Re: iTunes questions

In article <gary-7B1B6E.17390009122008@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Gary
<gary@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

it may be popular on windows, but historically, mac os has been
designed around one button, with a second button *as a convenience*.
not everything is in there (not would you want that).

Well programmable, multi button mice have been around for about a
decade. Its time Apple woke up.

woke up to what? you can use a mouse with as many or as few buttons as
you want. unlike other systems, there's no requirement that it must
have two or more. multi-button mice work for those who prefer them.
in fact, apple ships a *four* button mouse with every desktop mac and
the laptops have assorted gestures.

there are also studies that show that multi-button mice aren't as much
of a help as people might think they are (and sometimes a hinderance).

To have to roam
around the Menu buttons to try to find something applicable once
something is highlighted seems ridiculous.

how is that different than right-clicking and roaming around a
contextual menu, which has gained so many entries that the entries are
even in sub-menus now?

"Roaming around" means going in several drop down menus, most
having no correlation to the highlighted item.

that's why there's a title at the top of a menu, so that you can decide
which menus to look at and which ones to skip.

Right clicking
displays only the options relevant to the highlighted item. And
you wouldn't need a page of them. 5 or 10 would be great and
suffice most everybody's needs.

and that's basically what they did.

Even worse, they
allow you a few from time to time, yet don't offer others that
are commonly used in other Apple programs. Then, on the Menu
bar, keyboard shortcuts are conspicuously absent.

absent??? there are so many keyboard shortcuts that individual letters
are overloaded with multiple modifiers, such as command,
command-option, command-shift, option only, etc. who can keep track?

Microsoft implemented a marvelous system. Alt F bring up File,
then the next letter you press activates the first letter of the
menu item. In half a second one can change the view to List or
Details:
Alt_V_L or Alt_V_D
Why Apple can't do that simple thing is anybody's guess. Surely
it can't be difficult. After a while you remember the ones you
use a lot. Its so logical.

they did implement keyboard control, however, it works a little
differently than the microsoft method.

they also gave the common actions keyboard equivalents, which is much,
much faster than multiple keystrokes. and as you say, you remember the
ones you use a lot.

Would it kill
them to offer keyboard shortcuts? Is that too much for the
average Apple user to grasp?

they do. for example, in itunes, command-n is new playlist and
command-shift-n is new smart playlist.

Every commonly used command or option should have a kb shortcut.

and they do. perhaps what you deem 'common' is not really that common
at all.

Most menus items in Apple programs have no shortcuts at all.
Makes no sense.

i don't know which programs you are referring to, but looking at
finder, itunes and safari (what i happen to have open right now), there
are more menu items *with* a keyboard equivalent than without. the
only exception is the store & advanced menus in itunes, but that goes
back to what is common. looking in those menus, i don't see anything
that would be used all that often, so the lack of a keyboard equivalent
is minor. the mere fact that a menu is called 'advanced' suggests it
is *not* common.
.

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