LCD Smartie

Windows Media Player plug-in

The WMP Plug-in for LCD Smartie reads the Album, Artist, Title and Duration information for the track currently playing in Windows Media Player (WMP). It can also be used in an Action to detect when the track changes.

Full usage and installation notes can be found in the enclosed Read Me file.

v1.0
Download (6.60KB)

Note: To retrieve the information from WMP, this plug-in requires the "WMP Blogging Plug-in" to be installed. This is a free download, and is available from Microsoft here. This plug-in also requires the latest .NET Framework Version 2 runtime. At the time of writing, this is currently not widely installed, and the current (Beta 2) build can be found here.

JJ

Cool. If you are writing a wrapper around the registry entries for WMPBlogger though, a handy thing to add would be a function to return whether the player is currently playing or not, as detectable by whether the registry entries are present or not. This could be useful for switching to a screen while playing, then switching back when not playing any more.

AlexV wrote:...a handy thing to add would be a function to return whether the player is currently playing or not...

Yes, I can certainly add that, as I am detecting whether the WMP information is available and handling that internally. Currently, the plug-in just returns empty values if WMP is not running or the Blogging plug-in is not installed.

AlexV wrote:This could be useful for switching to a screen while playing, then switching back when not playing any more.

So, are you saying that you'd like another function to return "0" or "1" to indicate whether WMP is loaded, and handle that somehow in Actions?

Ideally, it would be nice if the "Skip if..." functionality for a given screen could be "extendable", in the same way that the Actions are.

JJ

Yes, having the SkipIf extendable would be nice. Perhaps it will make its way into some future version.

I have done a bit of work on my RegistryReader plugin to make it a little more flexible, so together with another utility plugin I've knocked up (ConditionalDisplay) it will now handle what I want.

In case you are curious, what I am trying to do is have a screen which ordinarily displays just the date and time on one line, and leaves the other blank. If I start playing media player, I want it to display the details in the previously blank line. When I recieve an email, I want it to switch to the email notification screen, until the email count is 0 again, then it should switch back to the default time/media screen.

So, that's why I needed to do the combined time/media screen without splitting it into two screens, so the email screen could override properly, then return to the correct screen, without a media-playing action switching the screen away from the email screen.

Ok, I've just uploaded a new version, which includes this as function6... see included Read Me. Download location is the same, so the link above works and gets the latest build.

One question... when WMP becomes inactive - either it is unloaded or stopped - I return "0" from function6 (Active), and functions1-4 (Media information) return "" (blank). But, what about function5 (Changed)? Should it switch to "1" to indicate a change, or might that mess up your trigger actions?

JJ

The way I'm using this plug-in is, I have a Smartie screen that is not in the usual "rotation"; it is Disabled. This screen shows the Artist, Track Title and Album using the wmp plug-in functions 2, 4 and 1 and displays for 4 seconds.

I then use function5 in an Action, which switches to that "hidden" screen.

So, what happens is, when I switch track (or, load WMP and start the first track) the LCD displays the details for 4 seconds, before returning to the usual rotation.

JJ

I have just uploaded another build, which fixes the behaviour of function 5, which retrieves whether WMP has 'Changed' - the track has changed, the player is started/stopped or loaded/unloaded.

Fix: Previously, the change was only indicated if the Artist Name changed. However, if the media being played does not contain an Artist tag, the change was not detected. The change is now correctly detected for all media.

Again, the link in the first post will download this updated version.

Feedback welcome -- both kinds.
JJ

JJ,

Thanks for the great WMP plugin. I've been waiting for someone smarter than me to come up with a good plugin for a while now.

Unfortunately, the "Active Function" 6 is now only returning a 1 on my computer for some reason (regardless of the status of WMP). It did initally work on the install but has sinced stopped.

Any suggestions on what I can do to troubleshoot? Is there a registry output from bloggin that can be checked?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Stik

Stik wrote:Unfortunately, the "Active Function" 6 is now only returning a 1 on my computer for some reason (regardless of the status of WMP). It did initally work on the install but has sinced stopped.

Stik,

WMP Plug-in determines whether WMP is active based on the existance of the Registry entries created by the Blogging plug-in. If the HKCU\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\CurrentMetadata key exists, and any entries exist within that node, Active is set to 1.

The Blogging plug-in creates and removes these entries as WMP is loaded & unloaded and when tracks are started & stopped. For some reason, it seems the plug-in behaviour has changed on your PC. Could you check whether those keys and items exist please. Also, check the Blogging plug-in is installed correctly in WMP.

Thanks,
JJ

JJ,

Thanks for the help. Checked the registry. Everything seems to work as advertised from Blogging's side. Album, Author, durationstring, and title entries all exist when wmp is playing and go away when it is not playing. The only other entry in that key is the 'default' key which is always there regardless of the status of wmp.

I have lcdsmartie set up to output function 6 and it is always 1, regardless of wmp operation. All other plugin functions work great including function 5 switching to a 1 and back to 0 when tracks switch. Any other advice?

Andy

Stik wrote:...I have lcdsmartie set up to output function 6 and it is always 1, regardless of wmp operation...

Stik,

I found and fixed the bug. I've just uploaded a new build (link in top post) which fixes the behaviour of function 6, to correctly indicated whether WMP is active or not.

JJ

So, is the access violation in mscorlib.ni.dll part of the plugin? I installed the blogger plugin for WMP, I updated to the .net version 2 beta, I put the plugin into the LCD Smartie plugin folder. I set the parameters to display title and Artist, and BAM! Access violation. WTF did I do or not do?

I am getting an Access Violation as well.

Followed exact instructions.

"mscorlib.ni.dll" access violation.

Read of address 00000008

any ideas?

Hi All,

Sorry for the delay. Annoyingly, I can't reproduce the problem, so it's tricky to debug. I've compiled a new version - available using the download link in the top post. Try that and let me know if it makes any difference.

If it doesn't, drop me a mail to me {at} jongrieve.net and we'll go through some tests.

Ta,
JJ

I'm not entirely sure what I should set the action to be to switch to the hidden screen, any help?

Ngare wrote:I'm not entirely sure what I should set the action to be to switch to the hidden screen, any help?

What do you mean "switch hidden screen"?

Ngare wrote:I'm not entirely sure what I should set the action to be to switch to the hidden screen, any help?

Hi,

What I did was, I created a Screen (I used #20 at the end), which is marked with Enabled off - it isn't included in the usual rotation of Screens. Set Time to Show to say 5s.

Now, to get Smartie to jump to that Screen, you switch to the Actions tab and add a new Action:

If $dll(wmp,5,,) = 1 Then GotoScreen(20)

This causes Smartie to switch to the "hidden" Screen when the track changes. After the delay you set, it will return to the normal rotation of Screens.

Hope that helps,

JJ

Perfect reply, thanks. This lcd stuff is pretty awesome.

Is there a way to install the blogger plugin in WMP under vista? The creativity pack will only install under XP.

Yeah...I second that request. We need to get of the main functionality of Smartie such as Media Player and Media Center working for Vista.

Mark

Im running Vista Home Premium 32bit
The CurrentMetaData registry entry mentioned above does not exist in regedit.
WMP Blog plugin does not work under wmp11 on vista.
My WMP11 on vista has uICE WMP installed. This was installed with a Now Playing sidebar gadget. This is described as a way of controlling WMP from external programs, webpages or scripts so we could have a control interface for MO buttons with a skilled plugin maker. Find it here http://www.mediatexx.com/
There is one plugin that releases Metadata that i have installed. That is Windows Live Messinger plugin. This "Changes your personal message in Windows Live Messenger to show the currently playing song."
Also i have found a Vista sidebar gadget that finds song names called NOW Playing by Law James. His Blog here http://gadgetdev.blogspot.com/
Hopefully someone finds this usefull and can make a good WMP plugin for LCD Smartie for Vista! My total inability to make the plugin can't stop me from being optimistic!
(I am posting this under 3 topics that are asking the same thing ibn the hope that someone will find it)

Hi Guys,

Just a quick note to say, I'll try and investigate a Vista solution soon. I'm not running Vista as my main OS yet and my LCD isn't even hooked up to the PC atm, but apart from that I'm good to go!

JJ

hi I am from greece and some tracks have greek characters in their Id3 tags.
I request from limbo to add 40 lines at his plugin, search and replace, and I write the ini file of the plugin.
Now the plugin works but when i try this with wmp plugin it doesn't work.
I also find out that the wmp plugin does't display the greek characters correct
For example if I write δ shows μ but when in wmp plugin the title has the letter δ shows two chinese characters.
What encoding do you use??

Does anybody look here anymore?
Anyone making plugin?
Or does everyone use itunes etc.
Last WMP Blogging plugin was very useful
Damb m,icrosoft changing blogging plugin for vista.
Or has something haoppened that i am not aware of

hm1992 wrote:Does anybody look here anymore?
Anyone making plugin?
Or does everyone use itunes etc.
Last WMP Blogging plugin was very useful
Damb m,icrosoft changing blogging plugin for vista.
Or has something haoppened that i am not aware of

Many Questions!
Which answer do you need?