I don't like iTunes very much. In fact, I despise it more than any other program on my computer that I use regularly. It is slow, bloated, unintuitive, and following the typical (Typical? Try mandated!) Apple credo, you do it Steve's way or forget it.

What triggered my rant this morning was that I just needed to add a single track to my iPod and the minute I started iTunes it Synced and erased everything on the player. (My Music Library was empty). There is a checkbox in iTunes under Edit--->Preferences-->Devices that says "Prevent iPodss, iPhones, and iPads from syncing automatically" and this box was indeed checked, but apparently Mr. Jobs knew what I wanted to do better than I did.

iTunes may be a wonderful program for someone who wants total music management through a single interface. But I don't want to play my music with iTunes. I don't want to rip my music through iTunes. I most certainly do not want to purchase music through iTunes, nor look at album art or get advice about what kind of music I want to hear.

All I want is some simple method, like Rio Music Manager, by which I can see what's on my iPod and drag tracks onto it or delete tracks from from it. I don't want it to do ANYTHING else. Imagine being able to open up two Windows Explorer windows, one for the iPod and one for my hard drive, and be able to drag files back and forth between them.

Is there such a program out there?

tanstaafl.

Doubletwist
Songbird

Those are the only two I know of. Many here will tell you they're crap, and they'd probably be right, but it's something other than iTunes. Try Doubletwist first.

I use the CopyTrans suite of products, specifically Copy Trans Photo and Copy Trans Manager.

http://www.copytrans.net/download.php

You could try SharePod. That's what I used for getting music onto my iPod Shuffle last time I put music onto it.

Stig

Until I sold my ipod, earlier in the year,I'd used Winamp for a couple of years, with no problems at all, doing what you're asking.
I agree that itunes is just a waste of time (and space).

Look here, or here.

The Trans Manager looks like what I want. I've downloaded and installed it, now I just have to try it and see. It doesn't seem to be loaded with features that are (to me, at least) useless. I read the user's guide, it seems straightforward enough. I didn't see where it was possible to re-arrange the play order of the tracks... I'll have to play with it and see.

Thank you for the link.

Edit: I can drag tracks within the Trans Manager window to set the play order. iTunes is no longer installed on my computer!

tanstaafl.

Those seem to be Macintosh-only programs, they probably wouldn't be very happy with my Vista machine. But thank you for the link, it was interesting to see just how much software is out there for avoiding iTunes. Apparently I'm not the only one not enchanted with it.

Oh, both your links point to the same place. Was that what you wanted?

tanstaafl.

I downloaded it, but haven't installed it. I'll see how the program Tony linked to works first, and if I don't like it I'll try SharePod. Thank you for the link.

tanstaafl.

I gave it a quick try myself.

Can't drag tracks onto the window -
Have to use a non standard file browser dialog to locate tracks -
No way of typing in a path to where the music is -
Seems to be very slow at accessing network shares (as compared to browsing them in Explorer -
Doesn't seem to have any way of picking up new tracks appearing in a folder (but then iTunes handles this far, far worse) -
Isn't iTunes +

I'll be sticking to iTunes for now

As much as it sucks, it's the best.

Good! Makes me feel better not being out all alone on the brave new world of not-itunes.

?? I drag them from Windows Explorer into CopyTrans Manager (hereinafter known as CTM) totally seamlessly, whether it be an individual file or a group of files nested four sub-folders deep. (Try that with iTunes!) And, if I try and drag 22 GB of files into my 1.89 GB Shuffle, CTM politely tells me that this isn't going to work, what would it like me to do, whereas iTunes would just start plugging away.

Locate tracks where? On the iPod, or on your computer? Either way, the file browser dialog is absolutely standard. In CTM, there is the usual search window up in the upper right, type in a word or partial file name and everything that fits your search parameters is instantly displayed, excluding everything else, and allowing you to take whatever action you want - play it, delete it, make a playlist, etc. Oh, BTW, just try deleting a few selected tracks from your iPod using iTunes... On your computer, Windows Explorer also uses a pretty standard file browser dialog. Oh, wait, it is the standard.

That's why God (i.e., Mr. Gates) invented directory trees and browsers. Seriously, why would you want to type in "D:\MP3\_OMC\Tunebite\Not DVD\Archer, Jeffrey\A Prison Diary\" in order to add those tracks?

This I can't speak to, as my computer is standalone (other than sharing a USB printer with SWMBO's iMac.) But it seems to me (speaking from invincible ignorance) that once Explorer has found the files they should drag into CTM without delay. I dunno...

You are probably right about this. It isn't a feature I would have use for in the way I operate my iPod (It's only a 2 GB 2nd Gen Shuffle full of audio books, and when I finish the last book I delete everything and load in the next batch). I thought maybe if I tried adding in tracks that were already in the iPod it would tell me, but it just adds them as duplicates. If it didn't add duplicates, you could just dump the whole folder in and CTM would add only the new tracks. Possibly the authors of CTM would consider adding this feature in the next revision.

If I understand correctly your markings (the "-" and "+" at the end of each line) we are in agreement there. At first I thought the markings were just line separators, and your last line criticized CTM for not being "iTunes Plus" with even more counter-intuitive, Apple-mandated, limited-usefulness bloatware "features", but then I realized what you were doing. Not being "iTunes Plus" is by far the most important aspect of CTM to me. It lets me put files on my iPod and it lets me take them off, simply, quickly, seamlessly, and that is ALL that I want to do. I like not being tied to some kind of iTunes Music Library, not having to set up alternate libraries for each i-device (SWMBO has an iPod Shuffle, an iPod Touch, and an iPhone), not having the program automatically take off and do things I don't want it to do, and just so much more BULLS**T that I don't have to deal with.

Andy, you have my sincere sympathy.

tanstaafl.

Hmmm.. "Preview Post" won't work, just says "Loading Preview" for a while than quits. Maybe too complex with all the embedded quotes? I hope I got it right...

Like all such multi-purpose tools, it does a mediocre job of doing everything, and not a good job at anything.

For putting tracks onto and off of an iPod, CTM is incomparably better. If you are wedded to purchasing music from Apple, managing numerous iTunes Music Libraries, having your device synced whenever you plug it in whether you want it to or not, not being able to transfer your files from the iPod back to your computer... then yes, you are right, iTunes is the "best".

Shudder...

tanstaafl.

I use a Mac fr most of this stuff, so there's really nothing decent I've ever tried to significantly replace anything of what iTunes does. However, because most of my music playback is actually done through Squeezebox products, I don't try to keep my iTunes library up to date.

WHat bothers me most about iTunes lately is its insistence on doing things like re-scanning artwork and checking something to do with gapless playback for every track. Kind of stinks when you drop a few thousand tracks into it. It takes a long time to scan to begin with. Aborting the next steps only leads to more frustration as it will attempt to do them when you drag music to the iPod.

I may tale a closer look at the links here in the post as well as any other alternatives for just quickly moving a few tracks to the iPod. Another thing iTunes doesn't do well is browse music on the iPod. The view is totally inconsistent with browsing your local music through iTunes.


But I have far bigger complaints about the iPods themselves. Unfortunately also a situation of being the best of the worst. I will say (again) that I think the Music app on the iPod touch (and iPhone) is a total and complete piece of crap from top to bottom. There's absolutely nothing good about that app at all. The designers and architects of that app should be ashamed of themselves and leave software development forever. I feel that strongly about it. My opinion about this is dropping every time Apple releases a software or product update. I think the new iPhone hardware is quite brilliant, but I really wish they'd go back to the drawing board on most of their built-in software. I just don't see them fixing the fundamental problems however. Most people either don't care or don't know any better (the Facebook crowd), so there's no impetus for Apple. They're still doing some things right, but people like John Gruber give them a lot more credit than they deserve in some instances.

Can you believe that after almost 9 years the iPod still doesn't support "Various Artists" compilation albums?

When I try and drag files or folders onto CopyTrans I just get the "can't drop" mouse pointer. Maybe it is a Windows 7 compatiblity issue ?



This is very much not a standard file browser, it is their own DIY one. If it was the standard one I could just type the path to the server I wanted for example.

Why would I want to type the path to my music ? Because it is quicker, in the standard Windows file dialog I can type "//oldaero/d" and it will quickly auto complete "//oldaero/data/" for me, I just hit return and then double click on the music folder. Much quicker that mousing my way through expanding their homebrew directory tree, especially as when you first open the app each time it takes 30 seconds or more to expand the Network top level item ! And of course the app is complete non repsonsive during that.

On top of that it takes a tip out of iTunes way of doing things by being nicely non-Windows. Rather than having its own link in the start menu you get their own daft Control Center. Which means I can't launch the Manager by my usual route of hitting the Windows key and typing the first few letters of the app name.

Oh and the keyboard accelerators in their list custom controls only work occasionally.

All in all, the perfect example of how not to write a Windows app I'm afraid.

Ah! I see the problem you're having. You're using the "+" icon at the top of the screen to add the files. I had never even tried that. Instead, I open up an Explorer window, and just drag the files or folders I want into the main pane of CTM. So the only browsing I do is with Windows Explorer.

I don't like the Control Center thing either, but it is a small price to pay (one extra mouse click) to avoid iTunes. I'm going to see if I can't find the actual CopyTrans.exe file (or whatever it is called) and make a shortcut directly to it.

tanstaafl.

Erm, I'm using that button because as I explained on my machine drag and drop doesn't work on CTM.

Did you ever try a Rio Karma? The iPod hardware is, I think, better than the Karma, but the player software is more or less "empeg-lite" and better than the iPod's software in every respect, particularly when it comes to adding/deleting tracks.

Bruno, it feels a bit weird for me to agree with you about an Apple product... Try not to let it happen again!

tanstaafl.

Oh, sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you meant drop and drag didn't work when you used CTM's browser accessed through the "+" button.

Hmmm... that's strange. Could it be some Windows 7 configuration thing, maybe a setting designed to protect you from yourself or something? I'm sure that Windows 7 lets you drag and drop in other circumstances.

Aha. I'm so damned smart!

Drag and drop doesn't work

3 Voters

On Windows Vista and Windows 7, drag and drop of tracks to the CopyTrans Manager interface does not work.

This happens when the User Account Control (UAC) security setting is enabled.

To fix the problem, you need to disable User Account Control (UAC). To do so, please read this article.

Disabling UAC decreases your computer's security. We are working on a fix for a future version of CopyTrans Manager.

The above is from the "Known issues" page of the CTM Suite website.

tanstaafl.

This works!

"C:\Program Files\WindSolutions\CopyTrans Suite\CopyTransManager.exe"

2.8 seconds from clicking the shortcut to CTM up and running, ready for input.

tanstaafl.

No, looks like I flubbed it. One was supposed to be majorgeeks pc site. I could have sworn they had an iPod catagory same as on the mac.majorgeeks site.

I use MediaMonkey now,a lot more features than I want but I much prefer it to iTunes, no idea whether it supports Karmas though as I still use RMM for them.