Sharing iTunes Library files among computers
First of all, thanks for this wonderful application.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but TuneSpan doesn't have an option to share the iTunes Library files (itl, xml, itdb) with Span disk/folder.
The idea is to share the same library between multiple computers. I've tried this with some tutorials on the Internet based on moving iTunes Media folder via iTunes (mainly ArsTechnica's one) but it lead to some problems.
Would it be possible to add this feature in future releases?
If not, I was thinking of an script (via Automator + AppleScript) that copies these files to a Dropbox (or any other cloud service) folder if it detects changes.
Dropbox subfolder would look like this:
Dropbox
iTunes Libraries
Computer1
Computer2
...
ComputerN
The script would take this actions, in this order:
Get the most recent library files from cloud
Check if any of the other machines subfolder in Dropbox folder contains files with more recent changes.If that's not true, do nothing.If that's true, copy the newer ones (per file) to the local iTunes Library.Update cloud library files
Check if there is a subfolder with the computer name.If there's no subfolder, create it and copy the local iTunes Library files to that subfolder.If that subfolder exists, missing files in that subfolder will be copied. Existing files will be replaced only if the local version has more recent changes.I'm not sure, though, about the risks of doing. I've done this manually and it works, but I'm not sure how it can affect to the iTunes Library files in long term.
Any help would be appreciated. Adding this feature to TuneSpan would be great, though! :)
I like this idea
Thanks for getting in touch. This is an interesting idea you've got, but, to be totally blunt and honest, this is not something that I am interested in adding to TuneSpan.
The goal of TuneSpan is to do one thing, and do it as well as possible. If I start tacking on all these different features to make it a catch-all iTunes utility, I think it will be much harder to maintain and much harder to make each feature work as well as they should. TuneSpan's focus will always be to move around media files in an iTunes library. Syncing libraries is a whole different world.
There is a whole lot of complexity that goes along with syncing libraries between computers.
The main things that you're outline doesn't account for is merging... what if you make some relevant changes in one library, and then different relevant changes in another library before they all sync? Something will get lost without a sophisticated merging.
Also, this style of syncing you're talking about couldn't be done in the background, iTunes would have to be quit while the files get updated.
Anyway, I'm trying to say that it's a very complicated thing, and when dealing with something as important as someones music collection, the utmost care should be taken to never lose anything.
But, have you looked into iTunes Match? It works great with music files if you have less that 25,000 tracks or whatever their limit is. I'm sure that limit will go up over time, and I hope that they will eventually support all media types other than just music to be able to truly sync the entire library. But, for now, iTunes Match is pretty damn sweet for keeping an iTunes Library in sync between multiple computers and even iPhones, etc.
So, in short, syncing libraries is not something that TuneSpan will ever incorporate. I'll leave that to others to make an app for, or Apple to integrate into iTunes, as they've already begun to do with iTunes Match.
Thanks for getting in touch. This is an interesting idea you've got, but, to be totally blunt and honest, this is not something that I am interested in adding to TuneSpan.
The goal of TuneSpan is to do one thing, and do it as well as possible. If I start tacking on all these different features to make it a catch-all iTunes utility, I think it will be much harder to maintain and much harder to make each feature work as well as they should. TuneSpan's focus will always be to move around media files in an iTunes library. Syncing libraries is a whole different world.
There is a whole lot of complexity that goes along with syncing libraries between computers.
The main things that you're outline doesn't account for is merging... what if you make some relevant changes in one library, and then different relevant changes in another library before they all sync? Something will get lost without a sophisticated merging.
Also, this style of syncing you're talking about couldn't be done in the background, iTunes would have to be quit while the files get updated.
Anyway, I'm trying to say that it's a very complicated thing, and when dealing with something as important as someones music collection, the utmost care should be taken to never lose anything.
But, have you looked into iTunes Match? It works great with music files if you have less that 25,000 tracks or whatever their limit is. I'm sure that limit will go up over time, and I hope that they will eventually support all media types other than just music to be able to truly sync the entire library. But, for now, iTunes Match is pretty damn sweet for keeping an iTunes Library in sync between multiple computers and even iPhones, etc.
So, in short, syncing libraries is not something that TuneSpan will ever incorporate. I'll leave that to others to make an app for, or Apple to integrate into iTunes, as they've already begun to do with iTunes Match.
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