Secrets of the iPod and iTunes (Fifth Edition) [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Notes

Given that third-party developers and users were concocting new and interesting ways to store text files on their iPods, it's no surprise that Apple introduced a Notes function with third-generation iPods. This function becomes evident when you choose Extras from the iPod's main menu. There, you'll find Notes listed right behind Clock, Contacts, and Calendar. If you mount your iPod as a FireWire or USB 2.0 disk, you'll also spy a Notes folder nestled against the Contacts and Calendars folders when you double-click your iPod.

If you select Notes on your iPod and then select the Instructions entry in the Notes screen, you'll learn that you can view notes on your iPod by copying text files into the iPod's Notes folder. But there's more to know about Notes than that:

Notes are strictly limited to4kb (kilobits) .
If a note exceeds 4 kb, the excess text is cut off.

The iPod can hold up to 1,000 notes.
If the iPod's Notes folder contains more than 1,000 notes, only the first 1,000 notes are displayed. (The first 1,000 are determined by alphabetical order rather than creation date.)

Notes are cached in memory.
After you've viewed a note, its contents are stored in a 64 Kb (kilobyte) memory cache. This cache is useful because it allows the iPod to display the note without spinning up the hard drive, thereby extending the battery charge. When the cache overflows (because you've read more than 64 Kb of data into it), the oldest notes are given the boot to make room for the information being copied into the cache.

Notes support a very basic set o71 tags (the Hypertext Markup Language codes used to create Web pages). These tags allow you to create notes that link to other notes or to songs on your iPod.

You may be thinking, "Well, ain't this ducky, Chris, but other than providing a place to store directions to Aunt Vilma's suburban manse or the French translation of 'I'm sorry, but this éclair appears to be stuffed with haddock,' what earthly use are these notes?"

Just this: The iPod can be thrown into something called NotesOnly (or Museum) mode, a mode that locks out everything on the iPod's interface except notes, forcing those who use the iPod to start there. This option holds potential for museum curators, tour guides, or real-estate agents who'd like to use the iPod as a guide for presenting facts about a painting, a historical center, or an overpriced property, respectively. It also allows you to turn an iPod into the perfect romantic gift. Because studies indicate that readers of this book are more interested in matters of the heart than most, let's explore this option further.

The Truth about Tags

Before we do, I must touch upon the iPod's limite69 support. When I say that it supports basic tags, I mean basic. The iPod can't display styled text, so you'll find no tags for creating italic or boldface type. Instead, the included tags are designed to help the iPod interpret Web pages and create links.

These tags are limited to line breaks (<br>), opening and closing paragraph marks (<p> and </p>, respectively), and a tag for creating titles (<TITLE>The Title You Want</TITLE>). Norma77 rules don't apply: a <p> tag, for instance, doesn't create a line space after a paragraph. You need to use a <p> and a <br> tag, as I do here, or use two <p>s or two <br>s.

For example, if you want to produce the following text, enter this in your text editor in a note called Oooh, Baby, Baby:

Oooh, my little snookums!
I'll never forget the night we met. The moon, the smell of your perfume,
 the drenching rain.
I'm so happy you're mine!

Then save the file as plain text, and mount your iPod as an external drive. (To do that, select the iPod in the iTunes Source window, click[View full width]

<TITLE> Oooh, Baby, Baby</TITLE>
Oooh, my little snookums!<br><p>I'll never forget the night we met. The moon, the smell of
your perfume, the drenching rain.</p><br><p>I'm so happy you're mine!</p>

The Missing Links

You've made a good start, but you may find it difficult to really bare your soul in a 4Kbits file. You might want to create additional notes and link to them from the original Oooh, Baby, Baby note.

To do so, enter <a href="the note you refer to">the link text</a>.

For example, you may want to include a link to an old love letter stored in a file called Letter1.txt, which you've placed in the iPod's Notes folder. Let's say you want that link to say Words of Love. You'd type <a href="Letter1.txt">Words of Love</a>.

On the iPod, the words Words of Love will be underlined. To travel to that note, simply scroll down until the link appears and then click the Select button. If two links appear on the screen, the active link will be displayed as a solid black line. Other links will be gray. Use the scroll wheel to activate links above or below the active link. Use the Menu button to return to the main text when you're done.

If you'd rather not clutter the top level of the Notes folder with hundreds of notesand if you want to ensure that your little sweet pea starts in the right placeyou can create subfolders within the Notes folder. To refer to files within one of these subfolders, your link must use this format:

<a href="folder name/note name">the link text</a>

If you have a file called Our First Smooch.txt inside a folder called Great Dates, you might create a Things I'll Never Forget link that reads <a href="Great Dates/Our First Smooch.txt">Things I'll Never Forget</a>.

File names in links are not case-sensitive, but you will need to spell out the full name of the note, including the .txt extension, if it has one. And you can't link to notes stored outside the iPod's Notes folder.

Keep in mind that a folder can be a destination, so you could create a link that takes you to the Great Dates folder (which, presumably, contains several notes) by typing <a href="Great Dates">Unforgettable Moments</a>.

Say It with a Song

Unless you're romantically linked with someone who has an abnormal enthusiasm for geeks and loves gadgets, the object of your affection may wonder why you've put a mash note on an iPod. It is, after all, a music player, and you'll get far more bang for your buck if links in your notes play songs or sound effects that describe your feelings.

You might add an entry to Oooh, Baby, Baby that reads, "When I see you, my heart sings." To link the words my heart sings to the Ohio Players' "Love Rollercoaster" on the iPod, use this form: <a href="song=Love Rollercoaster">my heart sings</a>.

You could just as easily link to a stored recording of you reading a Shakespearean sonnet or of the sound of a gentle, lapping ocean to accompany a recounting of hours spent under the boardwalk.

Like other links, the phrase in the note will be underlined. When you highlight the link by scrolling down the page and then click the iPod's Select button, the linked song or sound will play. When it's done, the iPod returns to the note.

You can also use links to point to a particular playlist, genre, artist, composer, or album. If you wanted to link to the playlist Funky Love Songs with the phrase "Select me to groove all night!", you'd create this link: <a href="ipod:music?playlist=Funky Love Songs">Select me to groove all night!</a>.

If your iPod has more than one version of a songboth the studio version and the live recording, for exampleyou can combine filters to zero in on a specific song. A link that reads "Select me to hear how I feel!" could play the studio version of James Brown's "Prisoner of Love" from the album Can Your Heart Stand It!! Just use this form: <a href= "ipod:music?album=Can Your Heart Stand It!!&song=Prisoner of Love">Select me to hear how I feel!</a>.

Locking It Down

Your present is nearly complete. But your gift will be far more effective if it launches directly to the Notes screen when your loved one first switches on the iPod.

For this to happen, you must configure the iPod to launch into NotesOnly mode. To do so, create a plain-text document, and enter this line of text: <meta name="NotesOnly" content="true">.

Save the file with the name Preferences, and copy it to the top level of the iPod's Notes folder. When the iPod next launches, it will display the Notes screen, and it won't let you navigate outside the Notes area. You can steer to notes with the scroll wheel and the Select button, but you can't access screens other than those in the Notes area unless you hook the iPod up to your computer and remove the Preferences file you placed in the Notes folder.

Your multimedia masterpiece is complete. Give the iPod a final charge, wrap it in a colorful case, and present it on bended knee to strike the perfect note.

For more information on the subject of creating notes, I strongly suggest that you download Apple's iPod Note Reader Users Guide, which you can find here: [http://developer.apple.com/hardware/ipod/ipodnotereader.pdf].

Notes Tools

I have nothing but sympathy for those who read the previous section and thought, "Criminy, isn't the iPod supposed to be easy? There must be a better way to create linked notes than this!"

As a matter of fact, if you're using a Mac, there are a couple of easier ways to get linked notes into your iPod: the iPod scripts collection and Flying Meat's VoodooPad.

The iPod scripts collection (Mac OS X only)

[www.apple.com/applescript/ipod]

The AppleScript crew at Apple created a few useful scripts for moving text files into your iPod. In this collection, you'll find scripts that clear all the notes from your iPod, copy the contents of the Mac's Clipboard into a note, create a list of notes on your iPod, and download Web pages (with some links intact) to your iPod.

To activate these scripts, follow these steps:

1. Open the Applications folder at the root level of your Mac OS X volume and then the AppleScript folder within it.

2. In Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar), double-click the Script Menu.menu folder. In Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther), go to this same location, and double-click the Install Script Menu application.

This action places an AppleScript menu in the menu bar.

3. Travel to Chapter 2 for details.

8. Now it's simply a matter of picking the script you want to run from the iPod folder in the AppleScript menu (Figure 7.27).

VoodooPad

[www.flyingmeat.com]

Flying Meat's $20 VoodooPad is an application that allows you to create notepads with linked pages and then export these notepads to your iPod. How useful could this app be? Take a look by walking through the steps necessary to create a personal-organizer notepad:

1. Download the trial version of VoodooPad, launch it, and choose New Document from the File menu.

You see a new Welcome to VoodooPad page.

2. Click one of the underlined portions of text.

If you click the GroceryList text, for example, you open a new window that reads "Write about GroceryList here." This is how VoodooPad creates new pages.

3. Return to the Welcome to VoodooPad page, select all the text, and press the Mac's Delete key to remove all the text on the page.

You're just clearing the page so that you can create a notepad without the default home page.

4. Enter the following:

ToDo

Memos

UnpleasantChores

You'll notice that both the ToDo and UnpleasantChores items are underlined. VoodooPad automatically underlines words that contain an internal cap.

5. Click ToDo.

A new page appears that reads "Write about ToDo here."

6. Type a few things that you need to do.

7. Return to the home page, and double-click Memos to select it.

8. Click the Link button.

A new page appears that reads "Write about Memos here."

9. Enter any memos you like on this page.

10. Return to the home page, click UnpleasantChores, and list your least-favorite tasks on the resulting page (Figure 7.28).

11. When you've completed your notepad, choose Save from the File menu to name and save your notepad.

12. Mount your iPod on the Mac's Desktop.

VoodooPad won't be able to save its notepads to your iPod unless the iPod is mounted as a removable drive.

13. Choose Export from the File menu, and from the submenu, choose either Export to iPod Notes or Export to iPod Contacts.

If you have a third- or fourth generation iPod, iPod Photo, or iPod mini, you'll likely want to choose Export to iPod Notes. Because the first- and second-generation iPods don't support Notes, choose Export to iPod Contacts if you own one of these iPods.

If you have more than one iPod attached to your Mac, you'll see a message that reads "You've got more than one iPod!" You lucky dog. Well, for now, I'm just going to use the one named NameofiPod (where NameofiPod is the name of the iPod VoodooPad has chosen to use).

14. Unmount your iPod, and whisper "Oooohhh" when you find the notepad you just created on your iPod.