GimmeSomeTune - User’s Guide

GimmeSomeTune is an extension to iTunes consisting of nine main features:

Feature 1: A beautiful, translucent floating window providing you with information about
the currently playing tune.

Feature 2: Highly configurable hotkeys. For nearly every aspect of iTunes,

GimmeSomeTune has got a hotkey for you. But you can control iTunes also via

the status menu in the right menu bar.

Feature 3: Cover art fetching from the internet. That's right, GimmeSomeTune will get you
covers from the internet and add them automatically to iTunes, if you choose
to. For a feature like that, you would have to pay good money, but
GimmeSomeTune gives it to you for free.

Feature 4: Lyrics fetching from the internet. GimmeSomeTune will fetch the lyrics for you,
if you want. Highly accurate, very fast, without you noticing. Just open the lyrics
window in GimmeSomeTune and they’ll be there.

Feature 5: Customization. Nearly every aspect of this application is configurable to fit your
personal, individual needs.

Feature 6: A launcher daemon. This starts/quits GimmeSomeTune whenever iTunes is

started/quitted.

Feature 7: iChat support. GimmeSomeTune lets you customize the “Current iTunes Track”
iChat status message and it sets - if you choose to - your status message to
“iTunes paused.” whenever you pause a song in iTunes and you can choose to

use the current artwork as your iChat picture.

Feature 8 “Recent Tunes” menu. Presents you with your recently played tunes and lets
you replay them again.

Feature 9: A mini controller (optional too). This lets you easily and quickly control iTunes.

Feature 10: A lyrics window that presents you with the lyrics saved in iTunes and lets you
easily edit them via a contextual menu, if you want to.

Give this application a try and you'll find out that iTunes is just better off with it.

Good To Know
GimmeSomeTune does not contain spyware or malware or anything like that. If Little
Snitch or some other firewall tool comes up and reports that GimmeSomeTune behaves
suspiciously, it’s the update-checking-, cover-fetching- or lyrics-fetching-process. Only then
GimmeSomeTune connects to the internet. You can stop GimmeSomeTune connecting to
the internet entirely via the preferences-pane (“Check for new versions on startup” , “When
no cover detected, fetch it from amazon.com” and “Fetch lyrics from leoslyrics.com”).

Troubleshooting
If you don’t know what a checkbutton does or what a feature is, hover over it with your
mousepointer, and a tooltip will appear, explaining everything.

-My preferences aren't being saved.

This is (most probably) a bug in NSTextField. Instead of pressing the button "Save" in the
preferences window, hit enter or return on the keyboard (in the preferences - window) and
the preferences will be saved.

-I can’t delete GimmeSomeTune (file in use); I can’t update GimmeSomeTune

Be sure that the process called gstlauncherdaemon is not running. Go to the preferences
pane of GimmeSomeTune and if the button (under the “General” - tab) says “Don’t start
with iTunes”, click it, and the gstlauncherdaemon will quit and be removed from the login
items. Then quit GimmeSomeTune and you will be able to remove it. If it still doesn’t work,
open the terminal, type “killall gstlauncherdaemon” and then try it again, now it should
definitely work!

Generally, there is to say that if you encounter any bugs or weird behavior in GimmeSo-
meTune, try deleting the preferences - file. Most of the time, it will work just fine after that.

If you should encounter any other bugs or problems with GimmeSomeTune, just drop me
a line at <m.gansrigler@eternalstorms.at> Thank you.

Credits
Special thanks go to Matti Hameister for the idea and first code. Also a big thanks to
Eugen Buzuk for the icon and to all my beta - testers.
All programming is done by Matthias Gansrigler.

Smaller Features in GimmeSomeTune

x) Work-Mode: When Work-Mode is activated, the window hides as soon as the mouse
enters. This is useful if you’re currently working on something and you really need to see
things that are underneath the window.

x) Status Menu: GimmeSomeTune is configured via the status menu. However, you still
can choose not to have a status menu and access the preferences via a configurable hot-
key.

x) Status Menu Icon: You can change the icon of the status menu, in case it “collides” with
another application that has a similar one or so.

x) Lyrics window context menu: Right click onto the lyrics window and you’ll be able to edit
the lyrics and easily update iTunes with your changes.
Version History
3.5 - Improved Lyrics-fetching (lyrics won’t be stored into wrong song anymore)
- Improved Coverart-fetching (covers won’t be stored into wrong song anymore)
- Improved Support for iTunes’ Internet Radio
- Rewrote Lyrics window (now resizable, scrollable, and has a useful context-
menu)
- Added Japanese Localization
- Improved support for non-roman characters in coverart and lyrics-fetching
- Fixed a bug concerning updating
- GimmeSomeTune won’t crash anymore when playing from Audio-CDs
- Fixed a bug concerning iChat support
- Fixed many memory leaks
- Fixed a bug where preferences wouldn’t get updated
- Rewrote main window
- Rewrote several parts throughout the application
- Rewrote “Start with iTunes” functionality
- The main window won’t disappear that fast when still dragging
- Fixed many smaller bugs

3.0 - Implemented Lyrics-Fetching

- Fixed memory leaks
- Small lyrics window improvements
- Updated resizing-routines
- Minor performance improvements
- Improved update-system
- GimmeSomeTune now multi-threaded
- Fixed a bug caused by umlaut

2.6 - Further improvements in cover-fetching

- You can choose your local amazon-store now
- The font for the lyrics window is changeable
- Added shift-key to hotkey-modifiers
- Many more smaller improvements

2.5 - Ensured iTunes 7 compatibility

- Improved album coverart-fetching
- Changed “No Cover” image
- Instead of empty starts now points
- Minor changes in the interface
- If “set cover to iChat” is on, but iChat isn’t running, iChat won’t be started
anymore

2.0 - A window that shows the lyrics of the currently playing song
- Bugfixes in iChat support (status message support for 10.4 only, sorry)
- Some internal and cosmetic changes
- If chosen, the window doesn’t fade out anymore
- Lots and lots of tooltips
- Added hotkey for 0-star rating
- Show/Hide window is now one and the same hotkey
- Major revision of the mini controller
 - FrontRow - awareness added
- The cover is now added to the whole album, not just the playing song (can
take a little while, depending on your internet connection and cpu)
- Window for viewing lyrics from iTunes

1.6 -Fixed bugs in cover-fetching

-Now lets you set your iChat picture to cover art of currently playing song
-Mini controller
-Many under-the-hood changes

1.5 -Implemented cover fetching from the web

-Redone Preferences-GUI
-Minor improvements

1.2 -Finished german localization

-Drastically improved daemon-handling (no restarts needed anymore, no
system preferences needed anymore)
-Slightly simplified the interface

1.1.1 -Fixed a memory leak

-GimmeSomeTune now lets you choose if you’d like to set iChat’s status
message to “iTunes paused.”, whenever iTunes is paused.
-You can choose to let GimmeSomeTune start and quit whenever iTunes starts
and quits.
-Added a daemon that starts GimmeSomeTune whenever iTunes is started and
terminates GimmeSomeTune whenever iTunes is terminated.

1.1 -Fixed some memory leaks

-Restarting of iChat is now optional

1.0 -Work-Mode: Window hides itself as soon as mouse enters.

-You can specify your iTunes status for iChat now
-fixed a bug where the window wouldn't show on startup
-minor interface improvements

0.2.1 -Relabeled "Next Song" to "Next Track"

-Added possibility to rate the song via the "normal" numeric keys (1 - 5) - on the
non-numeric pad - for easier use with Apple's portable computers
-Status menu is now optional and there's a hotkey to show the preferences
window
-Let the user choose different fonts
-Improved appearance of rating stars

0.2 -Fixed a bug that caused longer text not to be shown completely
-Drastically corrected and refined auto-sizing and slightly improved performance
-Incredibly improved live-feedback in preferences
-Added tool tips to the interface for better understanding of the application
0.1.95 -Fixed a bug where "a" without modifiers would show the info window (probably
requires removal of preferences once again)
-Text can be made bold now, for better readability
-You can choose to let the window be resized with the text, not manually
(optional)
-Centers automatically (optional)
-Refined Hotkeys (no modifiers needed, but recommended (except for function
keys))
-Added to hotkeys: F13, F14, F15 and F16
-Added to prefs: revert function
-Refined look of info-window
-Updated ReadMe file

0.1.93 -Fixed another bug causing GimmeSomeTune to crash

-Completed refining preferences-handling
-Improved overall performance

0.1.9 -Fixed a bug where longer info text wasn't shown

-Fixed a bug where the application wouldn't start anymore
-Rewrote preferences - handling
-Improved overall performance
-You can now hide the info-window on demand

0.1.85 -Fixed a bug where rewinding or fast forward didn't work properly - Minor
performance improvements when rating a song
-Fixed some memory leaks
-Added iTunes-Control to menu, not only hotkeys
-Window width now customizable (for longer song-names)
-Added a proper ReadMe file

0.1.8 -Fixed a bug where the about window would open behind all open windows
-Changing the menu icon now works without restarting GimmeSomeTune
-Hotkeys for rating, bringing iTunes to forefront, toggle shuffle between ond
and off, forwarding and rewinding
-Improved german localization

0.1.75 -Fixed a bug that appeared when checking for new versions
-Fixed a bug where choosing white as the window's color didn't work properly
-Implemented hotkeys for in- and decreasing the volume and for making the
window dragable
-You can change the menu icon now
-Localized version for german

0.1.72 -Fixed some memory leaks introduced in 0.1.7

0.1.7 -Fixed some memory leaks

-Recent Tunes - function: GimmeSomeTune now remembers the last few
songs you played and lets you play them again
-Hotkeys are now customizable
0.1.65 -Changed layout of the info-window (round edges)
-Hotkeys for showing info-window, play/pause, next and previous track
-The Preferences-window and update notifications now open in front of all
applications

0.1.61 -Some minor bug fixes

0.1.6 -Fixed a bug that caused GimmeSomeTune to crash when quitting iTunes
-Cleaned up the code
-Live-Feedback works again properly
-You can choose your own "No Cover" image now

0.1.56 -Cosmetic changes (info window fades in and out, updated preferences -
window)
-You can now specify how many fields of information should be shown (up to
five)
-Fixed a bug introduced in 0.1.5 where preferences weren't updated
-Known bug: no live-feedback after setting window- or textcolor

0.1.5 -You can now specify what kind of information will be shown

0.1.35 -Now remembers the last position you placed the window to

0.1.3 -You can check for updates directly from the application
-Fixed an issue when dragging the window
-Works with 10.3.9 now
0.1.0 -Initial, original release