heads up preview for iTunes
When I'm listening to music I like to know what tracks are queued up. Call me a control freak.
One doesn't normally have enough screen space to leave iTunes visible though, so I figured what I wanted was a heads up style panel, floating above all other applications, showing the current and upcoming songs. Something like the image on the right:
Surprisingly, no such app existed. There are many heads up controllers (which I don't need since I control tracks and level from my Apple bluetooth keyboard media function keys), or artwork viewers that display the current track only. There was no alternative but to suspend my study plan for an evening and write my own.
The result is heads up 'tunes. It's lightweight, nothing fancy (although I will add animation to it one day). You can download the current version at the software home page:
http://mark.aufflick.com/software/heads-up-tunes/
Here's the blurb from the about box:
This is a preliminary version of heads up 'tunes.Pretty much all this program does is display the current and next two iTunes™ tracks in a "heads up" style window. It works fine with genius and party shuffle as well as manual and smart playlists. Results will be disappointing when using regular shuffle mode since it is not possible to determine what track will come next.
Please visit http://mark.aufflick.com/software/heads-up-tunes for future releases.
Please email any bug reports to mark@aufflick.com.
© Copyright 2008 Mark Aufflick. This software is free for you to use. No warranty is provided with this software except that which cannot be excluded by such disclaimers. This is free pre-release software - use at your own risk :) iTunes™ is a Trade Mark of Apple.
Oh, and it also sets its dock icon to the current track artwork. It's a Universal binary and has been tested on PPC (by me) and Intel (by Matt B and DB). Enjoy!
04:01 PM, 25 Oct 2008 by Mark Aufflick Permalink | Short Link
Bah - dashboard widgets
Thanks for the report Matt.
I never use the dashboard. From what I know the API is entirely different (dashboard applets are basically like writing a mini web page) so no dice there.
For spaces, if you want it on every space, just go to the spaces preference pane (in System Preferences) and add an "Application Assignment" to assign HeadsUpTunes to "Every Space".
Exposé - it's implemented as a heads up panel which, like toolbars, don't appear en exposé. I suspect I'd have to write my own NSWindow subclass to change that which seems like lot of work for a minor benefit.
by Mark Aufflick on 10/26/08
I am grateful for this app
I have been getting into classical music lately and wanted to start memorizing the names of all the many songs I have. One way I thought of doing this would be to have a heads up display. I did a search and found your app! Well done! Feature request: Could there please be an option to have the heads up display pop up in much larger text in the center of the screen each time the song changes in iTunes? Similar to the way that the little volume/screen light/keyboard light levels pop up when you press one of the function key to adjust them. Thanks for this great invention.
by Unregistered Visitor on 12/28/09
Nice use!
That's a great use - I never thought of that. I only listen to classical on my excellent Tivoli Audio clock radio in the mornings and I admit to recognising nothing except Vivaldi Four Seasons, perhaps I should do this myself! As for the popup - that should be quite easy using Growl, I'll take a look when I get a chance (although I do have a few Perl modules and other projects that are in the queue :)
by Mark Aufflick on 01/03/10
thanks for the reply
It's the classical music guy again. You rule. and so does Vivaldi. I have a page at http://www.avlglh.com and I am gonna add your link to it right now. Just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to reply to the feature request about the big-middle-of-the-screen-momentary-display-thing. Your app has a fan in Jersey, USA. ;) Peace.
by Unregistered Visitor on 01/17/10
Nice
Works fine for me on my MacbookPro with iTunes 8.0.1 on MacOSX 10.5.5. (and when I say "fine" I'm assuming that not working with Exposé and Spaces is "by design" :oP ) oh, and I don't suppose the Apple dev tools have a 'right-click save as dashboard widget' option?? Cheers, Matt :o)>
by Unregistered Visitor on 10/26/08