as you would any other folder; it must be named "Scripts".
Usage
To use the AppleScript, double-click the "iTunes Web Infohound" icon in the Finder or select "iTunes Web Infohound" from the iTunes Scripts menu (the one with the AppleScript icon). You will be asked, in order, to:
1) Decide if you want information about the track playing or the track selected, if they are not the same
2) Select a website (see below for details)
3) Decide if you want to get information about the current iTunes song, album, or artist; if using Absolute Lyric, CDDB, or iTunes Music Store you can search by any combination of these criteria. If using All Media Guide or iTunes Music Store, you can also search by genre.
After you have made your selections, the script will in most circumstances open the URL in your default web browser, or in iTunes Music Store if that is your selection. If searching in All Media Guide (see below), if there is no web browser active and no previous web browser has been identified for use with this script, it will first ask you to identify a browser (for more on this, see Version History below).
Probably the most comprehensive music review site on the web. Comprised of All Music Guide, which covers popular music, and All Classical Guide. Features listings and reviews on literally hundreds of thousands of albums and artists, and millions of tracks, in a variety of genres.
Features reviews of popular music and artists dating back to the mid-1960s. Some of the reviews are from All Media Guide, but most are Rolling Stone originals. Requires Javascript.
Features listings and reviews of thousands of popular music artists and albums. If you are using VH1, you will not be given the option to look for a song, as that search strategy is not available.
The most comprehensive and most easily searched lyrics site on the web that I have found. Lyrics available to almost 90,000 tunes. Requires Javascript.
Not as extensive as Get Lyrics, but allows searches of lyrics by multiple criteria.
The major source on the web for listings of CD and track information. Almost 2 million CDs are catalogued. You can search by multiple criteria at CDDB.
Online music store available only through iTunes from which songs in AAC format may be purchased for download.
Websites of Interest
Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes is a great source of AppleScripts and info on scripting for iTunes.
Other good sites with info on scripting in general and with various downloadable scripts include Apple's AppleScript site, the AppleScript Sourcebook, Scotland Software's AppleScript page, AppleScript Central (.com), and Macscripter.net.
Version 1.2.4 (May 5, 2003)
• Added ability to search iTunes Music Store
Version 1.2 (April 8, 2003)
• Revised URL construction to fix compatibility with Rolling Stone - it must be noted that searches for albums at Rolling Stone, either using this script or directly at the Rolling Stone site, are now generally unrewarding
• Added abilty to search CDDB
• Added ability to search for album and song at All Classical Guide
• Eliminated Safari as an option to search All Media Guide sites - it just doesn't work with Safari (see Version 1.1 below)
Version 1.1 (March 10, 2003)
• Revised URL construction to fix compatibility with some sites (e.g., All Media Guide, Get Lyrics, VH1) - it is now possible to search for albums in All Music Guide
• The URLs constructed for the AMG sites use the character "|" as the text delimiter to replace blank spaces. For reasons beyond my reckoning, when the AppleScript URL command "open location" is used without a specific named browser, the character "|" is replaced by "%7C". The browsers do not always interpret this substitution correctly when accessing a URL. For that reason, when a search at AMG is conducted, the script will first identify a browser so that the application can be named in the script. If one of the commonly used Mac browsers (Internet Explorer, Opera, OmniWeb, iCab, Netscape, Chimera, Mozilla, or Safari) is open, the script will use that browser. If not, it will ask you to identify a browser by picking it from a list or finding the file on your disk.
• Fixed a bug that would interfere with distinguishing the track playing from the track selected
• Minor cosmetic changes
Version 1.0 (May 28, 2002)
• Original release
The Fine Print
I made this for fun, and you're getting it for free. That means that in the unlikely event that your computer crashes and burns while you're using it, you can't get anything out of me other than a heartfelt apology and an earnest effort to help you figure out what went wrong. You are free to give this away, but you cannot sell it; please include this Read Me with the package if you do distribute it to others.
Please feel free to send reports of bugs or feature requests to me at <gct2r@virginia.edu>. As I mostly hear about the problems, I'm not sure how well this is working for most people, so I'd appreciate a brief note if it works well for you.