Please refer to the built-in Help in OnDeck (Help menu) for guidance on how to use and setup OnDeck. This page provides supplementary advice and trouble-shooting material.

• Please note that IM status functions are not currently enabled.

• If you don't yet have artwork Export Artwork can download artwork from Amazon.com and save it into your album folders, another less intuitive program is CDCoverTool (drag album folder into it and it will aid you in downloading the images). Similar functionality may be introduced to OnDeck in future.
• If you already have artwork embedded within your tracks in iTunes 4 but prefer to save it to image files on disk you can also use Export Artwork to save the artwork automatically as images files within the album folders.
• You can control iTunes from the OnDeck window (when it is front-most)—the keyboard shortcuts detailed below are supported. If you have a scroll wheel you can also change the volume. For system-wide keyboard shortcuts I recommend using an iTunes controller such as SizzlingKeys (or search VersionTracker).
• With OnDeck hidden you can enabled Growl notifications and have them display with artwork as each track changes. I recommend the Music Video display option (see screenshot).

• Location: When using image files on disk you do not need to have the 'Keep iTunes Music folder organised' option turned on but each album should have its own folder (unless perhaps you wanted to display images by artist or genre) and the image should be located in that folder. The folder can be located anywhere the music file can also be located, including remote volumes (AppleShare, FTP, WebDAV) and on CD-ROMs.
• Formats: Supports JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, PICT, EPS, PDF and PSD (PhotoShop). Image files must have appropriate extension (e.g. .jpg suffix).
• Dimensions: Images larger than the window are proportionally scaled down (and cropped to fill the window if you have not turned the resize option off), whilst smaller images are scaled up (or displayed at actual size with resizing off). With resizing off if an image appears smaller than you think it should, it is probably because it is at a DPI higher than your screen (e.g. 72dpi), adjust the resolution or display size of the image (without resampling it so as not to affect the quality). All uploaded images are scaled (up or down) to fit (height and width) the size you specify.
• Updates: Unlike other iTunes utilities that either increase the load on your processor to frequently monitor iTunes for changes, or infrequently poll iTunes so as to use less CPU time but take a while to update, with OnDeck has the best of both methods. OnDeck uses very little CPU time yet updates and uploads immediately as the next track starts playing. This means your website can be almost as up-to-date as iTunes itself! However the compromise is that there will generally be a delay before the artwork is updated: A. on launch if iTunes is not playing; B. if you pause and then resume iTunes (both no longer than the sleep polling setting); and C. when you skip a track (the time before OnDeck updates after skipping a track varies). The sleep setting is one minute by default. You can always force an update simply by bringing OnDeck to the front.
• Uploads: Using HTTP POST (without authentication) removes the need for your FTP username and password to be sent across the internet every few minutes, but is only suitable for advanced users (see the help in OnDeck). You do not have to turn off uploads when you are offline as they will 'fail' silently. During upload operations all errors are suppressed, but this means that if you enter the wrong details for your server no upload will take place. However the benefit to this is if your internet connection is off or goes down no errors will be displayed. If you are offline for an extended period it would however be sensible to turn off uploads using the function menu. Artwork upload is not currently compatable with high-latency and/or low-bandwidth internet connections (e.g satellite) due to a very short hard-coded timeout value. Note that information (track details) are encoded as UTF-8 therefore your site or script must either convert that, or also use UTF-8 text/file encoding (declare <meta http-equiv=content-type content="text/html;charset=utf-8"> in the head).
• Launching: If iTunes is not open it will be launched automatically (one click on OnDeck in your dock will launch both programs). If iTunes is not playing when OnDeck is launched and the Auto-hide window preference is on (the default) the artwork window will not become visible until a short while after you start iTunes (up to the setting for sleep).
• Requirements: iTunes 4+. Upload and version check functions requires the BSD Subsystem (in the unlikely event you chose not to install it), $grouping requires iTunes 5+.

Fullscreen and controls

Toggle Fullscreen mode from the Window menu, Dock menu, or:

• double click the artwork to open; click anywhere (other than on controls) to close
• press Apple+F
• use the AppleScript command tell application "OnDeck" to open "fullscreen"

Control iTunes with the following keyboard shortcuts (accessable from any visible window, providing the fullscreen menu is closed):

• space – play/pause
• left arrow – previous track
• right arrow – next track
• up arrow – increase volume
• down arrow – reduce volume
• x – toggle shuffle
• 0-5 – set rating of current track
• t – start visuals (in iTunes)

Customisation

You can customise the look of some elements in OnDeck by creating custom images. You should consider that text colours and other display elements are not customisable. Images are PNG 8 or 24 with optional transparency.

• Fullscreen background
  • ~/Library/Application Support/OnDeck/Fullscreen/background-title.png
  • ~/Library/Application Support/OnDeck/Fullscreen/background-main.png
• Default source images (also used for uploads)
  • ~/Library/Application Support/OnDeck/General/source-file.png
  • ~/Library/Application Support/OnDeck/General/source-disc.png
  • ~/Library/Application Support/OnDeck/General/source-net.png