Linux Multimedia Hacks

Control Your Media Player with Firefox

Use the FoxyTunes plug-in as a remote control for your media player without leaving Firefox.

If you are like me, you spend a good deal of the day looking at a web browser window. I like to keep my web browser window almost completely maximized when I can, which means that other apps, such as my media player, end up being minimized or rolled up to some degree. To switch tracks you need to set up key bindings, or you are left unshading or unminimizing the media player just to skip a track. With the FoxyTunes Firefox plug-in, this is no longer the case—you can control your media player directly from your Firefox window.

To get FoxyTunes, click Tools → Extensions in your Firefox window to go to the extensions manager. Then click on Get More Extensions to go to the main Firefox extensions page. From there you can search for FoxyTunes—although I often find it is directly linked to on the main page. The Foxy-Tunes extensions page will provide an install link. Click on the link to install the FoxyTunes plug-in and then restart Firefox.

When Firefox restarts, you will see a new set of controls in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen (see Figure 5-1). Most of the buttons have the familiar audio control icons for play, pause, and so on and each has a description that will pop up if you hover over the button. The first button, which looks like two music notes, is of immediate interest because this is where you configure FoxyTunes for your player. FoxyTunes ...