Ratings Songs in the Content Pane

You can also rate songs in the Content pane. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Scroll in the Content pane until you see the My Rating column.
2. Select the song you want to rate. Dots will appear in the My Rating column for that song.
3. Click the dot representing the number of stars you want to give the song. The dots up to and including the one on which you clicked will become stars.

Configuring Song Options in the Info Window

You can configure a song’s options in the Info window by performing the following steps:

1. Select the song whose options you want to set.
2. Open the Info window.
3. Click the Options tab
4. To change the song’s relative volume, drag the Volume Adjustment slider to the left to make the song quieter or to the right to make it louder.
5. To rate the song, click the dot representing the number of stars you want to give the song in the My Rating field. For example, to give the song three stars, click the center (third) dot. Stars will appear up to the point at which you click. In other words, before you click you’ll see a dot. After you click a dot, it becomes a star.
6. To set a start time, check the Start Time check box and enter a time in the format minutes:seconds. When you play the song, it will start playing at the time you enter. When you set a start or stop time, you don’t change the song file in any way. You can play the whole song again by unchecking the Start Time or Stop Time check box.
7. To set a stop time, check the Stop Time check box and enter a time in the format minutes:seconds. When you play the song, it will stop playing at the time you enter.
8. Click OK. The window will close and your changes will be saved.

Configuring a Song’s Options

You can configure a number of options for the songs in your Library, including the following:
■ Relative Volume—You can change a song’s relative volume so that it is either louder or quieter than “normal.” This is useful if you like to listen to songs that are recorded at a variety of volume levels so that the volume remains somewhat similar as you move from song to song.
■ Equalizer Preset—You can use the iTunes Equalizer to configure the relative volume of sound frequencies.
■ My Rating—You can give tunes a rating from one to five stars. You can use ratings in various ways, such as to create criteria for playlists (such as include only my five-star songs) or to sort the Content pane.
■ Start and Stop Time—You can set songs to start or stop at certain points in the track. This can be useful if you don’t want to hear all of a track, such as when a song has an introduction that you don’t want to hear each time the song plays.

Labeling a Song in the Content Pane

You can also edit tags within the Content pane:
1. Click once on a song to select it.
2. Click once on the tag you want to edit. The tag will become highlighted to show that it is ready to be edited (see Figure)
3. Type the new information.
4. Press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac). The changes you made will be saved.

Labeling Multiple Songs at the Same Time

You can change some tags, such as Genre, for a group of songs at the same time. This can be a faster way to enter data because you can change multiple songs at the same time. Here are the steps to follow:

1. Select the songs whose data you want to change.
2. Open the Info window. You’ll be prompted to confirm that you want to change the information for a group of songs.
3. Click Yes to clear the prompt. The Multiple Song Information window will appear (see Figure). The information and tools in this window work in the same way as they do for individual songs. The difference is that the information and settings apply to all the songs you have selected.
4. Enter data in the fields, make changes to existing data, or use the other tools to configure the songs you have selected. As you change information, the check box next to the tag will become checked to show that you are changing that data for all the selected songs.
5. When you are done making changes, click OK. The window will close and the changes you made will be saved.

Labeling Your Music

Typically, if you have imported a CD or purchased music from the iTunes Music Store, you shouldn’t change most of the data that came from the source, such as name, artist, album, track number, and so on. Occasionally, a CD’s information will come in incorrect (such as a misspelling in the artist’s name); you’ll probably want to fix such mistakes. Also, you can certainly add data in those fields that are empty. There are a couple of places in which you can change a song’s tags. You can use the Info window to change a song’s tags, as you can see in the following steps:

1. Open the Info window for the song whose information you want to change.
2. Click the Info tag. The Info pane will appear.
3. Enter or change the information shown in the various fields. For example, you can change the song’s name or artist. Or you might want to add comments about the song in the Comments box. One of the more useful tags is Genre. This can be used for browsing and also in playlists.
4. To change a song’s genre, select the new genre on the Genre menu.
5. When you are done entering or changing tags, click OK. The Info window will close, and any changes you made will be saved.

Viewing Tags in the Info Window

The Info window is probably the only area in which you haven’t seen tags yet. To view the Info window, select a song in your Library and choose File, Get Info or press Ctrl+I (Windows) or „+I (Mac). The Info window will appear. This window has four panes that you will be using throughout the rest of this chapter. The Summary pane provides a summary view of the song’s information, starting at the top with any album art associated with the song and including its name, artist, and album. In the center part of the pane, you see the data iTunes manages (you can view this data, but you can’t change it). At the bottom of the pane, you can see the path to the song’s file on your computer. When you click the Info tab, you will see the tags that you can change. You’ll learn how to change this data in the next section. The other two panes of the window, Options and Artwork, are used to configure specific aspects of a song (again, we’ll get to these topics in a few pages). You can view information for other songs without closing the window. Click Next to move to the next song in the source you are viewing (such as your Library) or Previous to move to the previous song. When you do, that song’s information will be displayed in the Info window.
To close the window, click OK.