The Efficient Mac Website - OS X Productivity

Problem

1. Switching back and forth to iTunes to check or control song status is cumbersome
2. Sometimes you want to listen to the music that you like, but rating songs is teadious

Solution

1. To control iTunes I use a series of AppleScripts which I summon from LaunchBar. They have been derived from Doug’s excellent collection of AppleScripts. They are attached to this post and include:

   • iTunes Show current track - a popup dialogue with the song, artist & rating to prevent having to switch into iTunes to see what is playing
   • iTunes Play/Pause
   • iTunes Next Song
   • iTunes Previous Song

2. I find that a 5 point scale is overkill, instead I use a 3 point scale and use the additional 3 ratings to facilitate my music management. I start by setting all songs to a default of 2 stars, these become my “unrated” songs. 3 stars is “OK”, 4 stars is “great” and 5 stars is “all time favourites”. 1 star is used only if there is some problem with the song file and is used as a flag. 0 stars refers to a song I do not want to keep. This has the added advantage of counteracting the iPod rating which is very sensitive to the touch. You can now easily scroll up for a good song and down for a bad one. The following scripts are also included in the aforementioned package:

   • iTunes Rate 5 - rate the song 5, and make sure it is included in shuffle
   • iTunes Rate 4 - rate the song 4, and make sure it is included in shuffle
   • iTunes Rate 3 - rate the song 3, and make sure it is included in shuffle
   • iTunes Rate 2 - rate the song 2, and make sure it is included in shuffle
   • iTunes Rate 1 - rate the song 1, prevent it from playing in shuffle, and skip to next track
   • iTunes Rate 0 - rate the song 0, prevent it from playing in shuffle, and skip to next track

Usage

1. Download iTunes Scripts - EfficientMac.com.zip below
2. Put them in a folder which is indexed by LaunchBar.

Note: I have made all these scripts available for those who use other launchers, LaunchBar users will find Play, Next, Previous scripts pre-installed.