Hi Alex,
Sure you can modify this for your wiki. These are details that didn't
get covered in previous list posts, though, so you should work this in
the way that you want. I very rarely see the command sequence to stop
autosync (though this has been posted to this list before).
Cheers,
Esther
On Nov 4, 2008, at 5:57 PM, Alex Jurgensen wrote:
Hi,
Do you mind if I ask that I modify and post this to my wiki, unless,
Smiley, you want to post it yourself.
Thanks for listening,
Alex,
On 4-Nov-08, at 11:24 AM, Esther wrote:
Hi,
Since Ryan summarized one of the points (potential problems
checking playlists in a scrolling table) I made in my first reply
to Chris on the topic of transferring playlists to his 4G Nano,
I'll expand on this, and also add a few tips for working with iPod
playlists. These cover dealing with the scrolling table of
playlists, how playlists are ordered, how to rename playlists and
create folders of playlists, how to find the total time/size of
tracks in a playlist, and how to override sync when you connect
your iPod to iTunes (on a Mac, hold down the Command and Option
keys when you connect your iPod and keep holding them down for at
least 15 or 20 seconds; on a Windows machine, hold down the Shift
and Control keys to override the sync; this was previously posted
to the list under the subject "Overriding autosync when connecting
an iPod").
1. (Ryan's point) When your iPod is connected, the table of
playlists to check on each tab (e.g., "Music" or "Movies" or
"Podcasts") of the iPod device is a scrollable table. There appear
to be issues when you try to check items that are outside of the
visible scrolling regions, although VoiceOver can report on content
outside this region. This can result in your checking items other
than the ones you want. This has been discussed on list before by
Simon and others. If you interact with the table and VO-down
sometimes you will be able to hear when your reach the visible
boundary -- generally I hear this after arrowing down 8 or 9 steps,
but it can be 13 steps for podcasts. (I haven't used the tables for
photos, contacts or games). However, I don't always hear the
"Boundary reached" sound.
To work with the scrolling table of playlists:
a. Interact with the playlists table then arrow down up to 7 key
presses, checking or unchecking playlists with VO-space
b. VO-Shift-S to start scrolling
c. Arrow down 7 or 8 key presses to scroll the visible region of
the table down (I usually use VO-down arrow or up arrow here, but
this works without the VO-keys)
d. Press escape to stop scrolling
e. Continue to VO-down arrow through the list, checking or
unchecking playlists
If you forget the scroll command (VO-Shift-S), just bring up the
VoiceOver menu (VO-F7) and press "C" then return to display the
"Commands" menu. The scroll command is listed there.
Incidentally, if you scroll part way down through a scrollable
table, then stop (because you don't want to check any more
playlists), remember that the visible area of the table will also
be left in the middle for the rest of the time until you eject your
device, should you decide to come back and check other playlists.
2. Playlist order reflects their order in the source table: On the
Music tab this will be Library entries (Audiobooks), followed by
iTunes Store entries (Purchased), then Smart Playlists and Regular
Playlists, each in sorted (alphabetical) order. If you create
folders in the Source Table, they will appear (in sorted order)
BEFORE the smart playlists. If you have downloaded some iTunes U
content from the iTunes Store you'll probaly see such folders, and
they'll appear in alphabetical order.
a. If you want your Playlist to appear first in the list, add a
character like a hyphen before the name:
"-Transfer" or "-iPodlist" will appear before playlists whose
names start with numbers or letters because the hyphen will precede
those characters in sort order. (This won't make a regular
playlist appear before a smart playlist, however -- it will just
move it to the head of the list of regular playlists.)
b. To rename a playlist or folder in the Source Table, double-click
on your selection and type a new name. (For a laptop user, double-
clicking generally will mean holding down the VO-Shift keys and
tapping the spacebar key twice. Someone with a full keyboard with
NumPad Commander activated could press the "5" key on the numeric
keypad twice. You can also press the trackpad on a laptop or a
button on a physical mouse twice quickly in succession and then
type in a new name, but that's more awkward for VoiceOver use.)
Just press return after you've typed the new name or escape if you
decide you don't want to change the name.
c. To create playlist folders (or sub-folders), from the Source
Table:
1) Navigate to the File menu of the iTunes menu bar (VO-M then
press "F")
2) Arrow down to "New Playlist Folder" and return
3) Type in a name in response to the "Enter a name for the playlist
folder" prompt in the dialogue window and return, or press escape
to cancel the action. (There are also buttons for "Cancel" and
"OK" that you can navigate to and press (VO-space)).
Folders can be useful to organize your playlist content. If I
create a folder for the playlists I wish to transfer to an iPod,
this can also mean that all the playlists I want to check will
appear first in the scrollable table on the Music tab of my iPod
device, and so I may never have to scroll down in the table to
access these correctly. More generally, if I want to manually
transfer content to an iPod that is not synced to my iTunes
library, such as another user's iPod Classic or an earlier
generation iPod nano, I can do this by using VoiceOver's drag and
drop to drag and drop a playlist onto that device in the Source
table. Having the playlists in a folder means that I only need to
VO-up arrow 3 or 4 key presses to move the playlist onto the iPod
with drag and drop, because folders and their contents are ordered
before regular playlists and smart playlists, so the playlist in
question is much closer to the device.
I'm not going to go over instructions for using Leopard's VoiceOver
drag and drop to move a playlist onto an iPod (or other MP3 Player
in the source table), since that's been posted to the list before,
and users can also check the instructions at Lioncourt.com:
http://www.lioncourt.com/guides-tutorials/drag-and-drop-with-voiceover/
You can also check out the NumPadPlus Blog Mac entries for an audio
mp3 file on how to drag and drop:
http://numpadplus.com/blog/?cat=30
Note that material transferred this way onto a 4G Nano will not be
spoken in the menus since there will not be a "sync" action to
generate the soundclips. The files will be on the device; you just
won't hear anything spoken at these menu entries for artist, song,
podcast, etc. The drag and drop is a general way to get content
onto MP3 players that you don't "sync" -- like adding non-DRM
content to someone else's iPod, or adding tracks to a Creative
player that may show up as a device in the iTunes source list, but
which doesn't "sync".
Creating a folder and moving a playlist there is a good way to
check that you can use Leopard's VoiceOver drag and drop
successfully before you try dragging and dropping a playlist onto
an iPod or other device to transfer music. Once you have dropped a
playlist into a folder, you can add items to the playlist from the
contextual menu of the songs table, just as usual. You don't need
to worry about using drag and drop if you are using the playlist in
this folder to "sync" your selected playlists.
d. To check the time and size corresponding to any playlist, select
the playlist in the source table, then stop interacting and
navigate to the songs table. VO-Down Arrow from the songs table to
the summary line that will tell you the number of items, total
time, and size, e.g. "6 items, 18.2 hours, 265.7 MB". You can set
the total time to give a more detailed time accounting if you click
on this summary. (If you do not have your cursors tracking so that
Mouse Cursor follows VoiceOver cursor, first route your Mouse
cursor to your VoiceOver cursor with VO-Command-F5, then click with
VO-Shift-Space or by other means such as pressing the "5" key on a
Numeric keypad with NumPad Commander.) Now when you move to the
summary line you will hear "6 items, 18:16:46 total time, 265.7
MB", and future summaries will be given in similar detail. Click
again on the summary line if you want to change back to the less
detailed time accounting.
3. To override automatic sync, hold down the Command and Option
keys as you connect your iPod (and keep holding them for at least
15 seconds -- time depends on iPod model with older iPods taking
longer). If you autosync your iPod (e.g., you have an iPod Classic
and want to put on every track in your Library), but want to change
this over to manual sync (e.g., you suddenly added lots of video
tracks which will overrrun the capacity), this command lets you
override the sync and change your settings.
On a Windows iTunes installation, hold down the Control and Shift
keys as you connect your iPod to override the sync.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Esther
On Nov 3, 2008, at 8:11 PM, Ryan Dour wrote:
One more thought for you:
I have noticed very strange behavior of those lists under the tabs
in the iPod pane. A sighted user sees it as a small scrollable
list. We see it as a table, and interact with it using VOiceover.
It seems that Voiceover is able to move through the list, without
the list visually scrolling at the same time. When this happens,
you may actually miss content, as it doesn't update properly in
the table. This may be a bug in the Mac version of iTunes. The bug
shows itself off the most when you see check boxes you swear you
checked, but the actual action activated a totally different
selection you didn't want to use. This has lead to my iPod
sometimes syncing playlists I did not intend on syncing. The
solution is to scroll up and down the list by using the scroll
command, maybe 6 presses at a time down, then move Voiceover down
after finishing the scroll action. This seems to keep the visual
on screen, and Voiceover is able to properly interact with the
desired objects in the list without missing items or activating
the wrong items when activated with VO-Space.
Again, try it out and let us know.
Ryan
