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Author Topic: Now Playing Automator app for OS X  (Read 800 times)

retiredteacherguy

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Now Playing Automator app for OS X
« on: January 21, 2023, 08:25:07 pm »

This won't give you an automatic notification every time a new track starts, but you can assign to a hot key (say, F12) and fire it off whenever you want to know what's playing.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FYh_Snmm_QP2JFYniu9uJKqw7cd3gkZA/view?usp=sharing
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retiredteacherguy

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Re: Now Playing Automator app for OS X
« Reply #1 on: January 23, 2023, 05:59:13 pm »

If you have Keyboard Maestro (pretty awesome app) it can monitor folders for changes and then do something else... like launch Now Playing. So now it can be automatic if you want. There’s a Temp folder in MC you can watch for changes that happen on every new song. You can even assign a hotkey to run it or not. I really like running it when I have a really diverse playlist going because I often can't recall the song right away.
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bob

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Re: Now Playing Automator app for OS X
« Reply #2 on: January 24, 2023, 11:30:19 am »

You could poll MCWS to get the current track playing info if that helps:

http://localhost:52199/MCWS/v1/Playback/Info?Zone=-1
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retiredteacherguy

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Re: Now Playing Automator app for OS X
« Reply #3 on: January 24, 2023, 02:53:44 pm »

Yep that's exactly what I'm doing...that query being triggered when Keyboard Maestro notices new info in the Temp folder. In fact I spent the last two days learning how to use alerter with MCWS which gives a bunch of customization for the notification. I'm also able to get the location of the album art and include it in the notification.

Some pics attached of where I am at this point.
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bob

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Re: Now Playing Automator app for OS X
« Reply #4 on: January 24, 2023, 04:36:58 pm »

Nice!
I tried installing the App on my M1 Mac but I'm getting a "damaged and can't be opened" error.
I'll try re-downloading it.
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retiredteacherguy

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Re: Now Playing Automator app for OS X
« Reply #5 on: January 24, 2023, 04:38:19 pm »

I've never tried using Google Drive for a compressed file, I had a feeling it would be weird. It was too big to upload here.

If anyone has other suggestions....
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EnglishTiger

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Re: Now Playing Automator app for OS X
« Reply #6 on: January 29, 2023, 04:54:35 am »

There’s a Temp folder in MC you can watch for changes that happen on every new song.

If a user selects to display "CovertArt" or "CoverArt + Lyrics" and MC is not running a Background the Temp folder does not get updated; also if a Background Task that uses the Temp folder, i.e. rebuilding Thumbnails is also running all changes to the Temp folder will happen at intervals that do not match a Track Change
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retiredteacherguy

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Re: Now Playing Automator app for OS X
« Reply #7 on: January 29, 2023, 11:34:45 am »

May be no way to solve but i’ll see what i can come up with
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retiredteacherguy

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Re: Now Playing Automator app for OS X
« Reply #8 on: February 01, 2023, 06:34:03 am »

After spending a lot of time with an executable called "alerter" a much simpler solution occurred to me. I used a great app called Fluid that can take just about any web (or in my case, local) address and turn it into a browser app. So I just took the file path to "Generated.html" that MC creates every time a new track begins, and had Fluid make an app that shows that file. From there I sized the window how I like it, hid the toolbar, and it looks like a notification.

Then I use Keyboard Maestro to keep an eye on the Track Info folder, and it will run the app if MC is not the active window (because obviously I don't need it if I am looking at MC) and it will close the app after 8 seconds.

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