I've been lamenting the lack of new and exciting music in my life, namely just about anything on 6Music. While I procrastinate over which DAB radio to buy for my flat, I've been trying to remind myself to stick on 6Music in iPlayer when I'm using my computer. Unfortunately since it's in my browser I keep closing it absentmindedly, sending me into fits of murderous rage.
I thought I'd try making a little desktop app for 6Music using Andy Ihnatko's Automator web apps tutorial, and here I am sharing it with you like so much hepatitis.
Firstly, open Automator and choose the 'Application' document type:
Next pick the 'Internet' library in the far left pane, and drag 'Get Specified URLs' from the actions list into the large workflow pane on the right:
Select the default http://www.apple.com address, click 'Remove', then 'Add', and paste in the address for the 6Music player:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/bbc_6music
Now we want to tell Automator to display that page, so drag the 'Website Popup' action from the list into the workflow pane, below 'Get Specified URLs'.
Set 'Site Size' to 'iPhone', as the 6Music player popup is already in a small portrait format suitable for a smartphone.
Leave 'User Agent' as 'Safari'. When creating little web apps like this I'd usually set this to 'iPhone', as this will often prompt the site to serve up a simpler mobile version which is easier to read and navigate in a small window. Unfortunately, possibly due to the use of Flash in the player, the 6Music site gives an error when you set this to 'iPhone'.
We're almost there. Now let's save our web app, remembering to check that the file format is set to 'Application':
Et voila! I now have a 6Music app on my desktop:
Let's fire it up:
Yay! Music!
Being a bit of a perfectionist, I'd quite like to have a 6Music icon rather than the default Automator one. Digging around on Google Images I found this nice square one:
Copy the image into your clipboard from the browser, then open up our Automator app properties by right clicking on the app and selecting 'Get Info'. In the info pane that pops up, click on the little Automator icon in the top left so that it shows as selected with a little blue outline, then paste our new image in with Cmd+V:
Close the properties window and we're all done with a nifty little 6Music app on our desktop!
