iTunes advice

[Keith Henderson]

Hey folx...

So I've started into ripping my Mom's collection into iTunes in order to have that ready for when we move (then we can pack all her CDs and not have to unpack them even).  I can then worry about getting the new "player" whenever we're already in there.

First off, thanks to Paul's prodding, I figured out how to create a second library (shift-icon click) for my Mom's music, to keep it uncluttered from the files I previously had open for my own use.  So that was a nice thing to learn, although this was really the first time I ever needed to do that.

But I'm still completely flabbergasted by iTunes and its folder-(mis)managing routines.  I suffered from this problem a couple years ago when I was loading in my personal collection, but haven't done much ripping recently.  But now, it's baaaaaacccckk.

So, I want to arrange my own "trunk" subdirectory structure* on my multiple external drives without interference from iTunes.  Yet I want iTunes to do "corrections" for me as I do operations inside its software.  That is, after I've already ripped/loaded something, if I then change the name/spelling of the artist/title/whatever, the actual filename in the directory structure is changed to match.  Up until a few minutes ago, I thought that wa controlled by clicking the "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" button inside the Edit-Preferences-Advanced window.  And I did an experiment where that was seemingly borne out.  But then I just did it again, and that time it *wouldn't* change my subdirectory name to reflect the change I made in the artist name, no matter whether this was clicked.  Weird.  Must be something else driving it then?  But what?

*I normally create all my subdirectories "above" artist name (with Explorer or whatever), and then let iTunes only create "artist" and "album" subdirectories underneath that, and then I just remember to go back and switch Edit-Preferences-Folder Location manually each time I put something "different" in the drawer.

But the main issue is...****sometimes**** (but not usually) iTunes will decide that it ABSOLUTELY MUST add in a totally unnecessary* intermediate subdirectory called "Music" in between my chosen location and the artist subdirectory.  What's maddening is that this has happened a bunch of times (today but not yesterday, and occasionally in the past), but I can't imagine what is different about what I have done from one moment/day to the next, so what even controls this????  And then if I manually move the music up one level back to where it should be, delete the stupid empty "Music" folder, and then close (link broken to the trackfiles, of course) and reopen the songs back inside iTunes, it then immediately puts the damn things *back* into the nonsense Music folder.  Even after I have rebooted the computer.

*I know, I know, some people (not me) use iTunes for other types of Media, so...

(I also have an on-going "war" with iTunes over the way it separates out Compilations inside subdirectories, and before I think I just gave up and put all my compilations together in one lone V/A folder, 'cause I couldn't come up with any other way...so now I have that problem as well again.)

Now at some point in the past, I managed to solve this problem (though I never understood what is controlling it in the first place) without re-ripping them (ie., I moved them and got iTunes to leave them be finally), but I can't remember how I did it (or maybe I never learned...perhaps it just got tired of my screaming at it and stopped moving them).  Right now, I want to strangle whoever came up with this nonsense in the first place.  'Cause I keep doing heuristic experiments and I'm getting different results for seemingly identical operations.


So my question...what the hell *really* controls the subdirectory structure and filename editing?  And why can't I keep my sh*t where I want/put it?

And why do "help" pages and community forum archives never provide satisfactory answers?  :)

Thanks....plus it's hot and I have a short fuse under such circumstances...Keith