Hi Chris,
If you want to shuffle songs on the fly while the song is playing do
the following:
1. Press the center of the scroll wheel (Select) 3 times. With the
first press you'll hear the name of the song, the second press gives
you its rating, the third press gives you the shuffle menu.
2. In the shuffle menu (assuming you start with Shuffle off), move
your finger clockwise around the wheel to choose the next (center)
setting, which is "Songs". There are 3 positions: Off, Songs, and
Album. Comment: usual rule applies -- scrolling clockwise moves
selections down or to the right; scrolling counterclockwise move up or
to the left. (In the case of these three entries, you can also press
on the right or left side of the wheel to change positions, but since
you can always select everything by scrolling, I always scroll by
default.)
Choosing "Songs" shuffles songs within the list you selected. For
example, if you started playing this song by selecting a playlist,
selecting "Songs" will shuffle songs in that playlist. If you started
playing from "Album" it will shuffle among songs in that album, etc.
The exception is that any tracks that show up as audiobooks or that
have the box "Skip when shuffling" checked (when you do a "Get Info"
with Command-I and check the Options tab for that track in iTunes)
will be left out of shuffle.
When you choose "Album" all the songs in an album will be played in
album order, and then another album in your list will be randomly
selected and played through in album order.
This is similar to the selections you can make if you choose the
"Settings" menu from the top "iPod" menu and scroll down to
"Shuffle". In that menu you click the center (Select) button to
change between "off", "songs", and "album" instead of scrolling.
To recap: what gets shuffled depends on which list you were in when
you started playing your song -- a playlist, a category like genre, an
album selection, etc.
For completeness, here's some other information about settings while a
song is playing:
Holding down the center of the wheel:
Music:
When the track is playing, if you hold down the center button (rather
than clicking it) you'll get a set of menu options:
1. Add to On-the-Go -- let's you construct an "On-the-Go" playlist of
tracks you chose to add while playing them on your iPod
2. Browse Album -- lets you scroll through other tracks in the album
3. Browse Artist -- lets you scroll through other tracks by that artist
4. Cancel -- dismisses the menu
Use the scroll wheel to move through the menu. The song will continue
playing, even if you select (by pressing the center of the wheel) one
of the browse options. The volume will diminish (called "ducking") if
you scroll through to browse albums or artists, so that you can better
hear the selections. Pressing the center of the wheel will start a
new selection playing.
Audiobooks:
When the track is playing, if you hold down the center button (rather
than clicking it) you'll get menu options to set speed:
1. Slower
2. Normal
3. Faster
4. Cancel
Again, this is like using the "Settings" menu (submenu "Playback",
then "Audiobooks"). As with shuffle, when you select a speed this
mode is left on for all other (audiobook) tracks until you change it.
First click of center of wheel:
While this is probably most useful for identifying the song title
(especially if you have been using shuffle play), in this mode you can
fast forward or reverse your position in a track by
"scrubbing" (quickly moving your finger clockwise or counterclockwise
around the scroll wheel). This is most useful for audiobooks, long
podcasts, and movies that do not have chapter markers, since you can
move faster this way than by using forward or reverse (pressing the
right or left sides of the wheel). You don't get audible feedback --
you just hear the track resume playing at the position that you stop
at. It's also set progressively for large motions, depending on how
fast and long you scrub. (I find the setting on the 4G nano too fine
to use easily on audiobooks compared with my 2G nano -- you don't move
far enough, and I'm not sure this speeds up when you continue to use
it.)
Second click of center of wheel:
If you don't hear a rating for the song, you can use the scroll wheel
to rate the track (0 to 5 stars; moving clockwise increases rating,
counterclockwise lowers it.)
Some of this (and other features) was covered in the original core
dump report of what was accessible on the iPod Nano 4G.
HTH
Cheers,
Esther
P.S. You can also check out the 4G Nano User's Guide if you haven't
already picked it up:
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/iPod_nano_4th_gen_UserGuide.pdf
On Nov 5, 2008, at 6:33 AM, Chris Gilland wrote:
OK, I know from the main IPod screen, I can click on shuffle songs,
or I can shake the thing, assuming I have shake shuffle set. but,
is there a way, rather than it shuffling the entire IPod, what if I
only want it to shuffle just one album only.
Chris.
