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Universal Music Skin

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DumbDude1994
Posts: 43
Joined: November 12th, 2009, 2:04 am

Universal Music Skin

Post by DumbDude1994 »

What if there was a way to control the most common music players out there with a skin. A lot of keyboards (laptop or otherwise) lately have buttons at the top that can pause/play, next/previous, +/- volume, and mute. And it works (at least for me) on iTunes, Zune, and Windows Media Player. There must be some way to replicate those commands in rainmeter. Anyone have any ideas on how this could be done.
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Chewtoy
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Joined: June 10th, 2009, 12:44 pm
Location: Sweden

Re: Universal Music Skin

Post by Chewtoy »

You could merge all the available players that's out there.
Make the buttons send commands to every player. or find a clever way to manipulate it with calcs or something.
The problem is that you'd probably be sending commands to something you don't want to control at that point.
Say you're playing some music in foobar/winamp7itunes/wmp and at the same time watching a small clip in VLC. Stopping the music will make VLC pause as well. And if you gather info from all the playes, you will get values from VLC and the other player that you're using for music.
But sure. You can make a universal skin.
I don't think, therefore I'm not.
DumbDude1994
Posts: 43
Joined: November 12th, 2009, 2:04 am

Re: Universal Music Skin

Post by DumbDude1994 »

I like your concept on the idea (and I have an idea on fixing the problem you brought up) but that isn't what I was saying. I was saying maybe there is a way to access the files that make the keyboard buttons work and replicate them (like a plugin).

P.S. I'm gonna start on your idea because I'm bored.
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Chewtoy
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Joined: June 10th, 2009, 12:44 pm
Location: Sweden

Re: Universal Music Skin

Post by Chewtoy »

Ah. You mean you want to find the plugin that sends all the commands and some how use that?
Look in the Drivers folder for the keyboeard in question. Might find something there.
I don't think, therefore I'm not.
poiru
Developer
Posts: 2872
Joined: April 17th, 2009, 12:18 pm

Re: Universal Music Skin

Post by poiru »

This is possible and also has been discussed, we'll see what we can come up with.
DumbDude1994
Posts: 43
Joined: November 12th, 2009, 2:04 am

Re: Universal Music Skin

Post by DumbDude1994 »

Chewtoy, I started your idea and I got 2 working players (iTunes and WinAmp) that don't interfere with each other but I'm looking for another media player to integrate into the player. VLC won't work (I tried replicating the Gnometer Skin), Foobar I don't understand how it works, Zune (don't know where to even begin), Spotify makes no sense, and WMP is difficult to comprehend. Are there any other players that have worked with Rainmeter?
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JpsCrazy
Posts: 667
Joined: April 18th, 2010, 2:16 pm
Location: NY, USA

Re: Universal Music Skin

Post by JpsCrazy »

Might I suggest if you haven't thought of this already is you have a measure that somehows checks if the user uses a certain player, or at worst a variable to check this with all measures starting disabled.
I feel like if you do make this very universal, there's going to be a lot of unused calcs or measure and such which would run up CPU usage.

The variables example:

Code: Select all

[Variables]

;1 means used, 0 is not used
iTunes=1
WMP=1
VLC=0
Foobar=0
etc...

[msDisableiTunes]
Measure=Calc
Formula=#iTunes#
DynamicVariables=1
IfAboveValue=0
IfAboveAction=!Execute [!RainmeterEnableMeasure (someitunesmeasure)]
IfBelowValue=1
IfBelowAction=!Execute [!RainmeterDisableMeasure (someitunesmeasure)][!RainmeterDisableMeasure msDisableiTunes]

[msDisableWMP]
Measure=Calc
Formula=#WMP#
DynamicVariables=1
IfAboveValue=0
IfAboveAction=!Execute [!RainmeterEnableMeasure (somewmpmeasure)]
IfBelowValue=1
IfBelowAction=!Execute [!RainmeterDisableMeasure (somewmpmeasure)][!RainmeterDisableMeasure msDisableWMP]

etc, etc...
DumbDude1994
Posts: 43
Joined: November 12th, 2009, 2:04 am

Re: Universal Music Skin

Post by DumbDude1994 »

Well what I have now is like the News Skin by rainy. It has 3 buttons that either hide or show the meters for each of the 3 (2 working currently) media players. As for calcs I only have 1 because for the iTunes part of the skin I just set a Max/Min Value for the progress bar and it works fine I'll post the beta version to dev art really quick then come back and attach it.
Last edited by DumbDude1994 on June 24th, 2010, 7:39 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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JpsCrazy
Posts: 667
Joined: April 18th, 2010, 2:16 pm
Location: NY, USA

Re: Universal Music Skin

Post by JpsCrazy »

Ohh. Okay.
I thought it'd be a generic music skin, but like, the fast forward button would make ALL music players fast forward. Like, one set of controls that controlled alllll players.
Anywho, it should be fine then.
DumbDude1994
Posts: 43
Joined: November 12th, 2009, 2:04 am

Re: Universal Music Skin

Post by DumbDude1994 »

edit- Edit2- I got WMP added to this so I'm happy
It works with iTunes WinAmp and WMP now I have to clean up the icons and make icons for the next previous pause and play buttons