Hi Scott, Command-Option-F is, indeed, a useful command, but it's actually one of the first commands I was ever able to use in iTunes, even before it became fully accessible, and has worked in every version of iTunes that I've used. In fact, it was mentioned as part of a reply to one of your questions last year (a follow-up to the main question). It's a quick way to get to the "Burn Disc" button if you are burning a playlist to CD or DVD; use Command-Option-F to move to the search field and then VO-Down arrow to the "Burn Disc" button and press it (VO-Space). Of course, now we can also issue the burn command from the context menu of the playlist in the sources table with VO-Shift-M, but at the time you either had to find this button or find the command under the File menu of the iTunes menu bar, which you can also still do. I'll excerpt bits from the archived discussion post at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40macvisionaries.com/msg36685.html I'll add some new comments about this command and iTunes 9 at the end of the excerpted discussion: <begin excerpt> > On Jun 20, 2008, Scott Rutkowski wrote: > >> HI all. >> >> can anyone who uses iTunes tell me if you make a playlist in iTunes, >> is there a way of finding out the total time of the playlist itself? >> I've made a playlist and am trying to find out the total time so I >> can burn it to an audio cd. >> Any info would be great. >> >> Thanks. Cara responded: > > Hi Scott, Good mornin'! <smile> Use the item chooser to locate > the burn disc button and then VO left arrow once. You'll see the > total number of songs, the total time, and the total size. > > HTH and I wrote: Hi Cara and Scott, Another way to get to the burn button without having to use the item chooser is to VO-down arrow from the search text field. I like doing it that way because I can either tab to the search text field or go to it directly with Command-Option-F. So, Cara's instructions could be redone by replacing the step about finding the burn button with the VO-down arrow from the search text field and the VO-left arrow from there. Incidentally, I check the total time and space even when I'm not on a playlist, so there isn't always a "burn button" -- on a music library or for podcasts this action of VO-down from the search text field would take me to the "Browse" button, and I could still VO-left to the summary infomation. This is a good way to find out when your podcasts library is getting really large! I didn't give these directions, because the button you get (browse, burn etc.) when you VO-down from the search text field changes depending on what's in your source list selection, and that seemed too confusing to summarize, but this is faster -- even faster if you skip item chooser. Cheers, Esther <end excerpt> I'll first note that the fast way to check total time, number of items, of disk space in a playlist is simply to VO-Down arrow from the songs table and you'll hear a summary, for example: 20 audiobooks, 4:22:08:12 total time, 1.70 GB If you click on the field, you can change between more or less detailed time reporting formats, for instance: 20 audiobooks, 4.9 days, 1.70 GB This can be useful even if you're not burning tracks to CD or DVD, but just trying to design playlists or thinking about how much space the music you plan to transfer to your iPod will take up. Secondly, when I inserted a blank CD to check that these instructions still worked for iTunes 9 something odd happened: my file browser behavior reverted to the format that I used for iTunes 8, which I actually prefer. Instead of just showing an "Artist column", I recovered the three columns for "Genre", "Artist", and "Album". I didn't recover the nice tabbing behavior of iTunes 8 between sources table, search field, and songs table, but I still think this is an improvement. I'm still using Leopard, if it makes a difference, so I haven't been having the same other issues navigating. Final comments about Command-Option-F in another context: I use this command all the time to go to the Google Search field in Safari. Even though I hide the address bar (toggled between show and hide with Command-Shift-backslash on an English input keyboard, or "Command- Vertical line" as it is announced in the View menu options) and bookmarks bar (Command-Shift-B toggle) in Safari, using this shortcut doesn't keep the address bar open. I press Command-Option-F and the address bar opens. I type in my search text and press return, and the address bar closes again while my search is executed. Using the Google Search bar (from Command-Option-F) for your searches gives you access to another search results snapback key: Command- Option-S will snap you back to your last search page. This shortcut only works if you used the Google Search bar to do your search. It does not work if you ran your search by entering search terms in the search field on the Google page. If you used the Google Search bar with Command-Shift-F, your search terms will show up in the Google page search field, too. HTH Cheers, Esther --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
