iTunes Mini Player
When Apple introduced iTunes 9, they removed a feature that was very convenient to me. The green “zoom” button toggled the player into the mini player. In iTunes 9, the zoom button just changes the size of the main iTunes window.
Apparently, this change was made to make the zoom button be uniform with all other applications in OS X. I really wouldn’t know, because I don’t use the zoom button in any other application.
Since Apple changed the zoom button function in iTunes 9, I’ve really been thrown off my workflow. I was getting constantly annoyed. I would click on the zoom button and expect the mini player to show up. It didn’t.
Well, not anymore. I wrote up a little application that “reverts” the zoom button back to how it worked in iTunes 8. It is certainly not the most elegant solution, as I am no Cocoa expert by any means, but it works. I call the app “iTunes Mini Player” just because I didn’t have anything better to call it.
I’m still putting a couple finishing touches on the application, and then I’ll upload it for anyone to download and use.
I’m not responsible for how this app is used, not if the app causes any damage at all. Use the app at your own risk. I have only tested the app on Snow Leopard 10.6.1. I have no idea if it will work in Leopard or not. I know it will NOT work in Tiger. Hopefully Apple will change the zoom button to toggle the mini player again and this app can live a short life.
Stay tuned for the download link.
It’s pretty simple to use. Just run the app and it will run in the background listening for iTunes to “zoom” then it will toggle the mini player automatically.
This application is for OS X 10.5 or higher. It has only been tested on 10.6.1.
Download iTunes Mini Player
Hey Brad, Thanks for making this available!
I am an aspiring programmer and I am so curious how you were able to do this. Can you please post the source or email it to me? If you do, thanks! If you don’t, thanks for at least making this!
I only program as a hobby, and I’m not very experienced. I was able to figure this out in a few hours. I’m planning on making the source available in the future though.
But for now, I can point you towards the Scripting Bridge interface in Cocoa. Using this and F-Script, I was able to come up with the hack through trial and error. Hopefully that can give you a head start.
Hi Again Brad,
I don’t program at all, so the source code doesn’t really help me. Here’s my experience with the patch you wrote.
It kinda works in Leopard. When iTunes is in the non-mini player window and you click the green button, it doesn’t go directly to the mini player window. First, it momentarily moves the window to the “full screen” view, then pops into the mini player. It happens quickly, taking less than a second to get to the mini-player, but you can see it go from the regular window to “full-screen” to the mini-player.
When it’s in mini player, if you click on the green button, instead of going to the normal window, it pops to the “full-screen” position. I have the “full-screen” in quotes, because it doesn’t really fill the screen, it makes the window large enough to almost fill the screen, but leaves a border of about an inch on each side of the window. I tried resizing the window to the upper right hand corner and the size I want, but when I hit the green button, it still does the same thing: it jumps to the “full-screen” window, then immediately to the mini player. Again, when I click the green button in the mini player, it pops to “full screen” position again.
I also noticed that iTunes is hogging my CPU (thanks to iStatMenu). I quit iTunes, but the CPU hogging was still going on, this time by something called “syslogd” and then I noticed that iTunes and iTunes mini are still showing up in the iStatMenu list of programs using the CPU, several minutes after I quit (cmd-q) iTunes!
Looks like I’ll have to re-install either iTunes 8 or 9. Let me know your thoughts. I’ve been putting off getting Snow Leopard, but now maybe this will be my motivation.
Thanks for your efforts, though! Let me know your thought if you have time.
Bill
Bill,
What you described with the “full-screen mode” is expected with my tool.
Basically, all my tool does is asks iTunes every 100ms if it has gone into “full screen” mode. When iTunes says “yes, I am” then my tool attempts to make iTunes be in the “non fullscreen mode” then tells the mini player to show up.
So my tool asks “iTunes, are you zoomed?” (zoomed is the technical term for the “fullscreen mode.” iTunes will respond with “yes” if you click the green button. Then my tool attempts to say “iTunes, you should not be zoomed anymore” but iTunes doesn’t respond to this command (But it WILL respond to “iTunes, you should zoom now” oddly enough).
The behavior you described in Leopard happens in Snow Leopard as well. Like I said, the solution isn’t very elegant
. But it does work, you just have to get your “fullscreen mode” to a manageable size. I would try quitting my tool, then make iTunes go into “full screen” mode and resize the window that way. Then start my tool back up and maybe it won’t be so bad.
So I wouldn’t upgrade to Snow Leopard just for my tool, it sounds like it works on your system as it does on mine. You should upgrade when you are ready to do so.
But if you do think you’re ready, make sure you update iStat Menus to version 2.0. iStatMenus only works on Snow Leopard if it is version 2.0 or higher.
Hope this helps and I apologize my tool doesn’t work exactly as I wanted it to. I spent about eight hours testing and making this tool work as is and I think it works well enough. Hopefully Apple will fix the problem in the next version of iTunes and we won’t have to worry about this thing.
Brad
Thanks!!!!!! I am using 10.5.8 and it works great! Thanks again.
One question, does your mini player stay forward in front of everything or will your mini player go to the back?
iTunes Mini Player is just the name of my app, it really isn’t a mini player at all. I just couldn’t think of anything better to call it. The mini player you see is iTunes. My app just toggles the mini player inside iTunes when you click the green zoom button.
Hi Brad, never mind it was was my fault. Before I found your app, I was dinking with the advanced pref’s and clicked on “Keep mini player in front”. Hey thanks again, love the app!
Chris