mac OS Catalina
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Wil TuneSpan functionality be impacted by iTunes going away in mac OS Catalina?
Wil TuneSpan functionality be impacted by iTunes going away in mac OS Catalina?
The same question
Now that macOS 10.15 Catalina is out, here is the latest important information:
TuneSpan DOES NOT currently support the new Music, TV, Podcasts, and Books apps in Catalina.
While future functionality may be possible for the new Music and TV apps, it isn't possible for Podcasts or Books.
Unfortunately I'm not yet certain if or when I'll be updating TuneSpan to support Catalina.
Spanned Music, Movies, and TV Shows will be properly migrated to the new Music and TV apps.
This means that the files will stay right where they are in their spanned locations and the new apps will play them properly.
Spanned Audiobooks will be copied to the new Books app storage location at "~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books/Audiobooks/" on internal drive.
Spanned copies of these files will be left behind in the Span Location.
Regretfully, it appears the new Podcasts app is unable to find spanned Podcasts on its own.
When you play a spanned Podcast, you will be prompted to locate it manually.
In this dialog, you will be able to navigate to your Span Location to play the file.
IMPORTANT NOTE BEFORE UPDATING TO CATALINA:
Because of how the new Podcasts and Books apps handle their media files in macOS 10.15 Catalina,
I would recommend using TuneSpan to restore all Podcasts and Audiobooks to the default iTunes Media folder BEFORE updating to Catalina.
Now that macOS 10.15 Catalina is out, here is the latest important information:
TuneSpan DOES NOT currently support the new Music, TV, Podcasts, and Books apps in Catalina.
While future functionality may be possible for the new Music and TV apps, it isn't possible for Podcasts or Books.
Unfortunately I'm not yet certain if or when I'll be updating TuneSpan to support Catalina.
Spanned Music, Movies, and TV Shows will be properly migrated to the new Music and TV apps.
This means that the files will stay right where they are in their spanned locations and the new apps will play them properly.
Spanned Audiobooks will be copied to the new Books app storage location at "~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books/Audiobooks/" on internal drive.
Spanned copies of these files will be left behind in the Span Location.
Regretfully, it appears the new Podcasts app is unable to find spanned Podcasts on its own.
When you play a spanned Podcast, you will be prompted to locate it manually.
In this dialog, you will be able to navigate to your Span Location to play the file.
IMPORTANT NOTE BEFORE UPDATING TO CATALINA:
Because of how the new Podcasts and Books apps handle their media files in macOS 10.15 Catalina,
I would recommend using TuneSpan to restore all Podcasts and Audiobooks to the default iTunes Media folder BEFORE updating to Catalina.
So sorry I didn't get back to you sooner.
The simple answer is, yes. As of right now, it appears that TuneSpan will not be compatible with the new Music and TV apps on macOS 10.15 Catalina. But, things could still change before the final released. As of the latest beta 7, things are still not looking good.
Some functionality would technically be possible since both of these new apps still support AppleScript to be able to update file locations. Although, neither of these new apps support creating readable XML Library files for TuneSpan to read the contents of their respective libraries. Without this functionality, as well as needing to support two entirely separate libraries (for both the Music and TV apps), it would require rethinking some parts of how TuneSpan works to the point of it not making sense to be able to even use the existing TuneSpan as a basis. It would be possible to read entire library contents via AppleScript (or ITLibrary framework) without a readable XML Library being available, but loading would be much slower and both of these options do not have as much complete data as the XML did. Also, neither of these options supply the last known location for tracks that are not currently available, which is important for the locations display in TuneSpan. So far, I've just been waiting to see what the final behavior of these new apps are going to be like rather than trying to wrestle with the betas.
Long story short, something like TuneSpan could be possible on macOS Catalina, but it would be a major re-working of how TuneSpan currently works. It feels like it would make more sense to create a whole new app rather than try to jam this compatibility into the existing TuneSpan code. And, to that end, I cannot guarantee that this is something that I am going to be able to do at any point in the future. But, who knows. I'm sorry I can't give any better news at this point.
So sorry I didn't get back to you sooner.
The simple answer is, yes. As of right now, it appears that TuneSpan will not be compatible with the new Music and TV apps on macOS 10.15 Catalina. But, things could still change before the final released. As of the latest beta 7, things are still not looking good.
Some functionality would technically be possible since both of these new apps still support AppleScript to be able to update file locations. Although, neither of these new apps support creating readable XML Library files for TuneSpan to read the contents of their respective libraries. Without this functionality, as well as needing to support two entirely separate libraries (for both the Music and TV apps), it would require rethinking some parts of how TuneSpan works to the point of it not making sense to be able to even use the existing TuneSpan as a basis. It would be possible to read entire library contents via AppleScript (or ITLibrary framework) without a readable XML Library being available, but loading would be much slower and both of these options do not have as much complete data as the XML did. Also, neither of these options supply the last known location for tracks that are not currently available, which is important for the locations display in TuneSpan. So far, I've just been waiting to see what the final behavior of these new apps are going to be like rather than trying to wrestle with the betas.
Long story short, something like TuneSpan could be possible on macOS Catalina, but it would be a major re-working of how TuneSpan currently works. It feels like it would make more sense to create a whole new app rather than try to jam this compatibility into the existing TuneSpan code. And, to that end, I cannot guarantee that this is something that I am going to be able to do at any point in the future. But, who knows. I'm sorry I can't give any better news at this point.
Now that macOS 10.15 Catalina is out, here is the latest important information:
TuneSpan DOES NOT currently support the new Music, TV, Podcasts, and Books apps in Catalina.
While future functionality may be possible for the new Music and TV apps, it isn't possible for Podcasts or Books.
Unfortunately I'm not yet certain if or when I'll be updating TuneSpan to support Catalina.
Spanned Music, Movies, and TV Shows will be properly migrated to the new Music and TV apps.
This means that the files will stay right where they are in their spanned locations and the new apps will play them properly.
Spanned Audiobooks will be copied to the new Books app storage location at "~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books/Audiobooks/" on internal drive.
Spanned copies of these files will be left behind in the Span Location.
Regretfully, it appears the new Podcasts app is unable to find spanned Podcasts on its own.
When you play a spanned Podcast, you will be prompted to locate it manually.
In this dialog, you will be able to navigate to your Span Location to play the file.
IMPORTANT NOTE BEFORE UPDATING TO CATALINA:
Because of how the new Podcasts and Books apps handle their media files in macOS 10.15 Catalina,
I would recommend using TuneSpan to restore all Podcasts and Audiobooks to the default iTunes Media folder BEFORE updating to Catalina.
Now that macOS 10.15 Catalina is out, here is the latest important information:
TuneSpan DOES NOT currently support the new Music, TV, Podcasts, and Books apps in Catalina.
While future functionality may be possible for the new Music and TV apps, it isn't possible for Podcasts or Books.
Unfortunately I'm not yet certain if or when I'll be updating TuneSpan to support Catalina.
Spanned Music, Movies, and TV Shows will be properly migrated to the new Music and TV apps.
This means that the files will stay right where they are in their spanned locations and the new apps will play them properly.
Spanned Audiobooks will be copied to the new Books app storage location at "~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books/Audiobooks/" on internal drive.
Spanned copies of these files will be left behind in the Span Location.
Regretfully, it appears the new Podcasts app is unable to find spanned Podcasts on its own.
When you play a spanned Podcast, you will be prompted to locate it manually.
In this dialog, you will be able to navigate to your Span Location to play the file.
IMPORTANT NOTE BEFORE UPDATING TO CATALINA:
Because of how the new Podcasts and Books apps handle their media files in macOS 10.15 Catalina,
I would recommend using TuneSpan to restore all Podcasts and Audiobooks to the default iTunes Media folder BEFORE updating to Catalina.
I had an extensive support call yesterday with a tier 2 tech regarding the iTunes issues; in particular the loss of "playlists." I have curated a 3000+ library with probably 30 various playlists over the years. They're not migrating over, as you know. However this tech took data and screen information to pass on to the engineers, because apparently their have been SO many complaints, that it would appear they intend on working on a solution. If not, then my long term love affair with Apple is going to go sideways. They are becoming increasingly tone deaf to consumers... not sure what that strategy is, but the removal of numerous ports, including an Ethernet one, seems to defy logic.
I hope you will continue to develop TuneSpan, to include exporting the playlists so they can eventually be useable...
I had an extensive support call yesterday with a tier 2 tech regarding the iTunes issues; in particular the loss of "playlists." I have curated a 3000+ library with probably 30 various playlists over the years. They're not migrating over, as you know. However this tech took data and screen information to pass on to the engineers, because apparently their have been SO many complaints, that it would appear they intend on working on a solution. If not, then my long term love affair with Apple is going to go sideways. They are becoming increasingly tone deaf to consumers... not sure what that strategy is, but the removal of numerous ports, including an Ethernet one, seems to defy logic.
I hope you will continue to develop TuneSpan, to include exporting the playlists so they can eventually be useable...
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