T400 + Winamp : Is the FN+ArrowKey can be functionnal?

Hey guys,

sorry if this already has been asked but I found any information on that.

I would like to make the FN+Arrowkey work with winamp? (Play/Pause, Stop, Foward, Backward) So I can be able to switch song without opening winamp and clicking NEXT.....

Is there anyway I can make this work?

Thanks

 

As far as I know, the Fn buttons are hardwired to work only with windows media player. I used to use Winamp before, but I switched back to windows. It's nice to have control over your music while focused on another window. You might consider using windows media instead.

 

It's not hardwired; it's just a driver issue. On my T400, which runs Gentoo Linux, I'm able to configure the media keys to do whatever I want. I would suggest fiddling with the driver, though I know very little about Windows, so it may not be possible.

 

BUMP!

I don't think I'll consider going back to window media player since I hate this thing... winamp is so much more convenient for many reason!

I would still like to have more information about this issue!

Thanks to both of you anyway!

 

Options- Preferences - Global Hotkeys - Enable default multimedia key support.

 

Windows Media Player...right. I only use that unintuitive piece of bloatware at work and my playlist filename is "WMP11 Sucks.wpl."

My hotkeys work with Winamp out of the box.

 

You can also use keyboard shortcut for winamp.

B is next,
C is pause,
X is resume/start from beginning
Z is previous.

 

The problem with those is that they aren't universal and they do something else if Winamp isn't the active window.

 

I think Flimzes recommendation should work if you are using Winamp 5. However, some people (Myself) still like the old and lean audio only version (Winamp 2.81) and I haven't found a fix for this yet.

I also hate Windows Media Player. I stripped it out using vLite and saved about 500MB (Winamp is <5 MB and so is Media Player Classic Home Cinema; how did WMP11 get so large?).

 

I've learned, I am a software person and I wouldn't bother because without the source you'll fail and you won't get the sorce even for winamp.
-Renee

 

I used Winamp 2.95 on my desktop for what seemed like forever, but after installing Winamp 5 on my ThinkPad, I eventually upgraded the desktop to Winamp 5 as well because I could finally drag songs from Explorer to playlist, and that was a big feature missing in Winamp 2. I just made sure to uncheck the optional bloatware that's offered during Winamp 5 installation and used a classic Winamp skin. I guess 5 takes up a little more memory than 2, but it's still pretty quick overall and nowhere near the disaster that 3 was.

Winamp 5 comes with built-in hotkey management, but on my desktop, I use a program called Active Keys with my non-multimedia keyboard and it works great with Winamp 2 and 5. I don't know if Active Keys will recognize the Fn key on the ThinkPad keyboard, but you could map the functions to other key combinations. On my desktop, I set up Alt+, as previous track, Alt+. as next track, Alt+/ as Play/Pause, and have my seventh mouse button emulate Alt+/.

 

I enabled Global Hotkeys in Winamp. Now it recognises Fn keys and works fine
Thanks Snakecharmed and Flimzes

 

I gotta say Media Player Classic is my fave as well. Very small...AND...has just about every codec one could ever need. WMP11, what a piece of parc. That goes for iTunes as well, another steaming pile of...

WinAmp also works wonderfully when running RockBox on iPods, as my Bro-in-law demonstrated. Now, if only my four week delayed T400 would arrive I can get down to switching over.

Kawika

 

THANKS !

That's what I call a great bump! This worked perfectly!

 

All the credit should go to Flimzes. I was fortunate to have the Lenovo multimedia hotkeys work out of the box without changing any settings in Winamp or the drivers! I found the global hotkeys option in Winamp from experimenting on my desktop.

kawika, I use Media Player Classic with K-Lite Mega Codec Pack for all videos and quick playback of music or sound clips that I don't want to enqueue in Winamp, and Winamp for all my regular music. I got around to installing Winamp 5 on the desktop at work because my earlier post motivated me to finally do so. There are so many problems with WMP 11 that make it completely unsuitable for a regular music player—almost all of which are related to a UI that sucks at playlist management. WMP 10 was bad, but 11 is practically unusable. Also, iTunes—the Windows version, at least—is the most overrated, piece of junk music player ever.

 

Snakecharmed:
Oh, yeah. I forgot the codec pack associated with MP Classic. I actually do the exact same thing as you.

How well does VLC compare for videos/DVD? I've seen it mentioned recently here and around, and was just wondering.

Kawika

 

VLC is very good as well. It has the advantage of being able to play almost any media file, even without the proper codec installed. However, it can have slightly higher CPU and/or memory usage than Media Player Classic.

Also, I don't think that VLC responds to the ThinkPad media hotkeys.

I keep both installed, but I use Media Player Classic Home Cinema unless I have a problem with a particular file.