Control iTunes

So far, I’ve concentrated on using LaunchBar to access apps; open files; and carry out special functions, like browsing the Web and performing calculations. But, LaunchBar also has built-in categories and actions that help you control iTunes from the keyboard.

And, LaunchBar has a number of special indexing rules that let you access your iTunes library by artist, album, genre, playlist, and more. You can also control iTunes while playing music, using LaunchBar to pause, play, skip tracks, and change volume. And, you can even Search in the iTunes Store, right from the bar.

Browse Your iTunes Library

LaunchBar lets you browse your iTunes music library from top to bottom, inside and out. Start by invoking the bar, then type, say, IT, and find iTunes. Arrow right to see a list of categories (Figure 32).

<strong>Figure 32:</strong> LaunchBar shows your iTunes music library in the above categories.

Figure 32: LaunchBar shows your iTunes music library in the above categories.

You can browse to investigate any of these categories.

A Best Of list is a sort of smart playlist based on the star ratings that you’ve assigned in iTunes. LaunchBar creates these lists by artist, composer, and genre. The default setting uses a 4-star rating as a minimum, but you can change this, if you wish, in the Options pane of the iTunes indexing rule. (See Control the Index.) Think of Best Of lists as a way to access dozens, even hundreds, of smart playlists showing the highest-rated music by all the artists, composers, and genres in your music library. It would take days to create all these playlists in iTunes!

Note: The sub-search keyboard shortcuts for iTunes are a bit different than usual, because pressing the Space bar opens a search field (see Search in the iTunes Store, a few pages ahead). To sub-search within iTunes, press either the right-arrow key or Option-Space bar.

The other categories include the playlists in your iTunes library; all the artists, composers, and genres; and all the songs, as well as a couple of specific categories, such as Identically Named Albums and Identically Named Songs.

As usual, browsing and sub-searching are your friends. You can browse any category and select an item to start playing it. Or, type a few letters to home in on the item you’re looking for.

Each time you go down a level, LaunchBar may present more top-level categories. So, if you select a genre, you see, at the top of the results, Best Of Genre, if there are any adequately rated songs, then entries for playlists, albums, artists, and composers. If there are no items for one of these, such as in Figure 33, where there are no rock playlists, you won’t see an entry.

<strong>Figure 33:</strong> When viewing the Rock genre of my iTunes library, here’s what I see.

Figure 33: When viewing the Rock genre of my iTunes library, here’s what I see.

You can drill down as much as you want until you find the item you want to play. When you’ve found it, just press Return. iTunes launches if it wasn’t already open and begins playing the song, as well as any music that follows it in your iTunes library. So if you’ve picked a song on an album, you’ve queued that song and those that follow. If you’ve picked a song from a playlist, iTunes plays that song and then those that follow in the playlist.

Get More Music By an Artist

When iTunes is playing music, you can invoke the bar, type, say, IT, select iTunes, then arrow right to see the currently playing track. If you press the right-arrow key again, you’ll see entries with the name of the artist, the album, and the genre, which you can then browse or sub-search.

This is especially useful if you’re listening to a smart playlist in shuffle mode. Say a song by David Bowie pops up. Perhaps this makes you want to hear more of his music. Just use LaunchBar to explore his other albums and songs easily, without switching to iTunes.

To see a song in iTunes, select it in the results, and press Command-Control-Return. Your Mac switches to iTunes and highlights the track.

Control iTunes Playback

When you’re busy at work, and the phone rings, you need to stop the music you’re playing with iTunes. Or if you’re listening to an album or playlist, you may want to skip a track, and not be bothered having to switch to iTunes to do it. LaunchBar can help.

LaunchBar’s Actions feature contains several actions that let you control iTunes: you can play and pause your music, skip ahead to the next track, go back a track, fast forward, rewind, and even update your podcasts. You can view these options easily by typing, say, IT, and looking in the search results, as shown in Figure 34.

<strong>Figure 34:</strong> These are some of the iTunes actions in LaunchBar.

Figure 34: These are some of the iTunes actions in LaunchBar.

To activate one of these actions, select it and press Return. You can Assign Custom Abbreviations to the ones you use often. For example, the Play/Pause action may be the most useful; I’ve set that to pop up when I type PP. You could use, say, NS for next song, PS for previous song, and so on. If you learn to use these with Instant Open, you’ll find that you can control iTunes very quickly without switching to its window.

You can see all these actions, and choose to show or hide any of them, in the LaunchBar index, discussed in Control the Index.

Quickly Search the iTunes Store

If you’d rather not click around in iTunes to open the store and search for some media item or app that you’d like to download, you can avoid that rigmarole with LaunchBar.

To search the iTunes Store from the bar:

  1. Invoke the bar.
  2. Type, say, IT, for iTunes.
  3. With iTunes selected, press the Space bar.

    The bar displays a Search iTunes Store field.

  4. Type your search terms (Figure 35), and press Return.
    <strong>Figure 35:</strong> Search the iTunes Store from the bar. Enter your search terms then press Return to open iTunes and see your search results.

    Figure 35: Search the iTunes Store from the bar. Enter your search terms then press Return to open iTunes and see your search results.

LaunchBar sends the search to iTunes, which displays the results just as though you had searched within the app itself.

Note: You can design a custom search template for the iTunes Store. Search in the iTunes Store, earlier, explains how.

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