Ester, when rating things on the IPod itself, have you found that the wheel
when selecting the amount a stars is so pathetically sinsitive that you get
it say three stars, but then you remove your finger from the wheel, and it
jumps back say from 3 stars, say back to one? It's extremely annoying.
Chris.
----- 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: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 1:26 PM
Subject: Re: Shuffling on the IPod Nano 4th G
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.
