Hi Jane,

Glad to hear that the keyboard shortcuts worked for your Podcast folders.

On May 23, 2008, at 01:30PM, Jane Jordan (Gmail) wrote:
>
>Thanks for the undocumented shortcuts--they worked like a charm.  Of  
>course, it helps, too, that I have a mouse I can use.
>

The Command+right bracket and Command+left bracket "undocumented"
shortcuts for expanding and collapsing podcast folders from the iTunes
Songs Outline work on all folders simultaneously. VO-keys+backslash
should work as a toggle open or close on an individual folder.  It's useful
to know both of these.  I'm pretty sure that Command+] and Command+[
work on U.S., U.K., Canadian, and Australian keyboards, but Søren reported
this didn't work on a Danish keyboard.  Perhaps this is not surprising since 
the right and left bracket characters get mapped to very different keys on 
non-English keyboards.

>Then (a little egg on face here) I had to  
>subscribe to the podcast first--I could have sworn I was, but I guess  
>I wa snot, even though I had the files copied over from the iBook.   
>*Then* I was able to watch it automagically start downloading the  
>podcasts.  Yay!
>

Even though you copied podcast files and added them to your iTunes
library your subscription status has to be separately set up.  After all,
it's possible to unsubscribe to a podcast using the contextual menu
(VO-keys+shift+m then up arrow to "Unsubscribe to Podcast") in the
Songs Outline for podcasts when you have selected a podcast folder.
The fact that previous podcast episode files are still in your library 
doesn't say anything about your subscription status, or about your 
iTunes preferences for how often to check for new podcasts, whether
you want to download just the latest episode or all available episodes,
or how many of these you want to keep in your library.

If you want to restart your podcast subscriptions on your new iMac, you
could import a Podcasts.opml file from your iBook.  Someone asked a
question about whether iTunes could output OPML files earlier this week.

Here's how you can get a list of all your podcast subscriptions from your
iBook over to your iMac by exporting an OPML file from the iBook to the
iMac.  

1. From iTunes on your iBook, tab to the Sources Outline, interact, and
select Podcasts.
2. Use the contextual menu (VO-keys+shift+m) and select "Export Song
List"
3. In the new window that appears, there will be a text field that allows 
you to specify the name of your song list, and popup buttons that allow
you to choose the folder in which the song list will be saved. You can 
ignore most of this and just tab (or VO-keys+right arrow) to the popup 
button that specifies format.  Tab until you hear "Plain Text popup 
button".  VO-keys+space and arrow down to "OPML" and return.
(You can VO-keys right arrow or tab to the "Save" or "Cancel" buttons,
but I usually just press return to save or escape to cancel).
4. You should now have a Podcasts.opml file in your home directory.
5. Copy this Podcasts.opml file to your iMac
6. From iTunes on your iMac, type the keyboard shortcut to import:
Shift+Command+o  (or else, choose the Import option from the File
menu on your iTunes menu bar:  VO-keys+m to the menu bar, type
"F" to go to the File menu, type "I" to select Import, and return)
7. In the import window, select your Podcasts.opml file and return.
(Navigate this window as you like - use any finder shortcuts for 
your home directory, or use the sidebar, or interact with the popup
button for folder, or type in the name of the folder in the search text
field after choosing the folder, etc. You can also VO-keys right arrow
or tab to the "Choose" and "Cancel" buttons if you prefer.)

Now, you will be subscribed to all the podcasts you subscribed to
on your iBook.  You can also send the OPML file to friends, if 
you want to recommend that they try out subscriptions to these
podcasts.  The OPML file is simply a list of podcasts with the 
source of the podcast feed and the program's web page.  (You 
can read a few lines in TextEdit).  This can save you having to
"subscribe" to each podcast again from the contextual menu if
you have lots of podcasts.  

>I am working on getting my entire music library onto the iMac, and  
>then sharing it with the iBook, that way I have more space over here  
>for, say, installing Linux to play with so I have a dual-boot system  
>and a chance to play around with it again.

You have a few different options for sharing iTunes music.  You can
turn sharing on in iTunes and stream music from your iMac to your
iBook as I described in an earlier post.  The limitation on this is that
you can't add streamed songs to a playlist in your own iTunes library,
set ratings or edit tags.  The shared library is also only available when
iTunes is running on the other machine, and you're limited to only
5 users sharing streaming this way per 24-hour period.

Another option that you might find more flexible is to share the iTunes
music folder associated with a particular library across your network.
This allows each user to maintain their own playlists but share the 
same media.  The disadvantage is that when new content is added 
as either a podcast or ripped CD each user who is sharing the folder
has to import the content he/she wants added.

I know some other list members may be sharing libraries.  I'm a bit
limited in discussing this since I only have the one Mac laptop!

Cheers,

Esther

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