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iTunes support for notification center (song changes, etc.)

H

heghead

macrumors member
May 30, 2010
33
0
Australia
nyolc8 said:
As I said, I really love this little app. I modified it to get the title "Now Playing" in the notification center to show up in my language by this:

I made a new folder in Now Playing.app/Contents/Resources/Now Playing.app/Contents/Resources/hu.lproj/
(hu is my language)

I copied the "InfoPlist.strings" file from Chess.app/Contents/Resources/hu.lproj/
into the newly created folder, then I keeped only CFBundleDisplayName section in the file and modified the value of it to say "now playing" in my language.

result:
Image

So my suggestion is that it could be translated into various language.:)

And another thing:
I looked into the script file and I found this:
Code: 
tell application "System Events" to (name of processes) [B]contains[/B] appName

So if "iTunes Helper" running only, it's also triggers the script. Or am I wrong?
Click to expand...

Multiple translations sounds like a great idea!! If you would like to send me your version via private message, I can host it on the MediaFire server and distribute it with the other builds if you'd like? (Also, anyone else out there who would like to provide different versions in different languages, feel free to send them in too).

Regarding the process name point. When I call the appIsRunning sub-routine you'll notice I call it with ("iTunes"). When the processes are sent from System Event, they are supplied with quote marks around them. When calling appIsRunning the quote marks are not used in the same way as you would use them with a variable, they are actually also being sent to the sub-routine. Therefore, because "iTunes" (including the quote marks) is not contained in "iTunesHelper" (including the quote marks), iTunes Helper is not detected.

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions :)
 
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N

nyolc8

macrumors regular
Jul 20, 2012
205
1
heghead said:
Multiple translations sounds like a great idea!! If you would like to send me your version via private message, I can host it on the MediaFire server and distribute it with the other builds if you'd like? (Also, anyone else out there who would like to provide different versions in different languages, feel free to send them in too).

Regarding the process name point. When I call the appIsRunning sub-routine you'll notice I call it with ("iTunes"). When the processes are sent from System Event, they are supplied with quote marks around them. When calling appIsRunning the quote marks are not used in the same way as you would use them with a variable, they are actually also being sent to the sub-routine. Therefore, because "iTunes" (including the quote marks) is not contained in "iTunesHelper" (including the quote marks), iTunes Helper is not detected.

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions :)
Click to expand...
I sent a PM with the translated app. The method that I used is capable to have only one app that contains all the different translations, and OSX itself selects the app language to the system language. So we don't need different versions to each language. :)
 
H

heghead

macrumors member
May 30, 2010
33
0
Australia
sandyjmacdonald said:
This is fantastic. How hard do you think it would be to make a version that would notify Spotify track changes?
Click to expand...

Coming right up :) I've got it almost perfect. Just having some issues with spotify crashing, as soon as I've figured those out "NowPlaying" will send notifications for iTunes AND Spotify :)
 
S

Soundflunky

macrumors regular
Apr 29, 2012
241
0
Great app. Really appreciated. :)

I seem to have come across some more character-based bugginess.

Song is "(Don't Fear) The Reaper".
 

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A

apptel

macrumors newbie
Jun 22, 2012
10
0
Absolutely awesome! Just one thing, is there a smart way to start and close the app whenever i start up or close iTunes?

Thanx again!
 
H

heghead

macrumors member
May 30, 2010
33
0
Australia
apptel said:
Absolutely awesome! Just one thing, is there a smart way to start and close the app whenever i start up or close iTunes?

Thanx again!
Click to expand...

Due to the tiny amount of resources which it uses, there is no need for it to do that. In the upcoming release, the app even goes into a low resource sleep mode when iTunes isn't open.. :)
 
N

nyolc8

macrumors regular
Jul 20, 2012
205
1
a.rabbani said:
I have created a similar app. It uses less CPU since it is not a loop checking for current song. Normally between 0.0% and 0.2% of the CPU.

http://onible.com/blog/2012/08/13/itunification-itunes-integration-with-notification-center-in-os-x-mountain-lion/
Click to expand...

Nice but I think that icon is really ugly (sorry). (I wanted to change the title and the icon for myself but the app immediately gets broken and unusable.)
So I'll use Now Playing instead, until these gets fixed.

edit.: I managed to modify the icon and the title, it looks ok now :) I like the 0,0% CPU usage :)

The only problem is when I stop,pause,quit iTunes, the notification stays there.
 
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a.rabbani

macrumors newbie
Aug 13, 2012
4
0
Nice but I think that icon is really ugly (sorry). (I wanted to change the title and the icon for myself but the app immediately gets broken and unusable.)
So I'll use Now Playing instead, until these gets fixed.

edit.: I managed to modify the icon and the title, it looks ok now I like the 0,0% CPU usage

The only problem is when I stop,pause,quit iTunes, the notification stays there.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your feedback. I also hate the icon. I didn't actually spend much time for that.

The issue with pause, stop, quit is solved. The next version will have a nice icon as well as support for Spotify.
 
geoffm33

geoffm33

macrumors 6502
Dec 27, 2010
308
145
a.rabbani said:
Thanks for your feedback. I also hate the icon. I didn't actually spend much time for that.

The issue with pause, stop, quit is solved. The next version will have a nice icon as well as support for Spotify.
Click to expand...

Excellent! Thanks.
 
H

heghead

macrumors member
May 30, 2010
33
0
Australia
Hi Everyone!!

I'm currently working on an easier way to download and update the app. It's looking pretty cool.

I'll get back to you as soon as it's set up!
 
J

jphotography

macrumors newbie
Aug 15, 2012
2
0
... one thing I have noticed

First of all: Thank you very much for this little tool. I really love it!

I have just noticed one little thing. After installing the version 1.4 you find two Now Playing Apps in the notification center setup. Yon can of course tell the old version (which is really not existing anymore) not to show up in the notification center ... but you can not delete it in that setup panel. that is ... well not so nice ;(

or did i do anything wrong?
 
Senseotech

Senseotech

macrumors 6502a
Nov 23, 2009
785
28
NC
jphotography said:
First of all: Thank you very much for this little tool. I really love it!

I have just noticed one little thing. After installing the version 1.4 you find two Now Playing Apps in the notification center setup. Yon can of course tell the old version (which is really not existing anymore) not to show up in the notification center ... but you can not delete it in that setup panel. that is ... well not so nice ;(

or did i do anything wrong?
Click to expand...

I have two, but one is for iTunes and the other for Spotify. Did you by change end the process for before installing the new one? If not, its very likely they're both running.
 
iRobby

iRobby

macrumors 6502a
Mar 22, 2011
994
6
Fort Myers, FL USA
heghead said:
I've created an app which uses AppleScripts and Terminal-Notifier (https://github.com/alloy/terminal-notifier) to display track names as notification centre notifications when the song changes.

I've put it all into a neat little application package for people to easily install and use themselves (see the instructions file inside the ZIP archive).

Here's the link to the ZIP file containing everything you need.

http://www.mediafire.com/?9h01wlo18ptly

Give it a go and let me know how it goes!
Click to expand...

Is this in the Mac App Store?
 
ourcore

ourcore

macrumors regular
Aug 4, 2012
131
1
This is amazing, thank you so much for this! I have a similar tweak on my iPhone that displays notifications on song changes, which also doubles as a music controller with gestures, so it's great to have the same function on my Mac.

The only thing I've noticed is that curved brackets in song titles are rather awkwardly aligned in that the bottom end of the bracket doesn't surpass the adjacent letters, as much as it does at the top - of course this is a minor aesthetic detail, but I thought I'd bring it up in case it's more of a Notification Center issue rather than the tweak's. There also seem to be excessive spaces added just before the bracket (see screenshot attached).

Is it also possible to change the Notification heading to just "Now Playing"? I feel like the icon is enough indication as to where the music is being played.

Thanks!

EDIT: It appears that this is an issue with Now Playing as it doesn't occur with iTunification. Now if I can only change it horrible icon :p

EDIT 2: After uninstalling Now Playing, it still appears in the "In Notification Center" list - how can I remove this? Does anybody also know how to change the widget title in the Notification Center? Cheers
 

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J

jphotography

macrumors newbie
Aug 15, 2012
2
0
Senseotech said:
I have two, but one is for iTunes and the other for Spotify. Did you by change end the process for before installing the new one? If not, its very likely they're both running.
Click to expand...

@Senseotech: Both Apps in my notification center are from Now Playing. One is called Now Playing (I think this is the old version) and the other is called Now Playing on iTunes. I installed the new version after I quit the old process and deleted from the application folder. after that I also rearranged the start up settings. The old process is also not listed in the activities panel.



ourcore said:
...

EDIT 2: After uninstalling Now Playing, it still appears in the "In Notification Center" list - how can I remove this? Does anybody also know how to change the widget title in the Notification Center? Cheers
Click to expand...

@ourcore: That is exactly the same problem as mine. The old app stays in the notification center set up list.


And I just noticed one more little thing: When you are listening to previews in the iTunes Shop ... than Now Playing gets activated again but shows the last title you have played from your music library and not the title you are just previewing.
 
Kaske

Kaske

macrumors newbie
Dec 20, 2012
6
0
iTunes 11

heghead said:
Hi Everyone!!

I'm currently working on an easier way to download and update the app. It's looking pretty cool.

I'll get back to you as soon as it's set up!
Click to expand...

Will you be working on a iTunes 11 update any time soon? It seems that NoWPlaying doesn’t yet work with it.

Great little gem of an app., appreciate your effort!
 
3

3282868

macrumors 603
Jan 8, 2009
5,281
0
Kaske said:
Will you be working on a iTunes 11 update any time soon? It seems that NoWPlaying doesn’t yet work with it.

Great little gem of an app., appreciate your effort!
Click to expand...

Just installed 1.4, seems to be working well. What's happening your end?

Running iTunes 11.0.1 on 10.8.3 current DP/Beta on a 12-Core Mac Pro
 
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