OSXFAQ Mac OS X Tip-of-the-Day  

This week's tips take a look at iTunes - the visualizer, using Automator, the very cool Coverflow, and some miscellaneous tricks.

Some more iTunes tips can be found at June 2004 in the OSXFAQ Tips Archive.

Start iTunes, then start the visualizer by pressing Command-t. Visualizer effects have three 'layers' - the foreground effect, the background effect, and the colour. Each of these can be changed manually: Normally they are changed randomly over time (called the random slide show mode).

Press the c key and check the top right of the display - you'll see the current settings.

Cycle through the effects manually by pressing the following keys:

q w - change foreground effect
a s - change background effect
z x - change the colour

The keys q a z cycle back through the effects, and the keys w s x cycle forward. When you hit a key, the current effect gradually fades into the new effect, letting you manually change the slide show.

iTunes provides a few more keystroke controls:

d resets the visualizer to its default settings

f toggles the frame rate display on and off (shown in the top left of the display)

t toggles frame rate capping on and off. With frame rate capping on, visualizer never exceeds 30 frames per second. With capping off, presumably it can and may consume excessive CPU power (and battery juice in a laptop).

b holds the white Apple logo in the middle of the display, which eventually fades out. Alternatively, press d to reset the visualizer and remove the Apple logo immediately.

i displays the currently playing song information, which gradually fades out. Alternatively, press d to reset the visualizer and remove the current song information immediately.

You can also change some settings by clicking the Options button at the top right of the iTunes window.

Tomorrow's tip shows how to save and replay custom visualizer settings.

Enjoy! :- )

Tiger 10.4.4