is there a way?

clarification: i mean getting the controls there.

preferences/display/system tray/minimise to tray

thanks. yes, but the controls (play, pause, etc.) aren't displayed, unless you right click on the icon. is there a way to have the controls display in the system tray or task bar?

you want 8+ buttons all in your systray?.. what the hell would be the point in that?
anyway, it's not like wmp/winamp do this either, so i don't really understand where you got this ludicrous idea either. (as for itunes, the software is almost as evil as wmp is with its nutty reorganizing your media library if you don't watch out)

regardless: learn how to use the global hotkeys.. might save you from rsi

yes and no. task bar or sys tray doesn't really make a difference to me, but wmp and itunes do offer the possibility to put the controls in the task bar, and they are both fairly unobtrusive. so no 8+ buttons there. it's a very handy feature, actually.

itunes' reorganization is extremely annoying until you learn how to avoid it. so i guess i could echo your advice to learn how to use the software

For version 0.8 there is a thing called foo_tbar, I think. Try a search for it.
Though be careful as I think there are one or two bugs...

If I were you, I'd go with boombaard's suggestion and set global hotkeys.

If you REALLY need this, create a folder somewhere with links to foobar with the '/play', '/stop', '/next', etc switches.

ie

Then you can add the folder as a toolbar on taskbar.

If you REALLY need this, setup some good global keymaps...you'll never again want to use buttons. My FB2k has no buttons at all, anywhere. One less thing to skin.

Thanks guys, I will try all your suggestions.