If you’re anything like me, you probably spend most of your day working with the PC while listening to music on Winamp. Since I often need to pause it (when somebody talks to me or when I really need to concentrate) I’m always looking for some way to control music without having to go through the mess of leaving my current app, looking for Winamp on the taskbar, maximizing the window and finally pausing it.
A few years ago I used a plug-in that enabled me to assign hotkeys to Winamp’s basic functions and use them anywhere. Luckily enough, this plug-in has been embedded into the player’s most recent versions and now you can easily configure and use global hotkeys to manage Winamp while working with any other application.
To enable hotkeys, enter Winamp’s Preferences menu (Ctrl+P) and click on Global Hotkeys. After ticking the Enabled option, click on any action and write your preferred combination for it in the Hotkey field. Don’t forget to click on Set before changing to another action, otherwise the combination won’t be saved.
I personally suggest using similar combinations for your hotkeys. In other words, use always the same trigger key (Ctrl, Alt or similar) and then assign letters to different actions. Also, be aware of possible conflicts with other hotkeys. By the way, you can remove unused options by clicking on the Remove button and also add new ones by opening the Action menu (the tiny black arrow on the right).
One of the most interesting functions is the Jump to box. Simply press the assigned hotkey and you’ll be able to jump to any song in your playlist by just entering the first few letters of the artist’s name or the song’s title. It comes in really handy when you have a huge playlist – like mine – and suddenly feel like listening to a particular song – which I do a lot, too.
