HI again Esther.
Thanks very very much for your informative reply.
Absolutely worked like a treat and again it's great to have people like you
who know this stuff.
Now the nano is great.
thanks for filling us in all on the playlist query.
----- 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: Saturday, September 13, 2008 12:03 PM
Subject: Re: 4g ipod nano absolutely brilliant
Hi Scott,
On Sep 12, 2008, at 1:49 PM, Scott Rutkowski wrote:
Thanks for the info on the menus and such.
You're welcome. I think there are some menus you just don't want to go
into. I'll check out more of the ones under the settings section. I
found that the iPod 101 guide that Apple put out a year and half ago
helped to understand what functions would be set in most cases. This is
an old guide, but was pretty accurate for my
Nano 2G:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304782
They added the search function to the end of the music menu my earlier 2G
nano, too, and I don't use that. It isn't covered in the iPod 101
description document, but that basically allows you to select the the
first few letters of a track by clicking your wheel selection on a, b, c,
etc. and showing matching tracks. That is one of the talking menus that
we don't use on the 4G either -- you'll hear "Search" announced, but all
you can hear when you click through your wheel are the clicks for the 26
letters of the alphabet.
My only problem now is can you tell us how to copy a playlist from
iTunes to the nano if you have iTunes set to manually looking after
music on the nano?
The easy way to handle the playlist transfer is to use a semi- automatic
sync. This is where you have the iPod sync to only those playlists you
have checked. After you've selected the iPod in the source table and
stopped interacting, VO-right twice to go past the splitter and navigate
to the Summary page for the iPod. Interact (VO- Shift-Space). Then
VO-Right Arrow to the Music tab and select it (VO- space). On the music
tab you'll find a checkbox for "Sync music" which I have checked. Then,
there are two radio button options. Choose the "Selected playlists"
radio button (VO-space) instead of the "All songs and playlists" radio
button. Then VO-right to the table of playlists and interact. You're
going to have a scrolling table, so I would suggest that when you make up
your iPod playlists, you create a folder in your Source Table and move
all your playlists to that folder. That will guarantee that the
playlists in your folder will be listed first in the table, since folders
are placed before smart playlists and regular playlists. Just make sure
your folder is expanded. There are also check boxes to Include music
videos and Display album artwork on your iPod.
However, let's assume you have playlists (maybe outside the folder) that
you want transfer to the iPod. They'll all appear in the table and you
can check the playlists you want to select (with VO-shift- Space). This
is a scrolling table, and to get to the later entries you may have to
interact with the scroll bar (VO-Shift-S to start scrolling, then use
your down arrow key. Exit scrolling mode with Escape). Then continue to
check any of your playlists.
VO-Right to the "Apply" or "Cancel" button to select (VO-Space) your
choices before leaving this page.
There are separate pages for Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, Photos,
Contacts, and Games. In each case, VO-Right arrow and select the tab
(VO-space), then VO-right-arrow into the page selectively check the
content you wish to sync. The podcasts and TV Shows tabs have popup
buttons that allow you also to select on the basis of "unplayed", "Last
<number specified> Episodes", etc. as well as using check boxes for the
selections. I'm not used to checking each of these pages for sepearate
criteria, but the current 4G nano lets you fine-tune your selective
syncs. In each case VO-right to the "Apply" or "Cancel" button to
register your selections.
I can also describe how to manually transfer tracks to the 2G nano. I
tried two different ways to manually transfer content to the iPod
playlist just before the update to iTunes 8. But I don't quite see why
you want to manually transfer the content to the 4G Nano, when you can do
a semi-automatic sync that involves checking the playlists you want
transferred to the Nano without having to use VoiceOver's drag and drop
or an Automator action. The reason for my doing a manual transfer is
that I was moving tracks onto a 2G nano that was synced to my old
PowerBook. You can only sync your iPod to one computer, and I didn't
want to wipe out previous content.
You can't vo shift m on a playlist name to move it to the ipod nano.
I thought possibley interacting with the songs table doing a command a
to select all the songs in a playlist and then doing a vo shift m and
choosing add to playlist then choosing ipod. Will this work or not?
The process is very similar to using VoiceOver's drag and drop to move
files in Finder. In fact, here's an exercise you can try that will let
you practice drag and drop in the iTunes Source Table and also help to
organize your playlist(s) for transfer to the iPod: Create a folder
called "iPod Playlists" in the source list, and use VoiceOver's drag and
drop to move one or more playlists into the folder. The action is
exactly the same as what you will perform when you drag and drop
playlists onto the iPod. Music and audiobook tracks or playlists dropped
onto the iPod this way will update the iPod's library database
1. Navigate (tab) to the Source Table in iTunes and interact (VO-down-
arrow)
2. Create a folder named "iPod Playlists" either by going to the File
menu on the iTunes menu bar (VO-M to go to menu bar; press "F" to go to
the File menu) and arrowing down to "New Folder", or by using the
Command-Shift-Option-N shortcut to create a new folder. A dialog window
called "Name Playlist" will appear prompting you to type a name for the
folder to replace the default name of "untitled folder". Press return to
create a folder, or escape to cancel (or VO-right to the buttons for
"Cancel" and "Create" and make your selection with VO- space).
3. Focus will be in the Source Table. Move your target playlist to the
"iPod Playlists" with VoiceOver drag and drop.
3a. Navigate (with arrow keys or by typing the first letters of the
playlist name) to (one of) the playlist(s) you want to use for manual
transfer by dragging to your iPod.
3b. Press VO-Command-F5 to move your mouse cursor to your VoiceOver
cursor (if you don't have Mouse Cursor tracking VoiceOver Cursor).
(Optionally check your mouse cursor poistion with VO-Command-Shift- Space
issued twice)
3c. Use VO-Command-Shift-Space to begin the drag and drop. You'll hear a
small click for the press.
3d. Turn off cursor tracking with VO-Shift-F3
3e. VO-keys Up Arrow to navigate to the "iPod Playlists" folder. This is
where you want to drop the playlist.
3f. Press VO-Command-F5 to move your mouse cursor to your VoiceOver
cursor (drop location).
3g. Use VO-Command-Shift-Space to complete the "Drop" of the playlist
onto the "iPod Playlists" folder
3h. Turn cursor tracking back on again with VO-Shift-F3.
4. If you have successfully done a drag and drop of the playlist to the
"iPod Playlists" folder, you will see the playlist when you expand the
folder (VO-backspace) and then VO-down.
5. If drag and drop worked to move the playlist to your "iPod Playlists"
folder, repeat steps 3a through 3h replacing the "iPod Playlists" folder
target with the iPod Nano 4G. These instructions were layed out in two
steps because: a) if you drag and drop to the folder without problems you
will be able to drag and drop to the iPod without problems, and b) if you
decide to autosync playlists it is still much easier to have the
playlists you want to check groupsed close to the iPod nano.
6. Check the (manually synced) contents by expanding the iPod nano 4G
device. You should see the iPod's library playlists listed below the
device.
I know this used to work on my shuffle but not sure on the nano.
Also the sync didn't quite go right because some of my playlists wern't
transferred over to the nano at all.
also apple appreciated my feedback about announcing how much charge is
in the ipod and that was emailing
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
I'm going to skip describing how to do the transfer with an automator
action. In brief, you only need two actions: "Get selected iTunes items"
and "Add Songs to iPod". I've run this on my 2G Nano but not on the 4G.
I also find Automator navigation with VoiceOver in Leopard a little
trickier (or rather, more finicky since you hit lots of extra keys when
you VO-right) than in Tiger.
Hope this helps.
Very impressed.
Now I just need to work out which way to hold the nano cause this cover
flow option can't be turned off worse luck. It seems you have to hold
the nano with the headphone cable at the bottom left so you don't hear
the ipod say cover flow and then you can't do anything.
What is cover flow anyway? I take it it's something for our sighted
colleagues.
Cover Flow is a way of browsing your albums by picture instead of text.
You can imagine that it might be useful for low vision users who can make
out the different colors and shapes of an album cover at a distance but
cannot read the text quickly or easily.
Cheers,
Esther
P.S. I hope there are no egregious mistakes, since I've been interrupted
a few times trying to complete this reply.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Esther" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: "blind" <[email protected]>; <General>
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 11:02 PM
Subject: Re: 4g ipod nano absolutely brilliant
Hi Scott,
the new ipod nano 4g is better then I had expected.
The menus talk not all of them but the ones we need do actually
speak. There's no clipping the speech sounds brilliant and it just
keeps up with you when you move your finger around the click wheel.
It's absolutely fantastic a couple of issues i'm reporting to apple
such as no way of obtiining battery status info but other then this
totally usable.
it's hard getting used to the click wheel but after you have all
heard my presentation, you'll all want to disguard your ipods for a
4g nano guaranteed.
i'm really very very impressed and i think we'll have more ipod users
before we no it.
OK, I couldn't resist when I found my local Apple Store had these in.
I agree the 4G nano is really nice. (But I don't want to discard my 2G
nano at all!). The iPod even announces "Charging" and "Charged". It
announces almost all the menus (except for the "extras" and some of
the "settings" (the summary status of your space usage that you get
when connected to the iPod isn't spoken, nor are time settings or
other peripheral items that interactively change -- you get status on
clickers and font size for low-vision users, but you don't get
information on backlight adjustment, for example). This also means
that you get equalzer access, but you have to choose among the
equalizer presets. You also can't interactively configure the menu
displays by deciding to eliminate categories, for example.
However, Scott's right that in what you want to hear the menu design
is beautifully done. If you've used the click wheel before you
probably won't have problems. Some of the functions I'm used to
having on the click wheel have been passed to other menus. For
example, in audiobooks and podcasts, I was used to changing speed (if
I used this) by additional clicks on the center of the wheel. This
function is now settable only in the Playback submenu under settings,
not in the individual audiobook or podcast tracks.
There are a few pointers that would help in the original set up -- for
example, I didn't know how long the first sync would take, and moving
focus to the iTunes player status menu (VO-up arrow twice from the
songs list region or, in this case, where the iPod setup information
is) helped, if you move your VoiceOver cursor off and on this field to
update.
You also need to know that once you've connected your iPod you have to
VO-right arrow twice to the registration field (which is perfectly
accessible, provided you know it's there).
Also, before the iPod starts talking, you have to choose your
language, and these aren't spoken. The top of the list (your default
position) is U.S. English. (There appears to be a UK English setting
as the second item, according to my reading on the web. This is new,
but I have no idea what difference it makes.). So just click the
center of the wheel after making sure you're at the top of the list
(counter clockwise top position). At that point you will hear Alex
announce the top level menu (Music, Videos, Photos, Podcasts, Extras,
Settings, Shuffle Songs). After that, you're golden.
Cheers,
Esther
