BOMplayer

An alternative iTunes interface for the Mac modding community.

About

BOMplayer functions as a music player, providing a simple user interface for iTunes. Basic transport functions such as pause, play, fast-forward, and rewind are supported along with track selection and cueing. BOMplayer turns the Mac into something akin to an iPod or a juke box.

BOMplayer is not itself a music database, instead it works in combination with iTunes, accessing the iTunes Music Library and retrieving track information. This parasitic relationship means the advanced features of iTunes can be used when managing a music collection while the simple BOMplayer interface can be employed when browsing and playing tracks. Screen shots of BOMplayer in operation can be viewed here.

Interface

BOMplayer is designed to be operated through a modified keyboard and mouse, providing Mac modders with a simple method for integrating a variety of controls into home made Mac music centres. It was original developed for the B&O MP3 Mac Mod (winner of the 2006 Great MacMod Challenge). A video of the B&O MP3 Mac Mod can be viewed here.

BOMplayer does not operate as a standard 'point and click' user interface (when operated in full screen mode, as intended, the mouse pointer is hidden from view), instead BOMplayer uses mouse movement to navigate the menu structure. This allows users/modders to implement control interfaces similar to the iPod scroll wheel through the simple modification of a standard mouse. An example of such modification can be viewed in this video.

System Requirements

BOMplayer is compatible with Macintosh computers running OS 10.2.8 or latter (including legacy equipment running XPostFacto) and iTunes 7 (it will probably work with earlier versions of iTunes but I haven't tested this).

Interface controls can be constructed from any functioning mouse and keyboard.

Download

BOMplayer software and source code can be downloaded from the sourceForge download page.

Contribute

BOMplayer is free software, released under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published be the Free Software Foundation. This means that the BOMplayer source code is readily available and you are free to mess with it (within the limits of the GNU licence). Ideally I'd like someone to get in there and sort out all my bugs, but I'd be happy if you just had a play. BOMplayer was written using Apple's Xcode development software and is distributed as an Xcode 2.4 project.

Although BOMplayer was written specifically for the B&O MP3 Mac Mod I have tried to create flexibility within the code. Even if you have no experience with Xcode I encourage you to open the MainMenu.nib file and change the interface style and layout to suit your needs.

Questions

If you have questions regarding BOMplayer software or hardware integration then ask them in the help forum.

Feedback

If you have feedback or have used BOMplayer in your Mac Mod and would like to show it off then please post to the appropriate sourceForge forum.

Bugs

BOMplayer is in the alpha release phase, it is generally stable but it does have some bugs and not all features are currently implemented, please keep this in mind when using the software. Also, keep in mind that I am currently the sole developer, this is my first Objective-C project, and I'm much more likely to fix something for you if you are nice to me : ).

For a list of know bugs refer to the BOMplayer ReadMe file; if you find a bug which isn't documented then please let me know via the sourceForge bug tracker.

Happy Modding.

Scott Mitchell