TunesArt - Stylish iTunes Controller

excellent
key review info
application features
  • Search: Ultra-fast search in your iTunes Library
  • (3 more, see all...)

Although there are various media players available for the Mac, using iTunes has its own perks: you can use an app that will allow you to quickly access the player's capabilities (a so called iTunes controller) without dealing with its interface. TunesArt is such an application that will not only allow you to manage iTunes efficiently but that is also able to improve your entire user experience.

The iTunes interface is not something that should be avoided but, if you are caught up in your work, it could ruin your workflow. This is why many users prefer using a third party solution capable of controlling iTunes through a status bar menu or via keyboard shortcuts, like TunesArt.

Rest assured though, TunesArt is much more than a simple controller: it is able to send notifications, find lyrics, scrobble on Last.fm, change your ratings for a certain song and so on.

The best part is that TunesArt is able to extract the cover art of each song and display it on your desktop, without creating a separate window, but more like adding a multifunctional collage to your wallpaper.

The Look

TunesArt adds two different elements to your desktop that let you know the application is up and running: a status bar menu and the album cover controller on your desktop. To be able to take advantage of all its capabilities iTunes must be running, of course. As a result, if needed, TunesArt allows you to open iTunes through its status bar menu.

The same menu displays the current iTunes track and the artist name (via the Preferences you can choose to see more: the album name, rating and duration), allows you to play or pause the song, skip forward or to the previous track, change the ratings, access a certain playlist or the Last.fm related features. Of course, to access the latter ones you must authorize your Last.fm account and set the scrobbling mode (now playing, normal or hybrid).

TunesArt gives you the possibility to access the lyrics for the current track, but using the Last.fm service you can also find information about the artist. If the current track does not contain lyrics, TunesArt will download them from LyricWiki and automatically save them if you want. To be exact, via the lyrics window you can edit the text and save it into the track or search for lyrics on Google or Bing.

The lyrics and most of the additional data are made available via gray, semitransparent windows that inspire fluidity. The user can adjust the window level, the font style, size and color. Last but not least, TunesArt provides a search panel that helps you quickly find songs in your iTunes library.

When it comes to the album cover it can be easily considered a desktop controller. As far as functionality goes it provides basic capabilities: play/ pause, forward/backward, displays the song and artist names and the user rating. Still, these are the default settings and its appearance and behavior can be extensively customized through the Preferences panel.

The Works

At a glance TunesArt offers quite basic features and its usage does not raise any exceptional problems. If you take a closer look though, you will be able to find a lot of little additions that will make your day. To find them an exploration of the Preferences window is required.

First of all TunesArt tries to be as unobtrusive as one can be: by default only the status bar menu is displayed but it can be replaced by a Dock icon, that is if you don’t want to use both. Furthermore you can choose to automatically hide the status bar menu if iTunes is not running and replace the Dock icon with the album cover.

And that is not all: you can choose to see a mini-controller and the track’s information in the menu bar or see extensive information when hovering over the icon.

Furthermore, you can choose to have the application starting at login and choose to automatically run iTunes if TunesArt is active. That means that everything will be up and running at startup without requiring your attention. Since you can choose to automatically quit iTunes if TunesArt is shutting down, the unnecessary interaction is reduced to a minimum.

On the same note, the album cover window can be hidden altogether but, when active can provide many interesting customization options. You can choose one of the available album cover themes but, if none looks right, you may access the developers page where you can find new ones HERE.

To go further, you can adjust the cover size, set the window level (desktop, normal or always on top), the double-click action (show lyrics, show search or artist information), the tracks info (title, artist, album and/or rating), fetch the artwork from the Internet if the file's metadata does not contain all the informations, and choose when you want the artwork to be saved.

On the other hand, the controller can be automatically hidden if there is no song playing, or you can choose to have its buttons revealed on hovering. As a matter of fact, the album cover controller is mostly intended for design, since TunesArt allows you to access most of its features through user defined keyboard shortcuts.

When using shortcuts, TunesArt will still be able to display notification related to the player’s status, if a track was submitted to Last.fm or if the song was changed. TunesArt can use Growl for that, but it also provides a built in notification mechanism. In the second case you will be able to specify within the application the info you want to see or change the notification duration, opacity and background/font color.


The Good

TunesArt's usage is quite intuitive and the application proves to be efficient if you want to access your music without dealing with a complicated graphic interface.

On the other hand, TunesArt is offering a rather stylish album cover art controller that will look amazing on your desktop.

The Bad

TunesArt does not provide any kind of support document. As a result, you will have to dig through its preferences and figure out things on your own.

The Truth

TunesArt is the perfect solution if you want to quickly access your music and specific data like lyrics and artist information, without wasting time.

Even though TunesArt is an efficient iTunes controller it does not ignore aesthetics: the album cover will definitely improve your Mac's appearance. Here are some snapshots of the application in action:

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user interface 5
features 5
ease of use 4
pricing / value 5


final rating 5
Editor's review
excellent
 
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