I mentioned recently how handy it can be to create complex “Smart Playlists” in iTunes. Suppose you want to make a smart play list like this one:
It says the songs in this new playlist have to be “My Non Dogs.” (My Non-dogs is another playlist that includes songs that are either unrated or rated 3 stars or above.) But besides not being dogs, this playlist’s songs also need to be performed either by David Byrne or by the Talking Heads. In other words, iTunes gives us a friendly way to construct a query using boolean algebra.
Prior to iTunes 10.4, that was easy enough. There were little buttons at the end of the pane. A ‘-‘ button deletes the rule; a ‘+’ button adds a new rule; a ‘…’ button makes a rule with multiple conditions, as above:
The problem is that iTunes 10.4 got rid of the ‘…’ buttons:
Smart playlists can still use boolean algebra: all my old lists still work. The only problem is trying to make a new one. How do you push a button that’s not there?
The answer is to hold down the option key. Then the ‘+’ buttons become ‘…’ buttons:
I should point out that taking a screenshot is a lot more difficult when you’re holding the option key. The only way I could figure out to do it was by doing a “Timed Screen Grab” using the Grab utility:
