Xserve on-hold phone music with netTunes

[MDLarson]

After reading through some posts here, I'm impressed at how thorough the netTunes developer is - good job.

We have an Xserve running Mac OS X Server 10.3.9. It currently hosts FileMaker as well as a single share point for basic file sharing. In the same rack, we have our phone system, and currently I have my old 10 GB iPod hooked up to it, just looping through 3 songs.

We recently purchased netTunes and a Griffin iMic; I have already setup the netTunes server, and it appears to work as advertised. The iMic will show up tomorrow and is destined to get sound out of the Xserve (it ships without an audio port).

I have to say that netTunes will not be everything that I was hoping it could be; for basic playback, it looks like a good solution. But the majority of work we will be doing is adding new files to our iTunes library, something I don't exactly have nailed down.

I'm wondering if there are any good ideas for accomplishing this task (getting the iTunes library updated). I can make the "iTunes Music" folder a network share, but when I add a song file, I can't figure out how to make netTunes / iTunes remotely recognize it.

[dnanian]

The issue here, as you might expect, is that you need to import those songs into iTunes: iTunes itself doesn't automatically add songs.

There's a command that will let you add the songs, though, by hand. Press Cmd-o, and it'll open up the panel that'll let you add to the library.

Hope that helps!

[MDLarson]

Ah, yes - I had forgotten about Command-O. I think I will simply instruct people to drop their audio files into a public folder and then use the Command-O function to let iTunes copy the file into the library.

Since netTunes strives to be a remote iTunes with no compromises, I would suggest adding menu bar options into the netTunes program that mimic many of the common iTunes menu bar options. For instance, netTunes should have a File menu that includes Add to Library…, Close Window, Get Info, etc., just like iTunes. If the keystrokes work, it would be nice to have that visual cue from the menu bar.

For the record, the iMic came today and works great. USB plug-n-play all the way and crisp sound output.

[dnanian]

Thanks for the suggestions. The problem with that is that shortcuts on the "near side" override shortcuts on the "far side". So, convincing iTunes to actually respond to the keystroke, without tying myself to something that can change, is difficult to do... but, I certainly understand the request.

(At one point, I investigated using the Accessibility APIs to replicate the exact menus on the far side, including their shortcuts. However, this was not as reliable as I'd hoped, and I abandoned the effort. Maybe I'll attack it again some day...)

[MDLarson]

Well, to round out my little setup, I realized I needed to ensure that iTunes started up with the server should the server ever need a reboot. So, I...
1) Set my account to automatically log in on startup (I don't think iTunes, much less netTunes can run as a service)
2) Created an Applescript that automatically opens iTunes and starts my On-Hold playlist (adapted from the Startup iTunes-Some Playlist (http://www.dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=startupitunessomeplaylist) script from Doug's Scripts)

Here's the script I came up with:
-- Set the playlist name
set startup_playlist to "Phone System On-Hold"

tell application "iTunes"
launch
stop
set the_playlist to user playlist startup_playlist

-- Turn shuffle off
set shuffle of the_playlist to false

-- Select playlist in iTunes
set view of front window to the_playlist

-- Start playing!
play the_playlist

-- Turn repeat on
set song repeat of current playlist to all

end tell

[dnanian]

Looks good to me!