Re: iTunes: no keyboard navigation?

In article <031020082019545304%dogbreath@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
sbt <dogbreath@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <zzzzzz-1516A2.20263303102008@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
RiKN <zzzzzz@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

Surely there must be a way of scrolling with the keyboard through
playlists! By scrolling I don't mean just up and down - you have to be
able to expand and collapse folders to be useful at all. I can go up
and down but can't collapse or expand folders. Which means keyboard
navigation in iTunes is non-existant. At first I thought that it must
be because the focus was somewhere else. But no...Apple has, for
whatever bizarre, unfathomable reason, elected to banish useful
keyboard
navigation in playlists. Does anyone have any idea how this absurd
decision was reached? What possible advantage could there be by
forcing
the hapless user to have to ponderously use the mouse for playlist
navigation? Its like making a basketball that isn't round, skis that
aren't straight, or a leaking scuba regulator. Where are their brains?

Keyboard navigation exists for everything I've seen in the Source pane
and the content pane with one exception. Tab to move the focus from the
source pane to the search box to the content area (Shift-tab moves in
the opposite direction). Up and down arrow keys move within the pane.
The only thing that doesn't seem to work is expanding and collapsing
folders.

Yes - that was pointed out in the original post. If you can't navigate
in subfolders its pointless to use the keyboard. You'll be hopping from
mouse to kb, back to mouse incessantly. Apparently Mac users have a lot
of time to waste.

I was objecting to your use of "nonexistent".

I see what you mean. I should have used something like "severely
hampered" or "crippled".

If you had said that, in
your opinion, it was pointless, I wouldn't have replied. I might
disagree slightly with the opinion, but everyone is entitled to their
own opinions of what is efficacious for them. Additionally, there are
no subfolders: folders in iTunes are one-level only as containers for
content/playlists -- you can't nest folders (which is, as I note below,
the main reason I rarely use them). Subfolders is a feature I request
with each new version, so far in vain.

Thanks for that reminder. I never even realized there were no
subfolders - just playlists within a folder. To me, this is insane.
Say you are organizing your music. Say its Jazz, some Jazz is fusion,
some is classical jazz, some with vocals, then there's jazz from
different eras. Without subfolders, how is the user going to adequately
going to organize things? Its absolutely impossible. You'll end up
with one folder with a 50 playlists in it. What a nightmare. Why is
Apple so hideously incompetent when it comes to organization? Surely
this cannot be so difficult to implement.

If I have a playlist selected in the source pane, shift-tab moves the
focus to the playlist's contents and the up and down arrows navigate
quite nicely.

Yeah - but Tab actions means you're hammering the same key over and
over. Its a very poor way to navigate.

There are only three foci for the tab and with shift-tab available to
go in the opposite direction, I'm not hammering the same key over and
over: shift-tab takes me from playlist to source pane, tab takes me
from source pane to playlist. That's one keystroke or keystroke combo
to move focus to the area you want. Seems pretty efficient to me.

Good point.

Your rant states that navigation is non-existent (note the correct
spelling). You further open the rant by asserting that you can't use
the keyboard to scroll through a playlist and, as I've described, that
just isn't so.

I said you CAN scroll up and down but without the ability for folder
expansion and collapsing the point is moot. Its like running a marathon
on crutches. It just ain't gonna work.

I've been using iTunes since its inception and find the folder as a
one-level deep grouping device (you can't create subfolders) relatively
useless for my purposes, so I don't employ them often. But, that is MY
take on the folder functionality and others might have a different
viewpoint.

Once again Apple has chosen to ignore users like us who organize in
several layers and focus on pop music. I guess when your "leader" puts
drivel like the Beatles on a pedestal, it kind of shows you his level of
music appreciation and comprehension. Sad really. Thank goodness he has
other talents - just wish organization was one of them! And perhaps he
has an amazing set of eyes too (see rant on iCal's lack of text size
adjustment.)

Your only valid complaint is that there isn't a keyboard shortcut for
expanding/collapsing folders. That might be a consequence of
user-created folders for organization being a relatively recent
addition to the iTunes interface (I think it came in with iTunes 6, but
it might have been iTunes 5) and Apple either not adding a shortcut or
they added one and there's a bug. My guess is that cmd-rt-arrow should
expand and it's broken.

No - the problem is common with almost every app Apple touches. Its
mouse centric, through and through. Its Apple's fascination with all
things rodent. And it turns off efficient minded people from Linux and
Windows because they work at a far greater speed. And you just can't
work faster with a mouse than a keyboard unless you've been disabled in
a horrible car accident and have lost the use of your limbs. In other
words if you have the coordination of a retarded chimpanzee with
Parkinson's Disease and suffer from severe Dementia, maybe, just maybe
the mouse is preferable. But that's really going out on a limb. :)

In almost every other Apple app I've used, cmd-arrow keys will
expand/collapse disclosure triangles.

In List View, I just use arrows. But Apple's problem is that they have
elected to do something incredibly dense - even for them. In any
thinking program, in any program that doesn't deem it wise to waste the
user's time, the left arrow collapses the column, WHEREVER you are in
the column. If you are lucky enough to use Opera, go to Manage
Bookmarks and try it. It makes navigation so speedy and effortless.
But no - Apple has to force the user to either use the up arrow key to
get to the top of the folder, then you can collapse it, or use that
wretched rodent (mouse). Such a ponderous and utterly stupid move on
Apple's fault. Why can Microsoft do this in Windows Explorer so easily
and Apple can't get it? Surely this cannot be protected? Since Opera
does it in its browser, surely any OS X app can do it?

I rarely have to move my hand
from the keyboard to the mouse unless I'm working in a graphics app. I
almost never do so in the Finder, for example, nor do I use the mouse
much in iTunes or iPhoto (mostly for discontiguous selection via
cmd-clicking). While Apple does bend over backward to make the mouse
action the most obvious to the user, they've done a fine job, in my
opinion, of providing keyboard alternatives for everything else. If you
really want to do so, turn on Full Keyboard Access in System
Preferences (Keyboard & Mouse prefs, Keyboard Shortcuts tab) and
you'll just about never have to leave the keyboard.

When I tried them before I found them mostly awkward and limiting in
their range of control but I need to review them again. I remember
Control+F2......what idiot designed this tortuous shortcut? That's got
to be the one of most un-thought out shortcuts in existence. It would
be hard to come up with a more Twister like shortcut if you tried. But
if I could change the shortcuts, all would be better. But of course, in
Apple's tyrannical grasp of power - that sensible option is immediately
vanquished! :)

Apple, if you want more market share, get smarter! Some people can do a
kb shortcut in half a second. You can't even get to the mouse in half a
second. Then you have to guide the pointer to its destination, click,
then come back to the kb. Its about 5 times slower (unless you've got
some coordination issues mentioned above of course.)

They're probably aware of this (there's a large contingent of unix/NeXT
folk still in leadership positions), but likely feel that catering to
the "power user" crowd as the default would make the system too
difficult for the more typical user.

The sensible thing to do is just quietly bring them in. Don't take away
from any of the mouse's convenience. Just open up the kb options.
That's all we want. Many Windows users find OS X stunted. So many
navigation tools/options are just not there for them. Its sort of like
changing schools, and suddenly you're a few grades behind.

I learned a couple decades ago
that I was not the "typical" user: my wife, our son and daughter, and
their families are more so. My wife is a Windows die-hard, but she
almost never uses a keyboard shortcut and she's been running Microsoft
OSes since 1982...once Windows 95 came along, she purged her mind of
almost everything she knew about DOS and became rodent-bound (and she
was the "go to" power-user before that with the medical group for which
she worked).

And for people that don't type, of course they are going to be more
mouse centric. No problem. There is no need to reduce any options for
anybody here! There are times we all are first learning a new program
and we are going to use the mouse almost all the time til we get
comfortable with it.

The full keyboard access is present in the system and in most
applications for those who want it, but it isn't the default.

That's for sure.

(BTW: the word for "it doesn't matter" is "moot" -- "mute" means that
there is no sound)

Lol...right you are. What was I thinking? :) Its been corrected.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: iTunes: no keyboard navigation?
    ... able to expand and collapse folders to be useful at all. ... navigation in iTunes is non-existant. ... navigation in playlists. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.apps)
  • Re: iTunes: no keyboard navigation?
    ... able to expand and collapse folders to be useful at all. ... whatever bizarre, unfathomable reason, elected to banish useful keyboard ... navigation in playlists. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.apps)
  • Re: OT: Help! (MP3 questions)
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  • Re: OT: Help! (MP3 questions)
    ... But it evidently *doesn't* support folders, ... Saying this in the first place would have saved us both a lot of time. ... simply binning the player and buying a new one was out of the question. ... supports playlists, then you select that playlist and it plays the ...
    (uk.comp.sys.mac)
  • Re: Another reason to own a Mac
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