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iTunes Kiosk

Phatpat

Phatpat

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Say I'm having a party, playing music through my computer. I want people to be able to mess w/ itunes, but not with anything else. Optimally they would only see iTunes. Is there a way to do this?
 
MacAddcit did a feature on this recently, its in their most recent issue, its all about making a cool Mac Party. Best suggestion, make a dummy account and give it no access, except for iTunes.
 
Awesome, I might pick up the mag just to check out that article. Or more likely go to barnes and noble and read it there...

One question: Is there a way I can prevent this new user from deleting songs from the itunes library? He can't delete them from the computer, but if the user removes it I have to go in with my admin account and add those tracks to the library again.
 
what you can do is just copy the two files out of the users/'username'/music/itunes folder, and paste them in your dummy account. Then change the permissions on your main accounts music folder to read only for everyone. That way when your dummy account's itunes will have the same playlists and songs. Then, if anyone messes with the playlists, just copy and paste the two orriginal files from your main account.

Make any sense, im really tired, so let me know if it made none...
 
Permissions are set to read-only currently. The user can't actually delete the music, but they can remove it from the the library (so you can't see the file any more). I'll try altairs suggestion in a bit.
 
Originally posted by iJon
take the keyboard off and just let them scroll through the stuff.

iJon
Click to expand...

and there you have it!

looks like you are set for a great party...

now you just need a projector hooked up to play visuals on your wall!
 
do you have an external monitor, you can do lid closed operation and tuck it away and have a mouse out.

iJon
 
hmmm...I do have a spare lcd I could use. That's a pretty good idea. I'd prefer to just use the computer though, if at all possible.
 
try making the itunes 4 music library file in user->music->itunes read only. this may stop any changes. if a change is made, a simple re-launch of itunes may fix it, as it would re-load the unchanged library.

i haven't tried this, but it sounds like ti might work.
 
I played around with this set up for a bit. If someone deletes something, all I need to do is copy the iTunes library files from my account and restart iTunes, so it's a pretty simple process; takes less than 30 seconds. I'm satisfied with that.

Now I'm thinking really long term: hooking a 12" powerbook/ibook up to a receiver with some killer speakers, and using that as the center of my music. 🙂
 
you should get a firewire audio out adapter. you could hook up optically, which is much better sounding than the mini jack.
 
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