Rainmeter[sounds]Customization feature IDEA

[Vx_Lotus]

I'm not a very good coder\programmer its more of a hobby than a job for me.. so I just thought I would throw this idea out here. Rainmeter uses the background sound system. What if it could use the windows media player or something as a default so you could do sound overlaps? or do immediate sound [play\stop] instead of !delay #? Would programming this into a rainmeter update be useful to everyone\anyone or be difficult to do? Is anyone working on this? Doing so might enable being the use of mp3\mp4 file formats instead of stacked .pngs, .bitmap file types.

[Active Colors]

I'm not a very good coder\programmer its more of a hobby than a job for me.. so I just thought I would throw this idea out here. Rainmeter uses the background sound system. What if it could use the windows media player or something as a default so you could do sound overlaps? or do immediate sound [play\stop] instead of !delay #? Would programming this into a rainmeter update be useful to everyone\anyone or be difficult to do? Is anyone working on this? Doing so might enable being the use of mp3\mp4 file formats instead of stacked .pngs, .bitmap file types.

I believe this is what you are asking https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual-beta/bangs/#Play

[Vx_Lotus]

No, I mean like playing mp4 movie file as wallpaper or using multiple mp3's at once. (Future update Idea if ever there was one)
The command [!PlayStop] and [Play "filename.wav"] is very limited. Once a sequence plays again it kills the previous sound making the second .wav completely useless unless there is a serious delay.

[jsmorley]

We are really not interested at this time in wading into the morass of complexity with the hundreds of video and audio formats, and dealing with the issues of licensing of formats like mp4 and mp3.

[Vx_Lotus]

I thought there might be something like this in effect. Just wanted to see what the creators were thinking about it. "unless there is some sort of workaround using the background sound file or something... " I would like to know about it. #Stacked .Wav (play song) + (Play voice) + (Play film) workaround (I could dupe the files in Audacity and clear things up a little, then play the .wav on top of a loop sequence) but I was hoping that Rainmeter might create a shortcut to this in the future. Apologies, if I seem a bit rude. You guys have done a great job with the software so I'm not complaining. Just throwing an idea out here. =D thanks for the response.

[jsmorley]

We have considered it, but decided against trying to build any more robust "playing" capabilities into Rainmeter.

There are hundreds of audio and video formats out there.
It would require quite large codec files to support them.
It would require constant updating to keep them current.

Many if not most of the tools available to decode and play these formats require licensing.

It would take a large amount of code to support the various actions, play, stop, pause, random, fast-forward, rewind, playlists, needed to create even a minimally decent "player", and to create the meter support to display the controls.

If someone wanted to create a 3rd-party plugin in C++ or C# to enable the playing of mp3 audio files, that might be fun. It's not something we are likely to build into the project.

[Vx_Lotus]

Well my C# is a bit rusty lol, but yes I understand it would be a complicated task indeed. My thought was maybe if people pitched in? I saw your profile quote about rainmeter on deviant which made me think "why not ask?"

[jsmorley]

Well, you never know. I don't think it would be impossible to create a C++ or C# plugin that could use a .mp3 file as input and support bangs for play/pause/resume/stop, but I'd be concerned about licensing issues with the mp3 format. It is not open source.

[Vx_Lotus]

Surely someone here must know something more intimate about this. I think the decoder would be the biggest issue. ^ agree with the license issue as well. I think if it is done, it should be done with care.

[Vx_Lotus]

You mean a .dll file plug-in that uses media function. Is there a license needed for something like that? Mp3 sharing could be an issue, and would have to emphasize personal use only (here) …. I'm beginning to see why you guys changed your minds. We'll it was worth asking at least.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_licensing