8. Integrate Spotify with Firefox
FoxyTunes is one of our favourite plugins. It enables you to control Spotify (and over 30 other media players on Windows) from Firefox. You can also search for information on the current track direct from your browser. Combine it with Spotify Search for a complete search and playback solution in your browser.
FIREFOX ONLY: Though available in versions for Firefox and Internet Explorer, Spotify support is currently exclusive to Mozilla's browser
9. Keyboard navigation
Use keyboard shortcuts to navigate faster in Spotify; tab to move through columns, use up and down arrows to select tracks or move through tracks or playlists, hit enter to play. The Spacebar toggles pause on and off. When you're playing a tune, CTRL and right skips to the next in the list, while ALT and left or right goes back and forward through pages.
10. Volume control
Hold CTRL and hit the up or down arrow on your keyboard to change Spotify's volume. To mute playback, hit CTRL SHIFT and down - but note that adverts pause when you do that. You'll have to pay for a premium account to be rid of ads or try the rather convoluted solution blogging software developer Peter MacRobert used to auto-mute Spotify ads on his Mac.
11. Playlist privacy
By default, the new social features in Spotify make all your playlists public. Even the ones full of 80s power ballads. Prevent poor-taste embarrassment by clicking your own name in the "People" column - then click "Edit". You toggle whether a playlist is published on or off; green for yes, grey for no. While you're there, untick the box labeled "Automatically publish new playlists I create".
You can also right-click on a playlist in the column on the left and tick or untick "Publish" in the context sensitive menu.
SHARE VIEW: You can choose which playlist you'd like to display on your public profile, and turn off your top tunes, too
12. Clean up your tunes
Like iTunes, Spotify now uses the Gracenote database to maintain and clean-up information stored in local tracks. You can enable this by default when you first import local tunes into your library, or you can do it manually, if you spot a problem. Go to "Library > Local" in your user panel on the left, right click on the track that needs fixing and choose "Update info from Gracenote".
13. View other profiles
Facebook friends who enable Spotify's social features are automatically added to your people list. You can view any Spotify user who has enabled the new social features, whether you're their facebook friend or not though. If you know the username, type "spotify:user:<username>" in the search box. If you're subscribed to a playlist published by someone else, you can navigate to their profile just by clicking on their username. In either case, you can then add them to your people list, by clicking the "Add <username>" button.
FIND FRIENDS: If you know a Spotify user's name - and they've enabled its new social features - you can check out their profiles and add them to your people list
14. Prevent track spam
Anyone with a Spotify account can now send tracks to your inbox. It's as easy as dragging a track to a profile in the people column. What if someone you don't know starts spamming you with Hall and Oates tunes? Easy. You block them. Right-click their name in the "From" field and choose "Block from Inbox".
15. Share a playlist
You can drag and drop individual tracks to friends in the people list column or you can send tracks to them by right clicking and choosing "Send to > Spotify People > <username>". You can't do the same with playlists though. There are a few workarounds. Firstly, you can drag and drop a playlist URL to your instant messenger or email client and send it the old fashioned way. Secondly, you can right-click on a playlist and publish the link to Facebook or Twitter. Thirdly, and most clumsily, you can select all the tracks in a playlist and send them to a friend by right clicking and choosing ""Send to > Spotify People > username" - but that sends the tracks only, they won't be subscribed to the actual playlist.
SHARED PLAYLIST: For now, you can post playlist links to Facebook or Twitter but you can't send them to your friend's Spotify inbox
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Liked this? Then check out Spotify could be Android's killer app
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