A few gripes I have always had with OS X

[iDM]

Hello everyone, over the two years that I have been using a Mac I have stumbled across a few things that I think can all be remidied I just have no idea of how. To get on with things I'll just list what they are and hopefully someone can fire back with simple fixes. I am sure one of these has been addressed in a thread before. But after stumbling across a bunch of safari and itunes threads none have anwsered my questions well.

1. First and foremost is a problem I have been having with Safari bookmarks. Upon opening up the safari bookmark pages(clicking on the open book in the top left of the page) and shifting pages around the speed at which you move an item and drop it to a different section makes a folder open up. I realize that is a extremely difficult explanation but I can't really describe it. As soon as I try to move bookmarks that are not part of a folder as I slide them up or down in the list, the drop down menu for a different folder pops open and forces you to put the bookmarks into it. I have tried to arrange the folders I use the most at the top(so they appear on the left side of my bookmarks bar) but every time I do so another folder quickly pops open and I end up dropping a folder within a folder. I hope someone else has ran into this problem because my description is obviously pretty vague. I'm looking for a fix that allows you to drag and drop individual bookmarks and folders to wherever you want with out having to be as quick as hell in finding the sweet-spot in between folders and dropping it before the folder above it pops open.

2. My second gripe is a problem I have been having with iChat, Safari, and iTunes. After closing and reopening these programs they tend to shift a little to the right or a little down from the top bar. This may seem insignificant to some but it gets pretty damn annoying when working on a 15.2 widescreen in which you are trying to utilize every centimeter of screen. It always seems that when reopening safari it is slightly to the left cutting off above half of the scroll bar. iChat does something similar on its spacing, as it is a few mm from the left side of the screen everytime i open it. Anyway I can lock these program screens into the same spot every time they open? (I probably should mention that I only remember this happening since I've upgraded to Tiger, whether it was 10.4.1-4 I am not sure) It may have been happening since Panther but its only now that I am whining about it.

3. Third first off I know this has been brought up many times but I have yet to find a single thread where a solution has been blatantly explained.(Usually people just crucify each other for not listening to an audio cd as a compilation in which one cd is ripped as a single track) Just listening to a few cd's where the transition between songs should be flawless really lets me know that the audio gaps that itunes has prevents songs from flowing like they should. Listening to any NIN cd(The Fragile, Pretty Hate MAchine) or Pink Floyd(Dark side of the Moon especially) quickly presents gaps among songs. I realize this is rather nitpicking as all of my gripes have been but it gets a little annoying to hear gaps between songs that were created and produced not to have them. This is further projected as well when I burn audio cd's to play in my car. I wish I could change the spacing or transition both in iTunes playlists and burning section that would allow the cd's to sound as they do when played on a normal cd player with a cd that is freshly opened from the store.

These are my gripes thanks alot to anyone who can address them.

 

[gekko513]

1. When a folder opens it's still possible to drop an item below that folder instead of in that folder. If you move the mouse pointer up and down between the last item in the folder and the next folder you will see that the black drop marker with the circle on changes horizontal positions to indicate whether it will be dropped in or below the folder.

 

[socamx]

1: No clue what you're talking about.
Edit: Okay I get it now, only way I know to get around it is to aim a bit to the left of folders to get things to go under them and not into them. Tedious but works.

2: Never had this problem with any of those programs, windows always stay where they should.
Edit: Actually my Quicktime does this when resizing the window, if I do a command to change the size by double or max, the player shifts down a few pixels. Annoying, but not real annoying. Also started when 10.4 came around.

3: Just set iTunes to not crossfade songs and turn the gap on audio cd's to 0 in the preferences.
iTunes: Preferences: Advanced: Burning - 'Gap Between Songs' -> Pull down menu to 'none'.

 

[iDM]

1: No clue what you're talking about.
Edit: Okay I get it now, only way I know to get around it is to aim a bit to the left of folders to get things to go under them and not into them. Tedious but works.

2: Never had this problem with any of those programs, windows always stay where they should.
Edit: Actually my Quicktime does this when resizing the window, if I do a command to change the size by double or max, the player shifts down a few pixels. Annoying, but not real annoying. Also started when 10.4 came around.

3: Just set iTunes to not crossfade songs and turn the gap on audio cd's to 0 in the preferences.
iTunes: Preferences: Advanced: Burning - 'Gap Between Songs' -> Pull down menu to 'none'.

Setting crossfade to zero still makes a gap. Just tried it now and I've tried it before with the song ending(a period where like the computer is thinking) and that the start of the next track. I'll report back with cd burning but I am 99% positive I tried setting gap between tracks at 0 and I still get the same problem.

 

[socamx]

I guess it could be possible the computer is taking a split second to load the next song, my iBook takes a moment to start the next one. Might be less of an issue on faster computers but with the way iTunes is, I don't know of any solution for that.

If setting the gap to 'none' doesn't fix it, than that is seriously flawed there. Only thing I could say after that is be 100% certain that your songs don't have a pause at the beginnings or ends of them. Could be possible somehow that a split second of nothing is attached to the beginnings or ends. So just double check that just incase.

I forget, but isn't there someway to 'link' songs together in iTunes?

 

[m-dogg]

1) I know what you mean here, I guess it's never bothered me that much though.

3) I pray for gapless playback every time a new iTunes or iPod update gets released. I find this VERY annoying!

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Hello everyone, over the two years that I have been using a Mac I have stumbled across a few things that I think can all be remidied I just have no idea of how. To get on with things I'll just list what they are and hopefully someone can fire back with simple fixes. I am sure one of these has been addressed in a thread before. But after stumbling across a bunch of safari and itunes threads none have anwsered my questions well.

1. First and foremost is a problem I have been having with Safari bookmarks. Upon opening up the safari bookmark pages(clicking on the open book in the top left of the page) and shifting pages around the speed at which you move an item and drop it to a different section makes a folder open up. I realize that is a extremely difficult explanation but I can't really describe it. As soon as I try to move bookmarks that are not part of a folder as I slide them up or down in the list, the drop down menu for a different folder pops open and forces you to put the bookmarks into it. I have tried to arrange the folders I use the most at the top(so they appear on the left side of my bookmarks bar) but every time I do so another folder quickly pops open and I end up dropping a folder within a folder. I hope someone else has ran into this problem because my description is obviously pretty vague. I'm looking for a fix that allows you to drag and drop individual bookmarks and folders to wherever you want with out having to be as quick as hell in finding the sweet-spot in between folders and dropping it before the folder above it pops open.
<snip>

I have had this exact problem, like you have, and I agree, the default behavior isn't very intuitive. The solution listed previously does work - it is what I use. I do wish the sensitivity was tweaked so it's easier to make sure things end up where you want them to go. I also have the annoying problem of not being able to predict where a new bookmark folder will end up when I create one, as well as an inability to move a bookmark from a subfolder of one group to a subfolder of another group in one step. Anyone have advice for me on these related issues?

 

[kretzy]

Setting crossfade to zero still makes a gap. Just tried it now and I've tried it before with the song ending(a period where like the computer is thinking) and that the start of the next track. I'll report back with cd burning but I am 99% positive I tried setting gap between tracks at 0 and I still get the same problem.

The gap setting is for when you are actually burning cds not for when listening/impoting in iTunes (I think).

 

[JonD25]

About the iTunes issue, I could be wrong about this, but are you importing as mp3 or AAC files? Ever since I started using AAC and set the crossfade to 0, I've gotten seemless playback. I think mp3's add a small bit of space at the end. AAC files are better than mp3's anyways, so try using them if you're not.

 

[student_trap]

3. i think that you can copy CD's in toast without the gap between songs

 

[sunfast]

3) I pray for gapless playback every time a new iTunes or iPod update gets released. I find this VERY annoying!

As do I! Maybe one day we will be lucky.

 

[m-dogg]

3. i think that you can copy CD's in toast without the gap between songs

You can burn them to CD directly in iTunes without a gap as well.

But I have all 42 GB of my music ripped into iTunes and on my iPod. Why would I want to burn it back onto a CD? I'd just take my original CD if I wanted to do that! And that would defeat the whole purpose of having an iPod...

 

[khammack]

3. I gave up on this, but I really find this non-feature of iTunes annoying as well. Where is the petition to Apple for gapless playback on iPod/iTunes? I'm ready to sign it.

About the iTunes issue, I could be wrong about this, but are you importing as mp3 or AAC files? Ever since I started using AAC and set the crossfade to 0, I've gotten seemless playback.

I get gaps using either one. Are you sure you didn't change some other setting as well? I also have crossfade set to zero, and on tracks that don't have silence in between them there is a clearly perceptible (~300-500ms) audio dropout between tracks.

From a technical perspective, file format has nothing at all to do with gapless playback. At least it shouldn't---if it does it's still iTune's fault, and has nothing to do with mp3s. The audio is stored on MP3 format on your hard drive, but it gets decompressed by a codec in RAM before it is sent to your sound card. From there you can do what you want with the raw audio in software--it's all uncompressed audio before it goes to the sound card, regardless of what file format it is in on the disk.

Not to pick on anyone--I'm only flogging this because you're not the first person to suggest that file format is related to gapless playback. Apple may well have a reasonable excuse as to why they haven't fixed this annoyance, but file format is not an excuse. If it were, that would not speak well of Apple's implementation!

I think mp3's add a small bit of space at the end. AAC files are better than mp3's anyways, so try using them if you're not.

Personally, I think mp3s are better. Who cares about a few MB of disk space? I hate the DRM in AAC and refuse to use it. I hate it because it's not portable to anything but apple and PCs, I hate it because Apple gets to tell me how many devices I can "authorize" to use it, which also makes it inconvient.

I still love Apple though.

-kev

 

[Applespider]

I hate the DRM in AAC and refuse to use it. I hate it because it's not portable to anything but apple and PCs,

There is no DRM in AACs that you rip; only in Protected AACs that you download from the ITMS that have the Fairplay. It's a standard file format that more manufacturers are supporting. My Sony phone happily plays my ripped AACs.

 

[hob]

I hooked up my PSP to my Powerbook, put a few tracks on, played them back through my speakers, and realised something was wrong - there was no annoying gap between songs! This is noticeable on about 99% of albums that I have (Radiohead, QOTSA, Massive Attack, Pink Floyd etc.) - and I WOULD like to listen to an entire album on iTunes/iPod - but they have a gap between them.

It's a flaw with Apple - and one that they seem to have ignored for close to 5 years! I have a G5 PowerMac as well, so I can tell you it's not an issue with processing speed! (indeed, why would it also show up on the iPod?)

Hob

 

[khammack]

There is no DRM in AACs that you rip; only in Protected AACs that you download from the ITMS that have the Fairplay. It's a standard file format that more manufacturers are supporting. My Sony phone happily plays my ripped AACs.

Hmm. I know I've had trouble with this, but it was a year ago so I don't remember the details. I recall that I was asked to authorized someone else's computer, and I don't buy music online, I rip it all myself from CDs. I'll have to withdraw my claim until I try this again.

Since my wife has a Mac now, I'll just copy one of my old AAC encoded files to it and give it a whirl.

-kev

 

[JonD25]

This is odd because if I set the crossfade to 0, I have absolutely no gap. I'm listening to Frances The Mute by The Mars Volta, and every track transitions seamlessly. There has to be something else besides iTunes that's putting the gap in it if you have the crossfade set to 0. It should have no gap by default, I agree, but at least there's a fix.

My iPod is different. There's definitly a gap. That's something I really wish wasn't there. Obviously it isn't a problem with the hardware, so Apple really should release a software fix. I would think they'd be aware of such a huge gripe among iPod users.

 

[MUCKYFINGERS]

Noobody ever said OS X was perfect..

 

[khammack]

This is odd because if I set the crossfade to 0, I have absolutely no gap. I'm listening to Frances The Mute by The Mars Volta, and every track transitions seamlessly. There has to be something else besides iTunes that's putting the gap in it if you have the crossfade set to 0. It should have no gap by default, I agree, but at least there's a fix.

My test CD is Digweed/Bedrock. I previously had "Crossfade" unchecked, and with that there is a slight gap. So I checked the box and set the gap to zero. After that there is no gap, instead the last track is crammed into the current one, which is just as annoying (worse, actually). It's definitely different than when I listen to the CD itself.

Is there anything else I might be missing?

-kev