Track Timer is designed to be scheduled by Script Timer. It allows you to:
• schedule and control the playing of any iTunes play list of music, streaming audio, or both,
• play any number of tracks in any order from a play list, including random order,
• schedule the playing of any number of play lists at any time of the day, week, month or year, on a recurring time interval, at system wake up, at log in, or at idle state change
• specify the sound volume for each playing,
• ramp the sound volume of a play list up or down (to wake or fall asleep to music), and
• cause another action to be scheduled for execution following the completion of your play list (or earlier if you wish) using Script Timer's dynamic scheduling feature.
Dynamic scheduling allows an AppleScript script such as Track Timer to specify "on the fly" a further action to schedule, and when to schedule it. It is particularly useful for streaming audio as it provides an easy way to terminate the stream when used to schedule the "stopiTunes" script that comes with Track Timer.
The screen shot below shows a Script Timer action panel, which you use to specify the scheduling details of an action you want to schedule. You tell Script Timer to schedule Track Timer, passing the name of the play list, the tracks you want played from the list, and other details such as the sound level in the Parameters field of the action panel. In the example below, the play list "Jazz Faves" will begin playing at three quarters volume at 6 P.M. every week day, and will play all the tracks on the list in a random order.
Here are a few more examples of parameter lists recognized by Track Timer and their meanings:
Vintage Country - will play all of the play list "Vintage Country".
Avril, random, s=25 - will play a single random track from play list "Avril" at one quarter full volume.
Water Music, Overture - will play the track "Overture" from the play list "Water Music".
My List, s=50,1,4,6,2,3,9 - will play the indicated tracks from play list "My List" in that order at half full volume.
Boyz II Men, Mama, Girl in the Life Magazine - will play the tracks named "Mama" and "Girl in the Life Magazine" from the play list "Boyz II Men".
RadioStream1, a=stopiTunes, d=7200 - will play the audio stream "RadioStream1". After two hours (7200 seconds) the script "stopiTunes" will be executed.
Jazz, a=repeat, 1, r=3 - will play track 1, then play 3 randomly selected tracks from the play list "Jazz". This will repeat continuously.
The last two items show how Track Timer takes advantage of Script Timer's dynamic scheduling feature. The "a" parameter specifies a script or application to schedule, and the "d" parameter specifies the number of seconds after the start of the play list to run that item. If the "a" parameter is set to "repeat", Track Timer will be continuously rescheduled to start at the time the last track finishes playing. ("d" defaults to the duration of the track selection if not specified.)
Two small helper scripts, "pause iTunes", and "play iTunes", are included to allow you to pause iTunes play while you are away from your computer, and to resume play when you return. You simply schedule the former to run when the computer becomes idle, and the latter to run when the idle state ends. A third helper script, "sound ramper", can be dynamically scheduled to ramp the sound volume of your play list or audio stream up or down. For example:
MyPlayList, a=sound ramper(20,0), d=0
will start the play list "MyPlayList" in iTunes at the current sound volume level and decrease the volume evenly in 20 steps so that at the end of the play list it is at zero.