keeping the audio playing across user logins

[cinephile]

Apologies if this is obvious but 30mins of googling/mac help/itunes help has left me none the wiser...

On my old G4 running 10.3.9 my wife and I regularly switched users and left either iTunes or Last.fm playing continuously. We've now upgraded to 10.4.8 on a Mac Pro but can't figure out how to keep the audio going. Now when we switch users the audio just stops. I have both accounts set to 'admin' and the music folder is freely accessible from either account.
Thanks in advance for help!

 

[cschreppel]

You know, that's a really great question. I would like some insight into this as well. There's nothing worse than killing the sound of a great tune to switch users.

 

[cinephile]

Well, I've found the answer by posting on the Apple discussion boards:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=694138

Unfortunately turns out that Tiger simply doesn't allow it -- a very irritating change from Panther...

 

[Sesshi]

It would have been really cool to do that. I didn't know if it ever did it, but for a while I was really into compartmentalising my desktops and when switching users sound got cut off. Being from Windows where such elegance would never even merit consideration, I automatically assumed I was wanting the impossible. Sucks that the capability was there and it's gone. Still hopefully Leopard should bring it back due to that multiple desktopy thing. Or am I talking out of my rear end.

 

[rand()]

Still hopefully Leopard should bring it back due to that multiple desktopy thing.

Yeah, that's not quite it. The multiple desktops are still a single user's workspace. Er, work-Spaces™. I believe by default the music would probably still stop should you fast-user-switch to a different user in Leopard.

What they should do (what would be super cool, anyway) is make iTunes a 'client' for an iTunes backend server (how UNIX!). That way, running iTunes under one user would control the backend server, and then once you've gone to another user, iTunes under that user would pick up the hint and transfer 'front end' control. Plus, iTunes would no longer have to be actively running to see your music across the network, since the backend could share music without the front end running.

The desired effect being that the music never stops, but the control of the music transfers into the new user's screen. An added bonus would be that this new user's iTunes settings would still be in effect, so if the old user preferred to view albums using Coverflow, and the new user preferred the standard details list, iTunes would appear to each user as desired, but with the same music library.

The only thing this complicates is that music would appear in a single library, but this isn't mandatory. The backend server could be made smart enough that it can scan multiple user directories (or specified directories) for the library music, and appear in the heirarchy appropriately (Library, Bob's Library, Grace's Library). When changing users, you would then see that you're playing music out of some other library, but you would still have control of the music.

Does any of that make sense? Or am I talking out of my rear?

-rand()