One script to rule them all

I tend to listen to Podcasts (one of the best is MacBreak Weekly) while I work. But when my wife starts talking to me from the other room, I have to stop what I’m doing to navigate to iTunes just to click Pause. It finally reached a level of annoyance that made me fired up Script Editor and throw together a little script to do it for me. This is just about as simple an Apple Script as you can get:

tell application "iTunes"

playpause

end tell

Now, just save it as an application and bind it to some key you’re not using. I used one of the buttons on my Wacom Tablet. One key press and the podcast will either pause or play depending upon its current state.

It’s so great that Apple included a little hook for the Pause/Play function. This is yet another great feature of OSX. If something’s missing that you really want it to do, chances are that a short Apple Script or Automator Action can remedy the situation.

I think this little trick will hold me over until that new keyboard sees the light of day.

Technorati Tags: Apple, AppleScript, Mac, Programming, iTunes, Tip