First steps | Basic operation | Tips | Advanced operation | Configuration

First steps

Make sure that FoxyTunes extension is properly installed
Play some music in your media player
Click on the main FoxyTunes icon on the Firefox status bar
Open the Player menu and select your media player
That's it! You are ready to start using FoxyTunes

If your player is not in the player list, try selecting "Generic Player" (more on this below).

Please consider taking a vote for your player to let us and everyone else know you are using the player and like it. We will try to add support for the most popular players first.

FoxyTunes doesn't connect to the player, use any resources or do anything at all, until you use one of its controls (unless you have the Update volume on startup or Update track title on startup options on). You don't have to disable it if you are not using it for a while - just collapse it.

FoxyTunes will launch the player application if it is not running and you push one of the FoxyTunes control buttons.

Basic operation

The five basic playback buttons are: Previous track, Play, Pause, Stop, Next Track.
The "Track Information" icon allows getting the title and time information about the currently playing track. Just hover over the icon with your mouse. If the player supports it and the track is not paused you will see the current track position change.
The "Play File" button allows playing file(s) without opening your media player. This option is a bit restrictive by its nature, so if you want to do something more advanced with your play list, just pop up the player.
The "Show Player" button pops up the player window, so you can conveniently perform more advanced operations not available in through FoxyTunes.
The "Hide Player" button can be used to hide the player window when it is no longer needed.
The volume control panel has a mute option and a volume slider. The slider can be collapsed and un-collapsed using the small triangle icon next to it. Important: some players support only increase/decrease volume commands. In this case the slider will always be at the middle. You can control the volume by either clicking to the left or to the right of the slider thumb, or dragging it gently. The volume will be increased or decreased, and the slider will return to its middle.
The buttons panel and the current track title panel can be collapsed (separately) and un-collapsed to save space using the small triangle icon
FoxyTunes can be repositioned by dragging one of the main triangle icons and dropping it onto the new location. FoxyTunes can be positioned anywhere on the status bar or on one of the toolbars.
Important: Please do not reposition FoxyTunes while the "Customize toolbars" dialog is open.
The current track title panel has the following functionality:
- Can be resized by dragging the handle
- Click the track title to open the FoxyTunes Planet page related to what's playing
- If the title is wider than the panel, the panel tooltip will show the whole title, and the title will scroll
- If the mouse enters the panel while the title is scrolling, the scrolling will be paused. It will be resumed when the mouse exits the panel
- Scrolling can be temporarily disabled (and re-enabled) by clicking on the panel
- Using the panel context sensitive menu, the scrolling can be disabled and the current track title can be copied to the clipboard
- You can drag the track title anywhere to have the title pasted into the drag target
- With many players, the track title panel will have a seek slider. The marker will indicate the current track position, and you can drag it to seek

FoxyTunes Planet

FoxyTunes provides one click access to FoxyTunes Planet Website which aggregates music videos, photos, news, bios and much more from the best music sites all over the Web into one convenient place.
When listening to music, you can click on the 'Goto FoxyTunes Planet' button or on the track title to open the corresponding page on FoxyTunes Planet

Signatunes

Signatunes is a FoxyTunes feature that allows signing your email messages, blog and forum posts with your currently playing music.
When composing an email, a blog or a forum post in one of the supported services, you'll see a Signatunes button - clicking on it will insert the name of your currently playing song into your message.
You can learn more about Signatunes and its supported sites here

Tips

When using FoxyTunes with Windows Media Player, press the "Play" button in FoxyTunes to start the playback and make sure that the connection is made. Now you can close the Windows Media Player window by clicking the X icon on the top right corner of the player window. You will see a dialog asking whether you want to hide the player or to quit. Choose "Hide". You can choose "Don't ask me again" to remember your last answer and never show the dialog again (to force the dialog, press the X icon while holding the Ctrl key).
FoxyTunes can be used just as a volume controller, even if it doesn't recognize your player. Just hide all the buttons except the volume controls and select GenericPlayer form the Player menu. Currently this is only available on Windows.
Drag the track title onto the address bar, the Google bar or any other search widget to perform a basic search.
When hovering over links that have a very long URL, sometimes the URL cannot fit into the status bar display because FoxyTunes takes up some space. Press the Shift key and hover over such links - FoxyTunes will be temporarily hidden.
Grill a steak with FoxyTunes:
1. Put a steak on the pan. Return to your computer.
2. Put on some music and choose Tools > Sleep Timer > 3 minutes.
3. After three minutes the music stops. Go and turn the steak over. Return to your computer.
4. Choose Tools > Sleep Timer > 3 minutes.
5. After three minutes the music stops. Bon Appetit!

Advanced operation

Non-english titles and track data

If the track title is in a foreign language (Russian, Hebrew etc.) you can still have it displayed correctly in FoxyTunes. Open the main FoxyTunes menu and choose . Choose the appropriate encoding from the submenu. FoxyTunes will remember this setting, and also will put this encoding to the "Recent Encodings" list in the "Character encoding" menu.

Generic Players

If your player is not in the player list, there is a good chance that you can still control it using FoxyTunes. Choose list and try one of the playback buttons. If it doesn't perform the desired action, go to the submenu and try choosing either "Generic Multimedia Player 1" or "Generic Multimedia Player 2".

Alarm Clock and Sleep Timer

Sleep Timer - set the sleep time in minutes. After this period FoxyTunes will automatically stop the music (the Stop command). Your browser needs to be left open for the Sleep Timer to work.

Alarm Clock - you can set a time for FoxyTunes to start the playback. Make sure that the volume and your player are set up correctly by pressing the Play button. If you hear the music, press the Stop button and leave your browser open. FoxyTunes will automatically start the playback (the Play command) at the specified time. If you select the "Recurring" option, FoxyTunes will start the playback every day at the specified time.

Configuration

The submenu has several options to further customize FoxyTunes. You can hide buttons and UI elements you do not use to save up some space.

Auto-hide - the main panel and the track title panel support auto-hide. When auto-hide is on, hover with the mouse over the triangle icon that collapses the panel. The panel will be revealed. When it is no longer used, it will automatically be collapsed.
Update volume on startup - when Firefox is launched and the volume slider is visible its position doesn't correctly reflect the current volume. If this option is enabled, FoxyTunes updates the slider position immediately. If not, the position is updated only upon first volume change. You will likely want to disable this option, because if it is enabled, FoxyTunes will try to connect to the player on every Firefox launch if volume slider is not collapsed. The Update track title on startup is exactly the same, only with track title information instead of current volume.