[fisherKing]

i'm the admin account on an imac with 2 users; we each have an itunes library (he also has an ipod...damn him!)

can we access each other's libraries easily? or do we need to combine them, so that itunes sees only one library.

and if we do combine them, the ipod will automatically copy everything (or is this preventable?)

hope this is clear...


thanx!

[Developer]

You need to turn on fast user switching. If then each user has iTunes running and music sharing is turned on in the iTunes preferences, you can see each other's library.

[bbales]

I don't know about the having to have both libraries and then having to have everything on the ipod. BUT -- I have 4 users on a PB. I put the music in the "shared" file, in order to have it accessible to everyone on the computer. And I don't know the particulars, but I do know I had to somehow manually make each song show up in each user's itunes library. (DId I have the good sense to only put the ones that user wanted? Of course not!).

I hope this helps. I realize it's a tad sketchy on details.

[fisherKing]

*bump* (one time only, promise)

any other thoughts, anyone??

[discotronic]

I'm not sure if this is what you are asking. You can try the script call iTunes Library Manager. It allows you to have 2 different libraries. Check it out here:

http://www.malcolmadams.com/itunes/i...arymanager.php

My better half and I both have iPods and use both of them with our individual libraries. Hope this helps.

[christor]

As another poster mentioned, put your music in /Users/Shared/Music/ (You'll need to create a Music directory). Make sure the permissions of this directory permit all users who will be adding songs to write. (You'll probably just need to allow owner and group to write if all of your users are admins.) Otherwise iTunes could have a problem when adding new songs or albums from artists already in your library.

In iTunes prefs for each user set the music library to point to this directory. Periodically, you need to drag the /Users/Shared/Music folder into the iTunes Library to have it import any additional songs other users have added. For example, if one user rips a cd, the songs will be added to the shared directory and that user's library. For other users to have the songs added to their libraries, they need to import them. This can be done simply by dragging the entire Music folder though.

With this set-up, you all share songs, but you have your own playlists, ratings, etc. I have set things up this way so that we can share music on our family's mac, and, once set-up, it works perfectly. It sure would be nice if iTunes supported this kind of sharing by defalut - not to mention iPhoto.

[AKcrab]

If you want multiple users to share the same library, playlists, ratings and such, it's a little harder to set up.

[christor]

If you need or want to share each other's playlists, etc., then I imgaine you'd need to replace the "iTunes 4 Music Library" and "iTunes 4 Music Library.xml" files (in Username/Music/iTunes) with symbolic links with the same names. The links would need to point to the "master copies" (i.e., those in the one person's account whose library files you do not convert to symbolic links). And the master copies would need to be made readable and writable by all those sharing. I've never tried this, however, as I find it more useful for my purposes to be able to share music but for each user to have his/her own playlists, ratings, playcounts, etc. If all you want to do is access someone else's playlists and music but do not need to modify them, then simply having iTunes running in that person's account and shared will allow you to access the playlists just as if it were shared using rendezvous. But if you need to do more than this, then the symbolic link idea should work. Anyone know for sure whether it does?

[AKcrab]

You're exactly right, with the sym links.
You have to link the 'Itunes 4 Music Library' as well as the 'Itunes 4 Music Library.xml'.

The bummer is, it seemd iTunes breaks this every upgrade.
I wasn't going to offer the specifics unless that's what he was actually looking for.