Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

cruciarius · May 19, 2005, 12:47 PM

ok so i think the majority of people who post in the screenshots section have/use/know of the various itunes controllers.

i currently use M-Beat. i used to use Bytecontroller, but it wasn't that easy to quit or access the menu for it. i just looked at synergy and though, i don't care for it, i do love some of the themes for it. is their anyway to get these for M-Beat or even Bytecontroller? i keep trying to make a new theme in M-Beat, but each time i choose part of a synergy skin (both use .png images, i think), M-Beat crashes. i'd try bringing the skin into Bytecontroller, but the download links for it aren't working on macupdate.com.

the theme i'm trying to get is Trib. it looks like tribal art. it's downloadable from synergies site, which is how i got the graphics to try making it into a M-Beat theme.

anyone know of a way to make it (or any skin) for any of the other itunes controllers?

themarvelous3 · May 19, 2005, 04:37 PM

what's wrong with Synergy? always worked well for me.

cruciarius · May 19, 2005, 05:12 PM

nothing is "wrong" with it. it just seems to be more than what i want in a controller. simple play/pause, back and forward are fine. i looked at synergy and didn't see a way to turn off getting the album art (i already have a widget doing that for me). it just seemed...too beefy, to me. maybe i'll give it another look and actually try it out. how long is the demo period good for? or does the demo just not let you do everything?

Stuphalina · May 19, 2005, 05:19 PM

Butler can do all that and a bag of chips, for free!

cruciarius · May 19, 2005, 05:46 PM

i just tried out butler and wow...wish i never did.

anything that has a longer loading time than adobe photoshop, needs to be VERY good. i'm sure butler is nice and all, but setting it up looked far to difficult and confusing. seeing tons of icons with drop arrows and large paragraphs with explanations isn't really worth it, IMO. i got a headache from just looking at it.

themarvelous3 · May 19, 2005, 06:03 PM

Originally Posted by cruciarius

i just tried out butler and wow...wish i never did.

anything that has a longer loading time than adobe photoshop, needs to be VERY good. i'm sure butler is nice and all, but setting it up looked far to difficult and confusing. seeing tons of icons with drop arrows and large paragraphs with explanations isn't really worth it, IMO. i got a headache from just looking at it.

i agree. i dont know how long the trial is. i bought it so long ago, i dont even remember what it cost! i just know i like it : ) i'm pretty sure you can turn off the cover art though...i'd have to check

JazzCatDRP · May 27, 2005, 09:44 PM

I use You Control: iTunes. The iTunes portion of it is free, and it's great...a lot like synergy.

MacMan4000 · May 28, 2005, 12:22 AM

Originally Posted by cruciarius

nothing is "wrong" with it. it just seems to be more than what i want in a controller. simple play/pause, back and forward are fine. i looked at synergy and didn't see a way to turn off getting the album art...

Thats easy...

ZXspectrum · May 28, 2005, 01:29 AM

M-Beat has some memory leaks under 10.4

Randman · May 28, 2005, 05:40 AM

I prefer to use a widget to control iTunes.

ZXspectrum · May 28, 2005, 05:53 AM

synergy is very elegant and simple to use. i like it

cruciarius · May 28, 2005, 10:33 AM

i've used Synergy, M-Beat, ByteController, Konfabulator widgets and out of those, ByteController and the widgets are the worst.

ByteController, i had problems with getting to its prefs.
konfabulator widgets, i found myself having to move windows are, just to access them.

Synergy and M-Beat seem to be the best.

cgc · May 28, 2005, 11:12 AM

Bytecontroller really doesn't have much in the way of preferences. I remember being able to change buttons and its behavior (e.g. appear only when itunes is on or all the time).

Ji Eun · May 29, 2005, 09:23 AM

tried them all, but synergy is the best itunes menubar remote. lowest resource usage, does what it's meant to do extremely well.
since i don't care about album art and eyecandy UI feedback i've had ZERO graphical interaction with it outside of the menubar, and it has performed flawlessly. the hotkeys, too. 5 stars.