Synergy
Posted March 31st, 2003 @ 01:41pm by Erik J. Barzeski
Back in Mac OS 8 and 9 I used something called PopupCD to control my CD player. Back before the days of widespread MP3 use, when the only audio you typically heard on your Mac was from an audio CD, a movie, or a system beep, PopupCD was a godsend. Who wanted to use Apple CD Audio Player? What a pain. You had to switch apps just to change your music?
I've avoided Synergy for awhile now on Mac OS X. I'm not sure why, but I gave it a try today and bought it nearly immediately. Like PopupCD, the best feature is the ability to control iTunes with keyboard shortcuts from anywhere. I've set cmd-opt-arrows to control ffwd/rew, volume up/down and cmd-opt-space to play/pause.
Donate Life
Posted 31 Mar 2003 at 2:31pm #
Wow--cool! This is the first shareware I've seen in a long time that really interests me! Agreed--the keyboard shortcuts are a killer app...
Posted 31 Mar 2003 at 2:32pm #
I just use the dock menu in iTunes... Quick enough. 🙂
Posted 31 Mar 2003 at 2:35pm #
My only complaint (so far) is the lack of visual feedback when you click on one of the buttons in the menu bar. I've never implemented an NSStatusItem before, so I don't know if there are constraints that prevent this from being done (I doubt it if they are able to change the play button to pause when you click it).
Posted 31 Mar 2003 at 2:38pm #
Oh. I guess it does have that option--it was just so subtle that I missed it.
Posted 31 Mar 2003 at 11:43pm #
Damn... I understand your comment above about trackbacks and I will attempt to make mine worthwhile. That said, I almost wet myself when I saw this little plug-in in action. Well, maybe it was a combination of being excited about Synergy and the oodles of Sam Adam's Spring Ale that I a friend some left-over Guinness for (which had me almost as excited as the program...). That, and the program hasn't yet broken my PB! 2 for 2 - I better go to bed before I lose it.
Posted 31 Mar 2003 at 11:55pm #
Cool Toy, Eye Candy - some Synergy for you!
I try to give credit where it is due and in this case, I was ridiculously excited about iacas at...
Posted 01 Apr 2003 at 11:57am #
Synergy is a v.cool app by itself but it's really great when you combine it with the PowerMate. I use mine with the PowerMate in "global only" mode to control iTunes volume, play/pause and previous/next track.
Posted 01 Apr 2003 at 8:16pm #
Just so you and everyone else knows, there's a freeware app called PTHiTunesNotifier that does the same thing. No bugs that I've ever seen, sits quietly in the background, nice and responsive. The only thing I can think of that people might complain about is that PTH can't display graphics in its little popup window like Synergy does.
And, PTH is free, whereas Synergy is not.
Posted 17 Apr 2003 at 4:41am #
I've tried the PTH one too, but it can't compete for features. eg. album covers, fast forward/rewind, shuffle/repeat hot keys, recent tracks, menu button spacing etc. Also it's not free: it's "donationware". I just think Syn is the better product.