September 7, 2010

New Album List View Option In iTunes 10

A fourth view option has joined the View control set in iTunes 10. Second from the left in the set, it's called Album List and it combines the easy sortability and column drag-ability of List view with album art. When it's selected, album art is automatically displayed on the left whenever four or more songs from the same album find themselves grouped together. If you want album art displayed for all entries, use Always Show Artwork in the View menu.

When you use the Album List view, you can click Album at the top of the artwork column and use the pop-up menu for three sort options -- Album by Title, Album by Artist, and Album by Artist/Year -- and three artwork size options -- Small, Medium, and Large. You can use the settings to customize the view for each of your playlists individually. Setting the artwork size also affects how many songs there must be in a group for artwork to be displayed -- three or more for Small, four or more for Medium, and five or more for Large.