If you are wanting to change the artwork of existing genre’s in the genres.plist file, you don’t change the “matchString” string, you only change the “resourceFile” string.

If you are adding a new genre to the list, meaning that the artwork in iTunes is either using the cover of an album for the genre or using the same artwork that was used in a different genre, you will want to change both the matchString and resourceFile strings, after copying the enter entry (<dict> to </dict>).

I just went through the steps myself adding a new genre called “podcast”. I copied an existing genre (folk) by using these lines of text:

<dict>
	<key>matchString</key><string>folk</string>
	<key>resourceFile</key><string>genre-folk.jpg</string>
</dict>

I then changed “folk” to podcast and “genre-folk.jpg” to genre-podcast.jpg (after pulling an image from that Flickr group mentioned in the post. So now the newly copied text looks like this:

<dict>
	<key>matchString</key><string>folk</string>
	<key>resourceFile</key><string>genre-folk.jpg</string>
</dict>
<dict>
	<key>matchString</key><string>podcast</string>
	<key>resourceFile</key><string>genre-podcast.jpg</string>
</dict>

Hopefully that helps you. If not, let me know and I’ll see what I can do to help.

john

I just went into my Windows 7 computer, installed iTunes (it wasn’t installed yet), loaded up the ‘genres.plist’ file and changed an entry for this test, and was easily able to save the file back.

Looking at the properties of the ‘genres.plist’ file, I see I am allowed to: Modify, Read & execute, Read, and Write to the file. That was the “Everyone” group. My “Group or user names:” list shows: Everyone, SYSTEM, Administrators (Dave-PC\Administrators), and Users (Dave-PC\Users). The only user that doesn’t have write access was the Users (Dave-PC\Users).

I can only guess that you don’t have Administrator access to your computer? If you do, then I am at a complete loss for why you are not allowed to save to that file. It’s really just a text file with a different extension.

Also, the genres.plist file is loaded by iTunes, but it isn’t kept open. The only time it’s opened is during launch. I was able to write to the file even though I was running iTunes. I suggest making sure iTunes isn’t running in case iTunes writes to the file when it is quit. You wouldn’t want an hours worth of work editing the file to be lost because iTunes writes to the file later.

Of course, I am making the assumption that you are running Windows 7 or Vista.

Thanks for the answer!

It’s one of the reasons I have given up on custom genre artwork for iTunes. Maybe someday, they will allow custom artwork for genre’s.

I tend to think it is a ‘bug’ since ‘user crated genres names’ are pushed to the iPad and not their associated artwork.
For example if I create genre ‘IOANIS’, I do see it on my iPad but not the default artwork associated or the one I have added by manipulating the ‘genres.plist’
What do u think ?

THANKS
Ioanis

Also, that’s a great insight into the syntax of the genres.plist file. That may very well explain why I was having problems getting new genre art to show up.

sudo cp *.jpg genres.plist /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/

with the usual caveats about using sudo responsibly (ie, do this, only, and then close the terminal so you don’t accidentally screw up your system).

Another note about the syntax in the plist file. iTunes seems to use a wildcard system so that a string like “classic” will match any genre that starts with classic.

If you have, say, genres called “Classical” and “Classical Jazz” then you need to put Classical Jazz entry after the Classical one, otherwise they’ll both have the icon for Classical.