Feature idea: turn off UI sounds when iTunes is playing
This is an idea for an OS X/iTunes feature, or it could be made into an application/add-on. I have no experience with scripting/development so I can't put it together myself.
I have my user interface sound effects on because I like the aural feedback, and I expect that most users have the same (if only because it's the default). When I'm playing music from iTunes over the speakers hooked up to my Mac, it can be pretty annoying to have the "empty trash" or "alert" sound interrupt my music. This doesn't happen when I play through AirTunes, but that's not always the case.
Does anyone else think this would be a good idea or am I the only one running into this problem?
I have my user interface sound effects on because I like the aural feedback, and I expect that most users have the same (if only because it's the default). When I'm playing music from iTunes over the speakers hooked up to my Mac, it can be pretty annoying to have the "empty trash" or "alert" sound interrupt my music. This doesn't happen when I play through AirTunes, but that's not always the case.
Does anyone else think this would be a good idea or am I the only one running into this problem?
Comments
Sebastian
QT and DVD Player already disable the screensaver during video playback, regardless of the original idea behind screensavers - because having a screensaver pop up during a movie would be really annoying. I'm just suggesting a similar behavior for sound effects and music playback.
If iTunes is not running: turn off alert sounds and turn on iTunes.
If iTunes is running: turn alert sounds to 50% and quit iTunes.
Next we made an alias of the script and replaced our iTunes aliases (the dock, etc.).
The only non-ideal part of this is that if you just "quit" iTunes, it won't turn your alert sounds back on. For it to function correctly, you need to click this icon to run iTunes and click it to quit iTunes.
iTunes_alertoff script:
tell application "System Events"
\tif process "iTunes" exists then
\t\tquit application "iTunes"
\t\ttell application "Finder"
\t\t\tset volume alert volume 50
\t\tend tell
\telse
\t\ttell application "Finder"
\t\t\tset volume alert volume 0
\t\tend tell
\t\tactivate application "iTunes"
\tend if
end tell