Hi All,
If you have one of the newer Mac keyboards without the numlock F6
key function, you can play and navigate through your movies and music
using the F7, F8, and F9 keys.
I thought I would add another response to Simon's question about how
to
rewind audiobooks in iTunes with a tip for people who have the new
Apple keyboards. These are the separate slim Aluminum keyboards
without the Numlock key that were released late last summer (2007),
and which are on the recent MacBooks and MacBook Pros (manufactured
after November 2007) and iMacs. The volume up and down controls
on these keyboards are on the F11 and F12 keys, instead of on the
F4 and F5 keys of older keyboards.
An additional feature of these keyboards, previously discussed on this
list, is the ability to rewind, play/pause, and fast forward with
the F7, F8,
and F9 keys. These keys work with general audio and video media,
including movies that you play as well as iTunes. The neat feature
about
these keys is that you don't have to have iTunes in your focus to turn
on or off the music. If you are working in your Mail program or
browsing
with Safari, you can still play or pause the currently selected song
in
iTunes using Fn+F8. If you want to rewind to the beginning (Simon's
question), hold down the F7 key while pressing the Fn key. Your music
will rewind to the beginning, and once it reaches the start of the
track it
will start to play normally. You can fast forward by pressing the
Fn key
and holding down the F9 key. Holding down the Fn key and tapping the
F9 key will advance to the next track in the Songs list, while holding
down Fn and tapping the F7 key will play the previous track.
These keys work with other multimedia, such as DVDs, as well. They're
meant to work with "Front Row", Apple's application to switch between
multimedia players. Earlier MacBooks and other Intel Macs came
with a small Apple Remote control, that would control your selection
for photos, movies, music, etc. They stopped including these remotes
with new MacBooks and MacBook Pro computers around February
2008, but I recall stumbling across the keyboard shortcuts to activate
Front Row when I was setting up a MacBook for someone last summer.
The shortcut key to start Front Row on an Intel Mac is Command-Escape.
VO-down the menus to select Movies, TV Shows, Music, Podcasts,Photos,
etc. and use VO-space to select. Move up (and eventually out of Front
Row by pressing the Escape key). Even when you leave Front Row you
can resume playing your last selection with Fn+F8, and you can control
the volume with Fn+F10 (mute), Fn+F11 (softer), and Fn+F12 (louder).
I remember that all of the remote functions had keyboard shortcut
equivalents and, of course, if you have one of these infrared
remotes you
can control your Mac's playing at a distance.
Again, from much older discussions on this list, the Apple remote has
been programmed with third party software to control third party
software
players, even including some on the Windows side of Intel Macs.
I haven't tried any of this, myself. Hope this is of interest.
Cheers,
Esther
On August 27, 2008, at 01:41PM, I replied:
Dear Simon,
Audible audiobooks (and books purchased from the iTunes Store) have
chapter markers that allow you to position your playback at any
marker, so if you have started playing the audiobook and want to move
to the previous chapter marker (here, the start of the book), simply
use Command-Shift-Left Arrow. Similarly, to move to the next Chapter
marker from your present position, use Command-Shift-Right Arrow.
These commands work whether your track is playing or paused, and are
in addition to the normal forward and rewind commands you can access
by holding down Option-Command with the Left and Right Arrow keys .
You can also use the Chapters menu on the iTunes menu bar to select
the chapter you wish to move to. Simply go to the iTunes menu bar
(Command-Option-M), type "C" to go to the Chapters menu, arrow down
and select the desired Chapter (by pressing either VO-space or
return). The Chapters are listed with both number and time. Note
that "Chapters" do not necessarily correspond to actual chapters in a
book. For example, a long audiobook that has two parts will always
have Chapters numbered starting with "1" even if you are listening to
the second part. Also, there may be more than one Chapter per marker
-- these are simply a convenient way to navigate.
For audiobooks and podcasts that do not have chapter markers, the
easiest way to rewind your position, or change the playback position
to any specified time in your audiobook, is to use an AppleScript
named "RestartAt" that you can download from Tim Kilburn's web page:
http://homepage.mac.com/kilburns/voiceover/downloads.html
Copy or move this to the /Library/iTunes/Scripts folder. You will
need to create the Scripts folder if this is the first time you are
using AppleScripts with iTunes. AppleScripts placed in the Scripts
folder show up as a separate menu on the menu bar for the application
(in this case, iTunes), after the existing menus and just to the left
of the Help menu.
I find it easiest to use by assigning "RestartAt" to a keyboard
shortcut (Command-Option-R). You will need to quit iTunes before you
assign the shortcut.
The latest full description of how to use the "RestartAt" AppleScript
and assign it a shortcut key may be found in the archives:
http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40macvisionaries.com/
msg33347.html
Note that when you assign the shortcut, you may need to type the name
of the AppleScript exactly (with capital letter "R" and capital
letter "A", but no space between the two words). I'm not sure about
this, but I usually maintain case just to be safe. Also, in the
archive description, I mention copying the AppleScript to the
Library/
iTunes/Scripts folder under your user account. If you copy an
AppleScript to the system level /Library/iTunes/Scripts folder it
will work for all iTunes accounts on your computer. If you copy it
to the Library /iTunes/Scripts folder for your user account, it will
only show up for iTunes under your account.
To navigate to the system /Library/iTunes folder in Finder use the
Command-Shift-G (Go to Folder) shortcut, and type in the folder you
want (e.g. "/Library/iTunes", without the quotation marks and
beginning with the "slash" key in front of "Library").
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Esther
On Aug 27, 2008, at 10:24 AM, Simon Cavendish wrote:
Dear Listers,
Is there a way of rewinding to the beginning a song or audiobook
you listen in Itunes? I have purchased some books from Audible.com
and as soon as they download they start to play. I couldn't pause
it in time and now it starts playing from where I stopped it. I
can't work out whether there's a way of rewinding it to the
beginning or better still stopping a book playing as soon as it
downloads. I
Thanks in advance, Simon
