Controling iTunes from your desktop...

is there any thing like tune bar were u can control your itunes songs from your desk top e.g. change song with out opening the itunes window?
sorry this may be very simple.

You have a widget for your dashboard. It's called iTunes. open your dashboard, and click the "plus" sign at the bottom left corner. Browse through the "add widget" bar (there should be two pages) and find a widget called iTunes. when you select it, an iTunes control panel will appear, and you can drag it around wherever you like. iTunes has to be open, of course, to use it.

You need ByteController. It puts this in your menu bar:



It also gives you the option to use keyboard shortcuts. I have mine set to skip tracks and play/pause with Ctrl+Alt+arrow keys. Very convenient not to have to open up iTunes just to skip a song or stop the music.

You could also just press the green "+" button at the top left of the iTunes screen to make a smaller control space for the music playing. You might be interested in CoverSutra as well.

ive tried 2 so far.. Synergy is by far the best i think for the looks and usability.

it has a menu bar for prev track/ play-pause /next track
it also has an overlay on the bottom corner to display the current album art and track info. it fades away and fades back in when the track changes.
you get to set hot keys for a lot of controls including what i like the most, controlling the itunes volume control and not just the computers vol. you can also view the overlay and hide it with a hot key and also show and hide itunes.

downside: you must pay for a full version but you can download a 7-day limitless trial

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you control: tunes is the controller im using now. great thing about this is that its completely free. you still get the same type of functions as synergy however you dont get the hot keys. you do however can customize the overlay to display any information youd like and in whatever combination and placement.

Hello!

I'm trying CoverSutra as well and it's very good so far. You shoud have a try.

Why not just use the play/pause, forward, and back buttons on your mac's keyboard?

Kash said:

You need ByteController. It puts this in your menu bar:

It also gives you the option to use keyboard shortcuts. I have mine set to skip tracks and play/pause with Ctrl+Alt+arrow keys. Very convenient not to have to open up iTunes just to skip a song or stop the music.

Click to expand...

I need something like this. Thanks for the link... i'm tired of opening iTunes and slowing down other programs any time i want to switch songs.

similar to CoverSutra is "You Control Tunes". It puts a 4-button control bar on your menubar (play/pause, next + previous track and one more to open more options) .... but its best feature is that its free!! similar to Coversutra again is that it also displays the album artwork for a song when it starts playing, so you're never surprised as to whats about to come out of your speakers.lol

http://www.yousoftware.com/tunes/

Simms said:

Why not just use the play/pause, forward, and back buttons on your mac's keyboard?

Click to expand...

lol, thats what i was thinking. I used those all the time till i got my Apple Remote

cuhnool said:

lol, thats what i was thinking. I used those all the time till i got my Apple Remote

Click to expand...

it's only the newer model of macbooks (released february i think) that have those buttons on the keyboard..... and the majority of people on this site, like myself, bought their macbook before that....so no cool itunes buttons unfortunately

lukenn77 said:

it's only the newer model of macbooks (released february i think) that have those buttons on the keyboard..... and the majority of people on this site, like myself, bought their macbook before that....so no cool itunes buttons unfortunately

Click to expand...

oh well now i see where software like that becomes useful!

I was thinking just minimize your iTunes and so it right there
to flick songs.

On the new keyboard they moved the mute, volume up and volume down buttons, which is fine, but with the added track forward, track back taking up f7 and f6, how do I turn those off? I use f7 in Quark to turn on and off guides, but I can't do that now. Any ideas?