Hi Mike,
On Dec 17, 2008, at 4:13 PM, Mike Arrigo wrote:
Hi all. First, I thought I would mention that my 4th pod cast on the
mac is on blind cool tech if anyone wants to check it out. In this
one, I talk about the new itunes, playing dvds, and a few more
things on the web.
Thanks for the heads-up on your 4th podcast on the Mac on Blind Cool
Tech. I thought I'd answer one of the questions you asked (about 53
minutes into the podcast) about how to skip backwards or forwards by a
few seconds while playing a track in iTunes. You can do this by
holding down the Command and Option keys in combination with the right
and left arrows. This will move you forwards or backwards in the
currently playing track in 5 second increments. There's a second way
you can skip backwards or forwards by a few seconds this way when
playing tracks if you are using Front Row with the Apple Infrared
Remote: holding down the right (3 o'clock position) or left (9 o'clock
position) on the raised circular ring of the remote will have the same
effect as using Command-Option-Right or Left Arrow.
I believe that the Apple Infrared Remote is still an included pack in
for recent Apple Mini purchases (for the last two and a half years),
as well as for the iMac, and it was included pack in for MacBooks and
MacBook Pro laptops up through February 2008. (Laptops manufactured
since then no longer include the remote as an accessory; it can be
separately purchased for $19 or you can use a remote from another Mac
if you haven't "paired" that remote to only control a specific
machine). Front Row is a (very accessible) general multi-media
application that allows users to play and browse music, photos,
movies, etc., so it works not just with music tracks in iTunes, but
with movies in iDVD, or photos in iPhoto. In this sense, telling you
that you can control playback of skipping forwards or backwards
through your iTunes music tracks in Front Row with the Apple IR Remote
is not, strictly speaking, an answer about iTunes, and for that
matter, with helper software the Remote can control playback with VLC
and other apps. (Do a Google search on the terms "Apple Remote
Wikipedia" for more details.) And just as an addendum, you don't need
to use the Remote to launch or control Front Row -- use Command-Escape
to launch, your arrow keys and the return key to navigate down, and
the Escape key to navigate up and end. This works in both Leopard and
Tiger (for Mac computers that support Front Row -- under Tiger models
made before 2006 may not, without software add-ons).
Getting back to iTunes-specific track navigation, there are two other
related methods of using forward-reverse navigation within tracks.
First, if you have audiobooks purchased from iTunes or Audible.com (I
know you don't, Mike), or if you are playing "enhanced podcasts", you
can navigate within the tracks using chapter markers with Command-
Shift-Right Arrow or Left Arrow. Chapter markers are a way of
providing additional navigation control within tracks. They can be
added in cases where the tracks are long (e.g., audio books) or simply
in instances where a podcast producer wants to mark off different
topics. Probably the most illustrative example of such usage is
Apple's "New Music Tuesday" podcast where each week a dozen or so new
music additions to the iTunes Store are highlighted. Although the
clips are short, each "chapter" is a separate new music entry. The
"enhanced" nature of the podcast is that in addition to adding
navigation markers, producers can introduce visual content -- in this
case the album artwork for each new music entry -- that will get
displayed in a small window (via the "Show Artwork/Hide Artwork"
button), and which can even contain links to the item on the web or in
the iTunes Store. (This is not accessible.) When an audiobook track
or enhanced podcast that contains chapter markers starts playing, an
additional "Chapters" menu will appear on the menu bar. (Navigate to
this with Control-F2 or VO-M to go to the menu bar, then press "C" to
navigate to the Chapters menu.) So in the case of the New Music
Tuesday podcasts, you could go back and find the new music entries for
an artist of interest either by using Command-Shift-Right Arrow to
move quickly through the podcast chapters, or you could navigate to
the Chapters menu on the menu bar and arrow down till you heard the
Artist and time for the featured new music you wanted. Pressing
return would take you back to the podcast and start you playing at
your selection point. Enhanced podcasts use a version of AAC format,
so you need a player that supports this mode. (The Victor Reader
Stream does not; for this reason audio book users who use the Stream
will probably opt for purchasing their books from Audible rather than
the iTunes Store to ensure a compatible format. I've heard that the
just-launched Milestone 312 supports AAC; so does the Zune, some
Creative Zen players, Cowon's iAudio, and some others.) For this
reason, some podcasters will produce two versions of their program --
one for mp3 only and one in AAC with enhanced podcast support. For
example, you can search for "Dr. Who Podshock" and "Dr. Who Podshock
MP3" among the podcasts in the iTunes Store to find enhanced and MP3
only versions of the same program. The Voice recording mode that is
supported using the new headsets ($29 and $79 models) for the
accessible iPod Nano 4G also allows adding chapter markers.
The second way to get additional control over track navigation in
iTunes is to use AppleScripts. While the most useful general purpose
AppleScript for most VoiceOver users is "RestartAt", that allows you
to start playback of a track at any specified time (and also tells you
the length of the track, and the current default time for resumed
playback), there are a host of other useful scripts at the
AppleScripts for iTunes web site run by Douglas Adams. These are
donationware (free, but you're encouraged to make a donation if you
find these useful) and highly accessible additions. For example,
there is a "Replay Last Bit" AppleScript that lets you replay the last
5 seconds on a track. (You can edit the script to modify the time to
a different amount.) This is useful if you're replaying recorded
class lectures or are listening to language exercises. The
"RestartAt" AppleScript is available at Tim Kilburn's web site:
http://homepage.mac.com/kilburns/voiceover/downloads.html
All of the topics mentioned here (except for the detailed discussion
of enhanced podcasts) can be found with a search of the Mail Archives
for this list at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
Many of those posts go into additional details on how to set up
keyboard shortcuts for AppleScripts, other uses of the Apple Infrared
Remote, Front Row, etc.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Esther
