For some odd reason, when I transferred my iTunes library to my new computer, I couldn’t get my 3+ years of ratings, smart albums, and playlists to transfer with it. I called Apple and practically begged for help and they couldn’t figure it out. So I’ve had to start all over, creating all my playlists and beginning the ratings system all over again. Needless to say, I haven’t been as enthusiastic about iTunes since that happen.
So because I’ve been re-rating my songs, I’v grown grown tired of doing so by going to an little app in my menu bar. Typically, I’m only looking to give songs a 1, 3, or 5 star rating. I’ve rated all my songs a 3, so now I either rate them down to 1 or up to 5. That’s my system.
But I didn’t realize until today that I could have been using Quicksilver to rate songs using keyboard shortcuts.
Quicksilver is a popular keyboard-based program that allows you to do all sorts of things—most of which I have yet to figure out. I’m still a fairly heavy mouse clicking user. I’m not as quick on the keyboard as many Quicksilver users seem to be.
But with the iTunes plug-in for Quicksilver, you can configure shortcut keystrokes to rate songs no matter what application you’re in. The plug-in also enables you to use keystrokes to move to the next song, pause and play, and do almost anything that you can do with a mouse on iTunes. You can search your entire iTunes library without the selecting the application itsefl.
When you download Quicksilver, I believe it comes pre-installed with the iTunes plug-in. All you have to do is access the plug-in through the Quicksilver preferences, click on the iTunes triggers you want to use and set the short keystrokes.
Because I typically use iTunes’s Party Shuffle when I’m working at the computer, I like to use that time to rate songs on the fly (Command+J seems to work best for me for 5 star ratings), and now Quicksilver provides me a way to do so.
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