Using iTunes as your media player?

timeshifter · 06-25-2007, 02:50 PM

How do you guys use iTunes as your music player? If I run it in it's normal mode won't everything be too small on a 7" screen? I know I'll turn off the mini store and other unnecessary options. Is there some mode or way of making things bigger / easier to see?

I know that using Front Row gives a whole new look and so forth. But, that's not readily touch-screen compatible.

Jirka Jirout · 06-25-2007, 03:28 PM

iTunes with its native GUI is in my opinion unusable on a 7" LCD. The only reasonable way is by using custom GUI, that you can easily build using AppleScript + Facespan (probably RB and other tools as well).

natedawgg · 06-25-2007, 04:15 PM

i use itunes for my audio player and it works fine. you really cant see easily the names of the songs, but that doesnt matter to me. i just use the coverflow to be able to see all the album art and then just use a rotary control to scroll through the albums. works for me.

jirka, where would you get these programs to create a custum gui? i would be interested in working on something like that

iamgnat · 06-25-2007, 05:05 PM

I have to agree with Jirka. I use it in a pinch when I either want to use my iPod or my UI of choice isn't playing nice, but doing anything more than hitting the play/pause button is asking for an accident while moving

Quote: Originally Posted by natedawgg

jirka, where would you get these programs to create a custum gui? i would be interested in working on something like that

Don't know what RB or Facespan are, but XCode and Interface Builder will let you build apps that use AS for the code rather than Objective-C. I believe that is how BugByte was writing Harmony.

-dave

Edit: Ok I just just looked at Facespan's website site and all I can say is, huh? It looks like it does the exact same thing that XCode and IB do, but they want you to pay for it? They don't really make any advantages (over XCode & IB, if there are any) stand out either. Jirka, can you enlighten us?

Jirka Jirout · 06-26-2007, 02:03 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by iamgnat

Edit: Ok I just just looked at Facespan's website site and all I can say is, huh? It looks like it does the exact same thing that XCode and IB do, but they want you to pay for it? They don't really make any advantages (over XCode & IB, if there are any) stand out either. Jirka, can you enlighten us?

Well, it is true, that with A-S-S/Xcode, the advantages of FaceSpan are not as great as they used to be (I wrote quite a few rather large apps in it back in OS 9 days).

FaceSpan gives you the "form-based" approach, similar to for example Delphi, which is usually easier and faster to learn than Xcode/Interface builder with its rather strict separation of GUI and code and emphasis on the MVC. Although I do not like the form-based approach, it is in my opinion more in line with the idea of AppleScript as an easy language for the "common people".

A-S-S/Xcode is overkill for someone who just wants to make an easy thing like a window with a few buttons to control iTunes. If this is all you need, I do not see a reason you should have to learn about interface builder and project management within Xcode. Just drop a few buttons on a form, double click them, enter the few lines of code needed and you are done. Ugly, primitive, but sometimes efficient.

natedawgg · 06-27-2007, 10:34 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by Jirka Jirout

Well, it is true, that with A-S-S/Xcode, the advantages of FaceSpan are not as great as they used to be (I wrote quite a few rather large apps in it back in OS 9 days).

FaceSpan gives you the "form-based" approach, similar to for example Delphi, which is usually easier and faster to learn than Xcode/Interface builder with its rather strict separation of GUI and code and emphasis on the MVC. Although I do not like the form-based approach, it is in my opinion more in line with the idea of AppleScript as an easy language for the "common people".

A-S-S/Xcode is overkill for someone who just wants to make an easy thing like a window with a few buttons to control iTunes. If this is all you need, I do not see a reason you should have to learn about interface builder and project management within Xcode. Just drop a few buttons on a form, double click them, enter the few lines of code needed and you are done. Ugly, primitive, but sometimes efficient.

sounds a lot like visual studio for windows