Several advanced features iTunes

We all know how well Apple refers to the maximum simplification of its products. Therefore, all non-obvious settings and functions are often hidden behind a tricky shortcuts, or even "deeper" - in Terminal. Today, I will give some tips to the readers of the blog, the more useful you can use iTunes.

To begin, I would like to say a few words on the arrows that accompany each selected item in the playlist. By default they are in the iTunes Store, allowing you to quickly open the page of artist, album, or single song selected genre in the online store media content on the idea of ​​the creators of the program, for later making a purchase. I guess not everyone needs such a possibility.

However, not everyone knows far, if at a click on the arrow to hold the Alt key (Option), you can instead iTunes Store to go to the local library and choose Browser columns, for example, all the albums of one artist. Permanently replace the "behavior" of these arrows can be using a special command in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes invertStoreLinks -bool TRUE

A completely disable them using the map:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes show-store-arrow-links -bool FALSE

After these commands or arrows will always move the user to a local media library, or disappear altogether.

Another hidden feature for the stars that mark the rating songs in iTunes. It turns out that Apple made it possible to put the track "half-hearted assessment", which requires a run in a terminal the following command:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes allow-half-stars -bool TRUE

After that, any element of the playlist will be to put a half stars N, where N - from one to four :)

To return the function to its original state, you need to enter the same command, replacing TRUE to FALSE (or vice versa). Changes will only be felt in the next launch iTunes.

And once the conversation turned on the ratings, I would like to mention a very useful and easy utility I Love StarsMapping the composition of the rating during playback directly from the menu bar.

The left mouse button, you can change assessment, including on the "half" right - to display information about the track and go to the application settings window. And support for "hot keys" make this tool even more versatile, allowing you to manage the ratings from the keyboard.