![]() But such a kludge shouldn’t be necessary.) For example, you can create a folderĪ stack, sort the stack by name, rename the folder so it sorts first, and then apply a custom icon to that folder. (There are ways to work around this issue. And the irony here is that the more you take advantage of Stacks-in other words, the more folders you place in the Dock-the more effort it takes to figure out which folder is which. ![]() In Leopard, the icons of folders in the Dock change regularly, so I can’t memorize each folder’s position by its icon I have to move the mouse cursor over each stack to view its name. To all the folders so a quick glance tells me which is which. How so? One of the bedrocks of a good interface is consistency, which helps the user develop visual and muscle memory that increase efficiency and make software easier to use. Although this approach may be useful for particular folders-for example, the Downloads folder, where the most-recently-downloaded file is often what you’re most likely to access-for many folders it’s a step back in user-interface design. Stacks’ Dock icons are inconsistent: When you place a folder in the Dock, its icon changes to reflect the “first” item in the stack depending on how you’ve opted to sort the stack display, this will be either the first item alphabetically, the first item of a particular kind of file, the most-recently-created file, or the most-recently-modified file. This is easily the most common complaint we’ve heard from readers about Stacks. A stack shows you only what’s at the top level of that folder to go any further-for example, to see what’s inside a subfolder-you must open the folder in the Finder and then browse its contents using Finder windows. For example, I have a shortcut that opens the MiniPlay app mentioned at the top, as well as shortcut links to some of my favorite playlists, including the Spotify Daily Mixes.You lose hierarchical menus: With previous versions of the Dock, right-clicking (or Control-clicking or click-holding) on a folder presented you with a fully-navigable, hierarchical menu of the folder’s contents. It’s possible to add further custom controls, too. The play/pause button on the Stream Deck changes with a thumbnail showing the album cover of the track that’s currently playing, which is a nice touch. However, they can still come in very handy when you’ve got a full-screen app open on your Mac (such as a game) and you want to control the music playing in the background. They are fairly basic controls: play/pause/back/forward/toggle shuffle plus basic volume controls. The Stream Deck has a Spotify plugin that provides a range of controls without you having to program them manually. It’s a dashboard of tactile, customizable buttons that can be used to control pretty much any app on your Mac (or Windows PC for that matter). The Elgato Stream Deck is one of my favorite pieces of kit. My Stream Deck with various Spotify shortcuts, including links to favorite playlists Barry Collins You can add songs to playlists directly from the Mini-Player, you can follow/unfollow artists, you can kickstart Spotify Radio playlists for particular artists, and you can easily access all your saved tracks, albums and playlists from the interface, complete with artwork.Īlfred has a million and one other uses, but the Spotify Mini-Player is right up there with my top reasons to install it. There are tons of power features in the Alfred Spotify Mini-Player too. ![]() Once installed, you can fire up the Alfred Spotify Mini-Player with a keyboard combo (mine is Ctrl + Command + S) and you’ve got a hugely convenient way to search for songs, albums and playlists without having to open Spotify itself, helping you to keep screen focus on what you’re doing.Īs you can see from the screenshot above, everything can be done with keyboard shortcuts, so you can quickly change song, album or playlist without having to take your fingers off the keyboard. You’ll need to be comfortable with entering Terminal commands to get this thing working, but there is a step-by-step installation guide on the link above. You’ll need the Powerpack to install the free Spotify Mini-Player workflow for Alfred. It’s a fabulously powerful app, especially when you buy the Powerpack for $42 (£34). Play songs, albums or playlists without opening the Spotify app Barry CollinsĪlfred is a well-known Mac app that could be described as Spotlight search on steroids.
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