About Iris
==========

  Iris works in conjunction with a smart remote such as the Logitech Harmony
  One which can emulate several Apple IR remotes. The basic play/pause/skip/stop
  functionality will control iTunes as normal, however, additional buttons such
  as 0..5 will rate the currently playing track and the "info" button will speak the
  current track rating.


Usage
=====

  Once your remote has been correctly configured (see Remote Setup), simply start 
  iTunes and the iris app. Anytime you want to rate a song, press 1 to 5 on your
  remote or 0 to clear the rating.

  To hear the rating for the currently playing song, press "info"

  If you do not wish the hear a confirmation of each newly set rating spoken back to you,
  uncheck the "Announce ratings" option in the status menu.


Experimental Features
=====================

  Unrated Announcement
  --------------------

  Announcement that an unrated track has just started playing can be enabled in the 
  status bar. The words "No rating" will be spoken any time a track that has either a 
  track rating of 0 or a computed track rating based on the album rating plays.
  
  This feature relies on an undocumented iTunes notification. Any future iTunes update
  may break this functionality.
  

  Delayed Ratings
  ---------------

  If you play tracks from a smart playlst that uses live updating, it's possible that
  changing the rating of a track could cause its immediate removal from the playlist even
  though the track still meets the playlists criteria.

  By enabling the "delay rating" option, the app will remember the rating you've assigned
  to the currently playing track and will apply it once a different track starts playing.

  This feature relies on an undocumented iTunes notification. Any future iTunes update
  may break this functionality.



Remote Setup
============

  For a logitech remote like the harmoney one, add a new device using
  "media center PC", plex, plex player with a suitable name e.g "Plex Mac Mini"

  Create a new activity (note some steps may differ depending on whether you
  use an AV Receiver or not):
     No - manually add an activity to my setup
     Listen to music
     Listen to Digital Music
     Leave Listen to digital music checked.
     I use my Plex Mac Mini to play digital music
     I use my AV Receiver to control the volume
       VCR/DVR (or whatever input source mac is plugged into)
     Yes these settings are correct.
     Done

  When using iTunes without this app running, you'll either need an activity
  setup to use the default apple IR settings (see logitech DB for mac mini) or
  use the dir right/left to skip and ok to play/pause.

  Running iTunes then this app should now allow both control of iTunes in a normal
  way as well as rating songs by pressing the buttons 0..5 on the remote.
 
  You may need to unpair any existing remote to allow multiple remote IDs to be
  used. However as of 10.8, even when a single remote is paired, any remote is able
  to control iTunes (bug?)

  You may also need to hit the OK button the first time the app runs before events
  will be recognised.

  This app is designed to work with the Harmoney One remote by Logitech using the
  Plex/Plex Player device and default mappings. Although other configurations may 
  work, they're unsupported. Feel free to experiment, but please don't complain if
  anything breaks.

Contact
=======

  Please report any bugs or feature suggestions to gary@mups.co.uk

  If you find this application useful, please consider making a monetary donation
  via paypal using this link.
 
  https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=MCF3ZYDGJ64EG 

  Alternatively click the "Donate" button within the application "About Iris" menu.

License
=======

  Iris Copyright 2013 Gary Preston. 

  This application also contains third party code developed by IOSpirit (www.iospirit.com) 

  Please refer to License.txt for details.

  Source code available at: https://bitbucket.org/burntwasp/iris