Filed under: Audio, Software, Cool tools
GrowlTunes
After installing Growl 0.7 yesterday, I decided to install GrowlTunes as well, just to see what it is like. You'll find GrowlTunes inside the Extras folder on the Growl 0.7 disk image. Simply drag GrowlTunes to your Applications folder to install. Launching GrowlTunes registers it with Growl and places a small GrowlTunes icon in your menu-bar. My first impressions: really cool. In the Growl control panel in System Preferences, I clicked on the Applications tab and selected GrowlTunes from the list. I then changed the Display settings for Changed Tracks and Started Playing to Music Video. Now a small bar pops up at the bottom of my screen with all the info about the current track whenever it starts playing (see the pic at the end of this post).
Even better, the menu-bar GrowlTunes interface lets me start iTunes, rate the current track on the fly, and browse through recently played tracks. Pretty sweet. Check it out.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Gerald Buckley said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
I recognize QuickSilver in your menu-bar... what's the green do-hicky and the infinity thingy next to it? Curious people want to know...
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janeiro said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
I love the Music Video style for Growl. Unfortunately, GrowlMail seems to still not work for me in Tiger with Growl 0.7, anyone have luck with it?
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tom said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
I second that Music Video style for Growl is great thing. The bezel (i think thats what its called) always covers too many things that im working on and those others like smoke i never notice cause they are way up in the corner of my screen. Music Video style definitely gets the job done right.
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ScottBruin said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
I gotta say I prefer a free program called Sizzling Keys.
It has similar functionality to Growl in that it shows what song is currently playing but it also lets you control iTunes from your computer w/o switching to it.
Paired with an Airport Express across the room, I can switch tracks and control the volume easily.
http://yellowmug.com/sk4it/
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C.K. Sample, III said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
Janeiro, make sure you follow the instructions in the read me file for the new version as there are new Tiger-specific Terminal bits you need to execute to get it working. It's working great for me.
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oliver said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
I use sizzling keys too. I love it!
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Chris said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
If you're using Quicksilver already why not just let that handle the notification rather than running yet another program? Also, if you're looking for on the fly iTunes ratings I highly suggest iTunesRating.
http://www.stolaf.edu/people/handley/projects/itunesrating.html
I like it because it just pops all 5 stars in the menubar and you just click once. No need for clumsy dropdown menus.
One caveat though about using QS to handle iTunes notifications is that it doesn't show star ratings. There was a big request for this but it seems to have stalled. Either way iTunesRating shows the rating in the menubar anyway.
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Small Paul said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
But it puts more clutter in my menu bar! I refuse! I got too much in theres anyway.
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tom said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
ScottBruin: Growl is a notification system (it is free also, btw) not an iTunes controller. GrowliTunes is an iTunes controller that happens to use Growl to display notifications about what song is playing. You can use Quicksilver (free as well) to control iTunes.
Chris: I use Quicksilver right now with the iTunes plugin to control iTunes and display notifications, but GrowliTunes goes to the web and grabs album art, which is a really neat feature that the iTunes plugin for Quicksilver doesn't support. If you use GrowliTunes for iTunes notifications, you could still use Quicksilver to control iTunes and just not have it display notifications.
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ScottBruin said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
Tom--
I know what Growl is, thank you, since I use it with Adium.
Does GrowliTunes allow you to map system-wide hot keys for controlling iTunes? That's where I feel there's a huge advantage with SizzlingKeys and it's not like it has a big RAM footprint.
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Chris said 10:55AM on 6-29-2005
GrowlTunes will not have controls. There are apps out there that do the job already. I happen to prefer x-tunes. GrowlTunes is just for monitoring iTunes, nothing else.
You can disable the menu item. Please search on the Growl forums for how to do this. It is a quick 1 line command in a terminal.
GrowlMail options have changed, please read the readme in order to enable it with 10.4.1.
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Karl Otto Henriksen said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
I get multiple messages!! The same messages screening twice over eachother.
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tom said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
ScottBruin: No, GrowliTunes does not map global hot keys. I use Quicksilver to control iTunes. Quicksilver's iTunes plugin is excellent. The advantage of using GrowliTunes for iTunes notifications over the Quicksilver iTunes plugin for iTunes notifications is only that GrowliTunes grabs album art and displays them in the notifications, something the iTunes plugin for Quicksilver does not do.
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tom said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
Karl Otto Henriksen: I have a feeling that the reason you are getting duplicate growl notifications on top of each other is that there are multiple GrowlHelperApp processes running concurrently. To check this, what you should do is either launch Terminal [Applications > Utilities > Terminal] and run top. When top is running, check to see if there are multiple lines that say "GrowlHelpe" under command. Or if you don't feel so comfortable with the shell, you could always run Activity Monitor [Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor]. Activity Monitor is basically just a GUI slapped on top for the most part. You can sort by process name and see if there are multiple GrowlHelperApp processes running. If so, Stop > Quit, each one. Then, open up your Growl Preference Pane [Applications > System Preferences > Growl], wait a second for the main button in the middle of the pane to refresh, if it does not refresh to say "Stop Growl", then click "Start Growl" and you should be good to go (NOTE: Growl may automatically start again, so make sure you don't launch a second Growl process when you go into the preference pane).
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