Show Current iTunes Track In Menu Bar

Question

Level 1

12 points

Show Current iTunes Track In Menu Bar

After searching for an iTunes menu bar application which displays current track information, I didn't find an application which was as basic as I prefered, showing song title also artist name, not showing anything else. Due to this I decided to create a simple application which does this, thanks to help from some online articles/tutorials and information.

This is a simple iTunes menu bar application which displays current track (song - artist) playing in iTunes in menu bar.

I added this application to login items.

I hadn't found a decent place to upload, also give people access to this application, which caused me to decide to make this post.

http://www.2shared.com/file/lh5sIufi/Simple_iTunesapp.html

MacBook Pro (17-inch Mid 2009), Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Apr 9, 2013 5:50 PM

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Answer 1

coltca Author

Level 1

12 points

Apr 10, 2013 2:03 PM in response to coltca

To post another application, to not post only this application I created, which I have found named iTunesplay, which seems to be a similar, very simple iTunes menu bar application.

iTunesplay is a minimalistic system menu bar addition. It just displays song information of the current played track on iTunes. Each change will be displayed directly. Information is display as shown above Artist: Title (Album)

A couple of locations to download this app are

http://itunesplay.coreapps.de/

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/36920/itunesplay

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Answer 2

coltca Author

Level 1

12 points

Apr 13, 2013 3:49 PM in response to coltca

Updated link for Simple iTunes

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/47609/simple-itunes

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Answer 3

scwtech

Level 1

8 points

Jun 20, 2013 8:14 AM in response to coltca

Works perfectly, even with iTunes radio. Thank you!!

any way to change the font?

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Answer 4

coltca Author

Level 1

12 points

Jul 1, 2013 10:49 PM in response to scwtech

Possibly either of these smaller displaying font size Simple iTunes might work better for you

Simple iTunes Small

http://www.2shared.com/file/JZfCBXfw/Simple_iTunesapp.html

Simple iTunes Smallest

http://www.2shared.com/file/lxN1ZjmC/Simple_iTunesapp.html

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Answer 5

eharo2

Level 1

0 points

May 2, 2014 11:31 AM in response to coltca

Awesome stuff..... I was looking for a "Show song info in menu bar" checkbox in iTunes preference, and given that there is none. I googled it and found this.... enrique

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Answer 6

tcb

Level 1

20 points

Mar 3, 2015 4:19 PM in response to coltca

thank you, i was looking for just this. thanks for making it.

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Answer 7

jobuh

Level 1

4 points

May 29, 2015 9:03 AM in response to coltca

I love this little app! I wonder if you could get it to also show the album name too?

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Answer 8

coltca Author

Level 1

12 points

May 29, 2015 2:07 PM in response to jobuh

Here you go. not sure how long this upload will last. on the chance you want the order (title - album - artist) changed, i can do that, but that is how i currently have it set. also on the chance your screen is too small/the characters run out of room on the menu bar, the app basically goes blank, how the apple menu bar deals with it.

http://www.2shared.com/file/TlY9R-bQ/Simple_iTunesapp.html

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Answer 9

jobuh

Level 1

4 points

May 29, 2015 2:14 PM in response to coltca

Holy crap! That was FAST! Thanks so very much.... at work, we play a lot of lists with multiple full albums in them and it is handy to see what album a song is on when it's new or unfamiliar.

Thanks again!

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Answer 10

coltca Author

Level 1

12 points

May 29, 2015 9:40 PM in response to jobuh

glad you like the app

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Answer 11

Jan 7, 2016 11:23 AM in response to coltca

Chrome really doesn't like that 2shared.com domain. Any chance you could point me to the source code for your app. Is it on github?

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Answer 12

coltca Author

Level 1

12 points

Jan 30, 2016 9:55 PM in response to strangepill

sorry, didn't get a notification email about your post, its not on github, but let me either set it up or i can just send you the source code somehow

you can download the app at https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/47609/simple-itunes

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Answer 13

coltca Author

Level 1

12 points

Jan 30, 2016 10:40 PM in response to strangepill

heres a link to the source code, if you're interested in some with font sizing options i can post that also

https://gist.github.com/festivia/55641144129863f53452

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Answer 14

Feb 13, 2016 9:54 AM in response to coltca

It would be nice if it displayed the current track as soon as you launch the app rather than waiting for the track to change for the first time. I thought the app simply wasn't working, since all it said was "iTunes" in the menubar, and nearly gave up on it.

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Answer 15

coltca Author

Level 1

12 points

Feb 13, 2016 2:39 PM in response to Brent Rossow

it should display the current track as soon as you press play, so there should be no issues. are you using some other program to control iTunes, which probably shouldn't make a difference. what OS are you running. what are the circumstances, how are you launching iTunes, etc.

i also set mine to run as a start up app, so its started before iTunes would ever start, otherwise if you start it while iTunes is already playing it won't update the track info til you pause it or the track changes, i didn't include a timed data retrieval in the app, so that might be the issue

those kind of things also cause more cpu usage, probably minimal, but i was working on keeping it as simple as possible, if you really want that feature, i could probably get it working

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