Assign Shortcut Keys to iTunes AppleScripts

(If you don't want to do-it-yourself, FastScripts from Red Sweater Software provides the ability to quickly and simply add shortcuts to AppleScripts.)

Step 1: Set Up Your System Preferences

Note: This will only work with scripts that have been installed in your [username]/Library/iTunes/Scripts or [startupdisk]/Library/iTunes/Scripts folder.

Quit iTunes. You can't attach a keyboard shortcut to an application if it is running.

Open your System Preferences and click on "Keyboard" ("Keyboard & Mouse" for pre-Snow Leopard) in the Hardware row. Click on the "Keyboard Shortcuts" tab.

Click on the "+" button to add a new shortcut. In the Application pop-up of the window that appears, select iTunes. Beneath this pop-up in the Menu Title field enter the name of the AppleScript in iTunes Scripts Menu to which you want to assign a keyboard shortcut. Better write it down before you quit iTunes because spelling counts! In the Keyboard Shortcut field press the combination of keys you want to use for the shortcut.


Setting the shortcuts for the Pretend We Played This script in Snow Leopard's System Preferences. The key combination I pressed is Shift-Command-X.

(This screenshot is from OS 10.5.)



Close System Preferences.

The next time you start iTunes, look in its Scripts Menu. The shortcut you assigned will be displayed adjacent to the name of the Script you assigned it to, just like a "real" menu shortcut! That's because it is a real menu shortcut.

For more details, search your Mac Help for "Setting custom keyboard shortcuts for applications".

OF COURSE, you can also assign keyboard shortcuts for iTunes' menu commands that don't already have a shortcut, such as "Check for Purchases...", "Export...", "Check for Updates...", and so on.

ALSO, I have written a script, Script Shortcut Maker, that is essentially a fancy AppleScript wrapper for some shell defaults commands that assign the keyboard combinations to your scripts directly to iTunes' preferences .plist. You can read more about these commands here.

Step 2: OK. Now What?

Here's how I set up some of my scripts:

• Batch-Delete Playlists - Shift-Command-D
• Make Bookmarkable - Control-Command-B
• Export Smart Playlist Criteria - Shift-Command-E
• CDDB Safari - Shift-Command-S
• Google Lyric Search - Shift-Command-G
• Quick Convert - Shift-Command-Q
• Pretend We Played This - Shift-Command-X
• Search Wikipedia - Control-Command-W
• time + space - Shift-Command-T
•    

If you assign a keyboard shortcut which iTunes is already using, you may get mixed results. For example, I assigned Shift-Command-A to a script and iTunes' "Select None" shortcut was disabled (the menu command still worked). But it wouldn't let me assign Command-A, the universal "Select All" shortcut. It also knows what keys you have assigned already, and it will warn you if you try to enter a duplicate shortcut.

As far as using the F keys: I could only get combinations that included Command to work. No problem, though. There are still hundreds of key combinations available.

Sometimes I had to quit and re-start iTunes a second time before the shortcut "took". Maybe that's just my system.

Check out theMissing Menu Commands page for some mini-scripts that work great with shortcuts.