HiRate1.0

Name: HiRate
Rating: 5 (5 reviews)

14 March 2005

Access hidden rating scale in iTunes.

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Overview

Hidden functionality is built into iTunes that allows songs to be rated on a scale of 0 to 100 instead of just 0 to 5. In fact, a * rating is really 20, a ** rating is really 40, a *** rating is really 60, a **** rating is really 80, and a ***** rating is really 100.

With HiRate, you can take advantage of this functionality to improve your iTunes ratings. Perhaps you have a song that you rated four-star, but like a bit better than your other four-star songs. Using HiRate, you can raise the rating to 81. It will still show up in iTunes as a four-star song, but you'll see it at the top of your four-star songs when sorting by rating.

What's new in HiRate

Version 1.0:

Most unimportant UI elements are smaller
The Quick Rating text has been removed
The heading for numeric equivalents is gone now
Added an "Album" field.
Changed the documentation to reflect changes and clarify a few issues.
All references to 1.0b1 or 1.0b2 (?!) should now be changed to 1.0.
Added an Easter Egg. :-)
Title, Artist, and Album fields are now selectable, so you can copy the text.
HiRate is 1.0 now, so nobody needs to worry about downloading a beta.
Fixed a silly bug that wouldn't let you close the about box with Command-W

9 Reviews of HiRate

Great news: Apple has fixed the Smart Playlists bug that kept HiRate-rated songs from appearing in Smart Playlists. In iTunes 6.0.2 (free download), Smart Playlists use ratings correctly - they're included in SPL's by the displayed rating. For example, a rating of 99 shows up as a four-star song, so it shows up in a four-star smart playlist. Enjoy!

(0)

Thanks for the feedback! I've looked at the Smart Playlists problem, and unfortunately that's a problem with iTunes that wouldn't be easily fixed without a patch to iTunes from Apple. I've sent this in to Apple as a suggestion for the next version of iTunes, but obviously it's up to Apple whether this change will be made. For now, there is a workaround, albeit a complicated one... This is assuming that you want to make a playlist that includes all Country songs rated 60 to 80. 1. Make a Smart Playlist that includes all songs that are rated greater than two stars, and less than five stars. Set it so that it matches ALL of the conditions. This playlist will give you everything rated 60 (three stars) to 80 (four stars.) Name it "60 to 80" or something of that sort. 2. Make another Smart Playlist that includes all songs where Genre is Country and Playlist is "60 to 80," or whatever you named your last playlist. Set it so that it matches ALL of the conditions. This playlist will serve as a smart playlist, but with an unfortunate side effect of crowding your iTunes library with yet another playlist. This fix will likely also work with iTunes Rater or any other program that supports extended ratings.

I wrote a tip on MacOSX Hints about this type of thing, and wrote a simple program that does exactly the same as this, but mine isn't quite as 'polished'. What I did do is make the interface a bit simpler, and have it so it shows album art. Visit http://schinckel.blogspot.com/2005/02/itunesrater-01.html for more details, including a screenshot.

Just a note... this is basically the final version of HiRate. It's been tested and works perfectly for me, but I decided to mark it as a beta until I wait a few weeks for any bug reports to be posted on MacUpdate or VersionTracker. Chances are, this version and HiRate 1.0 will be very, very similar. :-)

I would use this... If the rating feature didn't turn me off so much. This may be a good app, but I set rating in iTunes, and it didn't save the rating in th emp3 file. When an iTunes update corrupted my library, I lost all of my rating. I will never rate songs again. THIS PRODUCT MAY BE AWESOME OR NOT. I haven't use it. I don't like rating. Just a comment...

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HiRate1.0

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What's new in HiRate

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9 Reviews of HiRate

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