Hi Scott, You wrote: >Regarding the songs table where all the song info is displayed, I know >command a selects all the tracks in the list of songs, is there a keyboard >command like in windows where you can hold down the control key and arrow to >songs you want to select and hit control space bar to select songs not in a >row? >I would like to do this for example to select a groupof songs not one under >the other.
The quick and general answer to your question about non-contiguous item selection is given in the lioncourt quick tip: http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/04/09/mac-cessibility-quick-tip-12/ This is one of the places where you want to turn off cursor tracking, and you might want to bookmark that separately, since it works for general item selection. However, for an iTunes-specific answer, I'm going to paste in part of a response I wrote off-list. Please note that I use the FN key on my laptop settings, and that on the newest laptops default setting is to make the F5, etc. keys have their software function instead of their hardware function, so no FN key is used. For a long set of selections (e.g., burn to DVD) that are not contiguous, I'd lock my VoiceOver keys first, and that's what's described below. You don't have to. <begin excerpt> >Can you explain how to handle the cursor tacking? I can turn cursor >tracking off with VO-shift-F3, but I can't seem to route the mouse >toVO,or VO to the mouse. How do I do that? I'm trying to figure it >out because for some silly reason VO or whatever is not behaving-- >iTunes isn't adding the right songs to my playlist. My general strategy is to get the Songs Outline display as close to what I want to have on my playlist as possible -- this includes the use of the browser (toggled on and off with command-b) to pre-select by genre, artist, and/or album (not necessarily using all these arguments), the search text field to further drill down the selections, and sorting by viewed columns (e.g. Album) with VO-keys+shift+backslash as needed. I've even used smart playlist selections so that I can go to the songs outline and select a complete block of tracks in the order I want (command-a) and then either create a new playlist from selection (with shift-command-n) or by adding these to the end of an existing playlist using the contextual menu and "add to playlist". If I want to navigate quickly to temporary playlists, I'll use a name that starts with "-" or some other character that ensures this playlist will come first in the alphabetically ordered listing in the Sources outline. With those comments in mind, here's a sample session of how I would try to select multiple tracks for an iTunes playlist if I was not pulling these off in blocks with "select all": Selecting multiple tracks in iTunes. I usually have my navigation set to Mouse Cursor tracks VoiceOver Cursor, which I find gives me the best results using VoiceOver with iTunes. So I would choose my library in the sources outline, toggle on browser and modify selection criteria, etc., but let's assume that I'm simply selecting entries from the Audiobooks source list in whatever sorted order you have for the Songs outline. Example: Tab to the Sources outline, interact, and select Audiobooks. Tab to the Songs outline and interact. VO-keys+right arrow to the song name column, then VO-keys+down arrow to the first entry you want to select. At this point if I'm going down a long list I usually lock my VoiceOver keys (VO-keys+semi-colon). Then I disable tracking of the mouse cursor by pressing fn-shift-f3 (my laptop is set to use hardware keys for the fn keys, so I need the "fn"). If I press "command-space" the current item that is selected with be deselected. Pressing "command-space" again will select it. I then move down the songs outline list with the down arrow. For any entry that I wish to select, I press command+space. (If I made a mistake, a second command+space will deselect it). Once I am through with my selections, I press fn-shift-f3 to turn cursor-tracking back on, and I press fn-command-f5 to route my mouse cursor to the VoiceOver cursor. I should have both cursors now at my final selection. I can unlock my VoiceOver cursor by pressing semi-colon. I can either create a new playlist from selection with shift-command-n or I can use the contextual menu (VO-keys-shift-m) and type "a" to go to "Add to playlist" and right-arrow to the submenu and select a playlist and return. One other warning -- if you sort on a column in a playlist, iTunes remembers this setting. So if you are adding your selection to a playlist where you sorted on the Date Added to Library column, for example, your additions will appear sorted according to that same column -- not necessarily in the order you selected them! Hope this helps. Cheers, Esther <end exccerpt> >Also what does the command in the file menu called create i mix >do? >I didn't want to select it incase I did something terrible to the mac or >something. > Scott, this publishes your playlist over in the Apple Store, but it's one of the inaccessible areas. The idea is that you can send people a playlist of items and they can find (and purchase) the corresponding tracks at the iTunes store if they like them. But the iMix playlist links show up in the part of the Store where you get a "dimmed image" message and can't navigate to. Someone else may correct me on this, because it's not something I've tried out recently. Cheers, Esther >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Esther" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS X by >theblind" <[email protected]> >Sent: Friday, June 20, 2008 9:54 PM >Subject: Re: Query about total time of a playlist > > >> Hi Scott, >> >> To find out summary information about a playlist, or about any >> the tracks that are displayed in the songs outline for your >> selection in the sources outline, VO-keys+right arrow from the >> songs outline past the buttons for "New Playlist", etc. to the >> status line. This will tell you how many items, total time, and total >> space (in Mb, Gb, etc.) For example, if you have a CD inserted, >> this might be 21 songs, 1.1 hours, 721 MB. There are two display >> modes, so if you want the detailed time (hours, minute. and seconds) >> you should click on the entry with VO-keys-shift-space to toggle >> between the summary and detailed mode. If you don't have your >> mouse cursor tracking your VoiceOver cursor, you will have to >> route your mouse cursor to your VoiceOver cursor before you >> do the VO-keys-shift-space: VO-keys-Command-F5 will do this. >> (On older laptops or depending on how you have your settings, >> you may have to hold down the FN key, too). This will change >> the information, for example, from "1 item, 20.3 minutes, 7.4 MB" >> to "1 item, 20:23 total time, 7.4 MB". >> >> Generally speaking, iTunes is one of the applications for which >> having your mouse cursor tracking your VoiceOver cursor makes >> things a lot easier. Otherwise, you'll have to route your mouse >> cursor to your VoiceOver cursor before you perform a number >> of these actions. >> >> The summary information is for anything that appears in the >> songs outline for your selected source -- this could be the total >> size of your Music Library, Podcasts, etc. >> >> Cheers, >> >> Esther >> >> On June 20, 2008, at 01:17AM, Scott Rutkowski wrote: >> >>>can anyone who uses iTunes tell me if you make a playlist in iTunes, is >>>there a way of finding out the total time of the playlist itself? >>>I've made a playlist and am trying tornd out the total time so I can burn >>>it to an audio cd. >> >> > > > >
