Feedback sent to Apple regarding iTunes 4.5. Yes, I’m a total dweeb.
Congratulations and great job on iTunes 4.5! I dig the arrows in the library and the party shuffle features–fantastic work.
This is just a short request for some further improvements in the application. Using iTunes is simple and easy, and it’s already become a part of my daily routine to fire up the application during work or while surfing the web at home. However, a surprising amount of the features in iTunes require use of a mouse, which can be disruptive to my workflow. Here are a couple of suggestions.
Right now, there are no shortcut keys to rating songs on the fly. I was wondering if it would be possible to add some. I’m pretty obsessive about rating my songs–songs that I rate poorly (2 stars or lower) are periodically deleted from my playlist to make room for songs I want to hear, so the vast majority of songs are rated. Having shortcut keys will help me when I import a new CD.
Ideally, I’d be able to rate a song that I’m currently playing by hitting, say, Ctrl+n, where n is a number from 1 to 5. Thus, when I’m listening to a song I don’t like, I can Alt+Tab to iTunes, Ctrl+2 to rate it and left-arrow to the next song in the playlist. Cool, no?
Also, I’ve noticed that there’s no quick way to get to the Search box. This is funny, because–since iTunes works so much like a web browser–I halfway expect to hit Alt+D (or some similar keystroke) to quickly search for a song. Could you add this feature, too?
All in all–you do great work and make music that much more fun to experience. Thanks.
Ken
PS Please, please, please add Windows 98 support (or, at least send me an email with a good reason why you won’t)!
Ugh.
I wrote what is below the line below, then remembered your using windows … Sorry
… The only windows solution that I can think of off the top of my head is a macro program for windows (like macro magic, but there are a ton of good ones), but you still won’t get the same level of functionality.
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Synergy is your friend: http://synergy.wincent.com/
Adds all kinds of hotkeys (virutal all itunes functionality) to iTunes, plus a floater window showing the current song and cover art. Don’t even need to have itunes visable to use the hot keys … Wonderful solution for only 5$.
Mike.
Mike–yeah, it sucks.
Looks like a lovely, program, though.
There is some hope. Apple seems to do a good job of swallowing the functionality of third-party applications into future releases…;-)
K,
Even though you (or I) don’t blog all that often now a’days, I really appreciate your “of interest” section, as it both provides interesting reads and also tells your readers what you are looking at on web. How you considered enabling commenting on your site for your readers to discuss the links? Are there ethical issues that perhaps a trackback could solve? I’m imagining some great discussion that could take place on your site, especially for articles that do not provide commenting directly.