[Release] LH_NowPlaying (v3.00)

[Triscopic]

Links on the home page: http://code.google.com/p/lcdhost/source/browse/

^-this

It won't work consistently with winamp or spotify which don't provide you with separate track/artist details, just one string separated with a "-" which of course you can't reliably split on as it's possible a song might include a dash in it's title - as could an artist I suppose.

This is why I've not worked on this: it would make the now playing object less reliable. If you want it for iTunes though, it's trivial.

[Litcube]

The G19App managed to get the information from winamp, but perhaps he wasn't using the "now playing" api.

[Triscopic]

There is no "now playing" api. Rather the plugin has to be coded separately for every music application. I haven't implemented the winamp api, rather I just pull the artist/track from the application title, likewise for Spotify (which has no api - not for the free client anyway)

[Wayno]

i dont know if its my lcdhost or its me, but the song will not scroll anymore and it crashses now. i have the latest winamp

use alpha15 lh_nowplaying 1.03 winamp version 5.61

14/04/2011 1:19:21 PM  WRN  "LH_NowPlaying" unresponsive, restarting
14/04/2011 3:32:23 PM  DBG  "LH_NowPlaying" loaded with 1 classes

chalkboard v0.2 theme

can someone else confirm this?

[Ender91]

Dl the latest plugin...(1.04).

[littlemixi]

Ender is right..

Getting here

[Triscopic]

Release Notes:

Updated to 2.0:

• Completely rewritten! Now based on the open source musitctracker plugin for pidgin
• Now supports pulling individual data items (i.e. Artist or Track or Album) so you can display them seperately
• New "Progress Bar" - see how far through the track you are
• New play times: Played, Remaining and Total Length can all be displayed
• Supports many new players:
  
  • iTunes, Winamp: Full native support - these players support all the new features
  • Foobar2000: Partial support via "Foobar_Winamp_Spam" plugin (no specific home page but v0.98 is located here) - Cannot pull Artist/Album/Track Name seperately but can access the progress bar.
  • Windows Media Player, VLC Player, Spotify, Last.fm, and others: Partial support using the MSN/Windows Live messenger interface (you may need to enable this feature seperately in the player). This sadly does not support the progress bar but should allow you to pull the artist, album & track name seperately.

Although I haven't included support for linux the musictracker source code does, so it should be possible to add this if it becomes necessary.


Available with A16

[novax1]

Great work
 Congratulations to all
 are the best

[h8maintenance]

Re: J River Media Center - google tells me J River supports MSN Now Playing, but that it might not be on by default. Check the various options and see if you can find it.

FYI, so far I've only had MSN now playing stuff working on my XP, 32bit machine - I'm not sure anything can send or receive now playing details on win7 64bit, just in case that's what you're using.

Hi Triscopic,

Thanks for replying about LH_NowPlaying and JRiver on my layout thread. I'm porting the discussion here for consistency.

Yes indeed there is a MSN PlayingNow plugin for JRiver at :
http://accessories.jrmediacenter.com/mediacenter/accessories.php
I don't use MSN so I never thought to look there. And yes, I have a Win7 64-bit machine and as you suspected, the JRiver 'MSN PlayingNow' plugin does not work with Win7 64-bit   .I guess it's because the .dll has not been signed as I have .NET Framework 1.1 (a prerequisite for this plugin).

There is another plugin for JRiver called 'MSN Messenger' plugin. I installed it successfully but I could not see a way to make it show in LH_NowPlaying. Actually, I don't know if it can work with the LCDHost applet.

There is a third JRiver plugin that I currently use called  'Logitech LCD Manager Display' which works with Win7 64-bit.
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=51079.msg348637#msg348637

Would it be easy/easier to port this plugin to LH_NowPlaying? I've attached it herein if you have the time or inkling to have a look. I know, I know... I won't be holding my breath   .

[Triscopic]

Can't use a compiled dll or exe to help my work. Source code is sometimes useful.

I *think* win7 64 doesn't allow *anything* to communicate using the MSN interface. Check to see if you can get now playing data in Windows Live Messenger. If you can it should work with LH_Nowplaying. If not... well if MSN can't receive info using the MSN interface, it's not looking good for anything else is it?

As it stands though, I'm not likely to build support for a paid-for music player unless they have api's that are insanely easy: once the free trial period expires I wouldn't be able to support it any more. And nowhere near as many people are going to find it useful when there are so many great free players like Winamp, foobar200, and yes, even iTunes.

I'm continuting to research why the MSN interface doesn't work and if you find anything interesting (i.e. if you get an MSN interface-based plugin to work with anything) let me know.

[h8maintenance]

I was hoping that may be with the dll of one of these plugins, you could have a quick whip at it (I don't have any programming language background and fiddling around can only get me this far...).

I have just tested these plugins with JRiver (on Win7 x64) but not with MSN Messenger. Please correct me if I'm wrong: I thought that if JRiver cannot recognize the plugin, how would another application be able to pull the output out of the player?

I do understand and respect your position about dedicating your time to players that are freely available and have a wider audience. After all, even for my layman's eyes, JRiver's API does not look like something that could be qualified as "insanely easy". On a side note, after a thorough search, I have not found (yet) its equivalent, but lo & behold: beauty is in the eyes of the beholder . I would still admit though that one of the two areas that irks me a lot is the views manipulation of the otherwise very rich (too rich?) interface.

I'm continuting to research why the MSN interface doesn't work and if you find anything interesting (i.e. if you get an MSN interface-based plugin to work with anything) let me know

Certainly. I will continue exploring and will let you know if I find anything interesting.

[h8maintenance]

I found this post "Sample C# Interface Plugin - Broadcasting Playing Now for MSN" at JRiver's forum:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=39984.0

Would this helps?


(they have a plugin development section in case you'd be interested:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=6.0 )

[Triscopic]

I found this post "Sample C# Interface Plugin - Broadcasting Playing Now for MSN" at JRiver's forum:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=39984.0

Would this helps?


(they have a plugin development section in case you'd be interested:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=6.0 )

Thanks for researching; however, it's not really what I need...

Many media players already support sending info *out* via the "MSN interface" or "MSN protocol". Other programs can then be built to *receive* data using this method. LH_NowPlaying does just that - it listens for any player that tries to send info out in this way. That code is for the sending part, which is what the music player needs to do. If there is a plugin over there it will be for J River - try installing it to J River's plugins list and see if it can talk to LCDHost.

The problem I have right now is that I have never seen *anything* send data using the MSN interface on 64 bit windows. I don't know if 64 bit windows breaks it in some way or if I just haven't looked hard enough.

That means that if you are using 64 bit windows, LH_NowPlaying cannot use the MSN method and can only interface with iTunes and Winamp that have their own, powerful (and complex) protocols that do work on 64 bit windows - unless you can find a plugin for J River that can send data out using the MSN interface that works for you.

Does this help?

[montymintypie]

I'm loving the 2.0 update.

However, I'm experiencing 2 bugs:
Opening iTunes crashes the plugin (reloading once iTunes is open is fine though)
Using iTunes again, it seems {artist} returns the album name instead. My custom text is:

Code: [Select]

{artist}{artist?: "}{title}{artist?:"} {status?[}{status}{status?]}
I'd post log data, but the most I can see is:

Code: [Select]

2011-05-11 16:46:10 | .W. | "LH_NowPlaying" unresponsivewhenever it crashes.

More than happy to run debug versions if you want help troubleshooting.

[Triscopic]

It's quite possible I got my "a"s mixed up and have artist returning album and visa versa. I'll look in that later.

The crashing issue is usually because iTunes is slow to answer. I must admit I get this too when I have my iPhone plugged in (I think it checks for iOS updates before deigning to respond to LH_NowPlaying). LCDHost is utterly ruthless in protecting itself from bad plugins so if it the nowplaying plugin is tied up waiting for iTunes to answer it for a couple of seconds LCDHost murders it.

I am planning to move the iTunes code into another thread so that the plugin doesn't stop answering  LCDHost while it waits.

And might I say, one iTunes* user to another, you'll really like NowPlaying 2.1. I hope you've assigned cover art to all your music ;-)

* Cover Artwork works perfectly for iTunes and partially works with Winamp.  iTunes may be a PIA at times but their API for programmers is great.