14 DAY TRIAL // Having a large library of digital music is good not only because of the inherent advantages of music in digital form, it also means that you always have music within reach when you are working. iTunes is usually one of those programs that starts at login and only closes down when you turn off the computer. But as good as iTunes is for managing your music libraries, it leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to controlling it on the fly. Sure, you can change the volume using the keys on the keyboard, but muting iTunes is not the same as pausing it and there is still the matter of changing tracks back and forth easily. Sure, you could use the dock icon, but that is in no way a fast and easy solution. Neither is the mini player that is easy to lose behind other windows and annoying when you have it sit on top of everything else. What you really want is some universal on demand method of control, such as TotalTunes Control.
What it does TotalTunes Control is a little application that lies dormant until you invoke it, at which point it will offer you a compact window from which you can control nearly everything in iTunes. Similar to a floater in look and more functional than iTunes' own mini player. TotalTunes Control can be called and dismissed at any time with just a simple keystroke and it even lets you assign keyboard shortcuts for the most common of tasks.
Working with it TotalTunes Control has no menus or dock icon and only one window. Unless you actually invoke it, it is totally out of sight and out of mind. To display it, you need to use the keyboard shortcut, which will also hide it.
The TotalTunes Control window is rather large, but it is not that big considering that everything you need to control iTunes is right there. It has also a big cover art display and information about the currently playing song. Beside the play/pause, forward and back buttons and the progress and volume sliders that you get in the mini player, TotalTunes Control also offers toggles for repeat and shuffle, as well as rating viewing and editing and last but not least a source menu, from which you can change between library, party shuffle and any of the playlists you might have.
Although a significant improvement over the mini player in terms of functionality, the important thing about TotalTunes Control is how you can bring it up out of thin air whenever you need it, no matter what you are doing. It might be bigger, but that is of no consequence since you can hit it when you are done and even if you don't hide it, it will automatically hide itself when you change focus to another application.
Shortcuts TotalTunes Control is all about shortcuts. At the end of the day, even the default iTunes mini player would be fine if you could show and hide it at will via keyboard shortcuts. Unfortunately, while TotalTunes Control makes good use of shortcuts, it doesn't offer much when it comes to customization. The control window can only be invoked using one of the F keys, from 1 to 8. This is a rather irksome limitation, since the higher F keys are usually used for Expose functions and the likes, while the lower ones are a favorite in many applications. It wouldn't be that bad if you could use the F key in combination with one of the modifiers to decrease likelihood of overlaps and accidents, but that is not the case.
Similarly, TotalTunes Control gives you the option of controlling iTunes though keyboard shortcuts, bypassing even its own window. It is nothing complex, just the usual play/pause, forward and back, but even that is a lot more than iTunes itself offers, and usually all you need. Unfortunately, these keyboard shortcuts also suffer from customization deficiency, even worse than the universal TotalTunes Control invocation shortcut. In fact, you can't change these shortcuts at all, so if you don't like them or are already using them for something else, it is a case of tough luck. Even worse, there is no way to actually disable these shortcuts, so chances are good that you will either have to stop using this program or the other one, if you don't want to have iTunes change tracks every time you move from one tab to another or something just as silly.
The Good A very discreet on-demand solution for controlling iTunes, that both looks good and works well.
The Bad Very poor keyboard shortcut handling. If you aren't going to let the user customize the shortcut, at least give them the option to turn it off to avoid conflicts and overlaps.
The Truth TotalTunes Control is pretty good at what it does. The issues I have mentioned are usually just nuisances, however, if you happen to be unlucky enough to have shortcut overlaps or conflicts, this program can easily become unusable.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
