iTunes mode for Emacs

• iTunes mode
• Download and install
• Usage
• Misc.

iTunes mode

This is a program for controlling iTunes for Windows from Emacs. For Emacs junkie :-)

Screenshots

• No.1,
• No.2.

Note:

• I checked that it works well on NTEmacs 21.3. I don't know if it works on other Emacs, in particular, XEmacs.
• It works with two Perl scripts. I tested Perl scripts on cygwin's perl (v5.8.7). I don't know if they work well in other Perl such as ActivePerl.

Download and installation.

Download

• win-itunes-1.1.zip (Sun Feb 5, 2006)

Installation.

• Put "win-itunes.el" file into one of the directories listed in `load-path'.
• Put two perl scripts "win-itunes.pl" and "win-itunes-async.pl" into some directory.
• Add configuration of variables into "~./emacs.el".

    ;;; Minimum setting (configuration below
    ;;; assumes that two perl scripts are placed at "~/lisp/itunes/").

    ;; Require (load) win-itunes.el.
    (require 'win-itunes)

    ;; Full path to perl script for controlling iTunes.
    (setq itunes-perl-script
	  "~/lisp/itunes/win-itunes.pl")

    ;; Full path to perl script for tracking iTunes.
    (setq itunes-perl-script-async
	  "~/lisp/itunes/win-itunes-async.pl")

    ;; Name of Perl program.
    (setq itunes-perl-program "perl")

Usage

• First, start iTunes.
• Type M-x itunes.
• Select playlist and then select track.

Notes, problems, and bugs.

General

• For request and bug reports, email me.
• Because of bugs related to asynchronous process, Emacs sometimes freezes. In such a case, kill perl process by taskmanager.
• When asynchronous process runs, iTunes mode sometimes interferes with other lisp programs. If you want to run other large lisp programs, you had better turn off asynchronous process.

Playlist

• It takes much time to open a playlist with a lot of tracks!
• iTunes mode cannot create smart playlist.
• Before you use commands for renaming and deleting playlists, you had better update the content of playlist buffer.

Track

• iTunes can change order of tracks according to title, artist, album, played count etcl. But, iTunes mode cannot do it.
• iTunes can narrow tracks in a playlist by specifying genre, artist, or album in browser window. But iTunes mode cannot do it.
• When you play track in Party Shuffle playlist, displayed current track may not coincide with track you listening to.
• iTunes mode provides commands to change track properties (title, artist, album, genre etc.). When you use them, you should first update the content of track buffer.

Programming

• You can understand the way to control iTunes by perl script by Apple's SDK document which can be downloaded from here.

Shiro Takeda