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Old 05-08-2006, 01:44 AM
thom thom is offline
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Join Date: May 2006
Location: Chicago, IL USA
Posts: 8
Hotkey Control of Remote machine?

Hello,

I checked out netTunes and it seems like a good enough solution to the iTunes remote control problem. I'm not sure if I agree that the answer should be 100% dependant on screen-scraping -- part of me wonders if there couldn't be some inter-application messaging between the server app and the iTunes, possibly using Apple Events / applescript? Does it do any of that right now? Just a thought. (And besides, right now I'm using Apple Remote Desktop to control it on the remote machine, which is a pain, to put it mildly.)

At the present time I'm using Sizzling Keys from Yellowmug.com to control iTunes on my local computer.

I like SizzlingKeys because it allows me to use FKeys on my powerbook to play/pause (F3), Rewind (F4), Forward (F5), Toggle Shuffle (F6) and briefly display display a 'What's playing' window with album art (F7), not to mention Volume Up/Down (Cmd-Opt-Up/Dn arrow). I should mention that the product is free, though I paid the $5 for the 'Pro' version to access features like 'toggle shuffle.' And no, I'm not a paid shill, I just like the product.

However, I have my Intel Mac mini hooked up as a home theater PC, and just moved my (external) music library to that machine so I could play it through my stereo.

Ideally, I'd love a way to easily toggle between 'local' and 'remote' control, like from a small icon in my menu bar, using the same FKeys. But, I expect that that might be pretty difficult to achieve.

As a compromise, would it be possible to add a menu to netTunes, possibly called, 'Control' that included many of these features? I think that if the commands were selectable as menu items, then the keyboard and mouse preference pane, Keyboard Shortcuts tab, could be used to assign hotkeys to those menu items. (Right?)

Patiently waiting for the Universal version -- obviously that's the priority for me, or all else is a moot point! But once that's taken care of, does this seem like a pretty reasonable request? Does it seem like it would work?
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