New iTunes, new problem

The reason I ask is because I used to use what's called the Column Browser, and I thought it's what you might have used, too. It's a nifty little feature. What it does is put each category into it's own list view, so that you have three (or four, in some cases), separate lists, each displaying different content. One list contains artists, another contains albums, and another contains songs; you can add a genres list if you like, too. Anyhow, whenever you select one thing in a list, the other lists change to reflect only items from that list's selection. So, for example, I want to find only albums and songs by Journey. I select Journey in the artists list. Then, the albums list changes to only show albums by Journey, and the songs list does the same. I also have iTunes sync only selected meedia. There are thre ways to sync to an iPhone. Autofill, sync selected, and sync checked items. You can find a good explanation of the differences between the three syncing options are at: http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/the-beginners-guide-to-filling-your-ipod/ There is also a fourth syncing option, called manually manage music, but it's kind of lacking, in my opinion, because any changes you make to tracks in iTunes will not be reflected on the iPod--you have to resync the songs. It also involves dragging and dropping the stuff you want to sync--something I'm not sure how to do. It's only advantage is that it lets you copy stuff from a friend's computer onto your iPod. I'm not sure how you'd get the songs back into your own iTunes library, though. Unfortunately, it doesn't work on any of the iPhone models. I'm not sure how it works on any of the iPad models, but the iLounge article said that it worked on those--though I can't remember if it specified any specific models or not. Also, you might want to check out the latest FSCast on iTunes 11. It can be found at: http://www.freedomscientific.com/FSCast/episodes/fscast073-december2012.asp It explains the Column Browser in more detail. The relevent information on this can be found at 00:53:01 in the file. If you use Winamp, you can get to this particular time by pressing ctrl-J and typing in 53:01, then pressing enter. I don't know how to do it in any other media player, though. Although the podcast explains how to make these list views appear for music, it doesn't go into detail about hhow to do it for books. For books, you need to check the "List" radio button. This will probably make more sense when you've listened to the podcast. Hope this helps, Shersey

I just did sync selected a few days ago with iTunes 11, following the steps I gave above, and it worked beautifully. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for my audiobooks playlists--no matter where I look, I cannot find those playlists to sync. I have made them, but I can't find their checkboxes. I've looked under the music radio buttons, under the books radio button, and under both the music and books sections of the iPhone when opening up it's treeview. Anyhow, that's another topic entirely. I like sync selected pared with the column browser for a few reasons, the most important ones being that you can actually find your music, and once you make the playlists, you can check their boxes and then just leave things alone. Of course, if you change your music a lot, you might want to make two playlists, one for stuff that stays on your phone no matter what, and another that you change on a regular basis. You can go and delete the songs from a plsylist and just add new ones, keeping the playlist's name the same so that iTunes still syncs it to your iDevice. Anyhow, the column browser works in all versions of iTunee, from I think 9 to it's current version, 11. You should be able to get it to work--I have. Would you post the steps you were taking to add songs to playlists before you started copying/pasting, and I'll see if I can't help you out? By the way, you don't have to use sync selected, I just thought it might make things a heck of a lot easier for you if you did. Personally, I've never used anything else, and I really don't like any other view. It's too complicated, and the sync selected makes it so easy to get to what you want. Anyhow, good luck. I hope you can figure things out all right. Thanks, Shersey