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wincent Synergy: it changes everything

Basic usage

After installing Synergy you can start it up from with the System Preferences by choosing the Synergy pane and pressing "Start".

Use Synergy to skip to the next or previous iTunes track simply by clicking one of the controls in the menu bar; you can also toggle the current track between playing and paused mode.

Access the Synergy Global Menu by clicking and holding the Play/Pause button in the Menu Bar (the Global Menu can be used to switch playlists, access recent tracks, change iTunes settings and more).

You can also control Synergy with system-wide Hot Keys. By default, the Hot Keys are:

  • Command-F9: Quit Synergy
  • Command-F10: Show/Hide Synergy menu bar controls
  • Command-F11: Previous track (press and hold to rewind within the track; press and release quickly to skip an entire track)
  • Command-F12: Next track (press and hold to fast-forward within the track; press and release quickly to skip an entire track)
  • Command-F13: Play/Pause

These keys were chosen because they fit well alongside the brightness adjustment keys (F14 and F15) that Apple has allocated to controlling display brightness.

Tip: for even greater speed, you can customise your Hot Keys so that you can control iTunes with Function keys alone, and no modifier keys like Command or Shift.

Extra feedback

You can also turn on extra feedback in the Synergy preferences, and a semi-transparent feedback window will be displayed whenever you use a hot key to control iTunes.