I made a gadget that shows WMP song information in the sidebar.

This gadget needs the song signature plugin. Once you install the winter funpack, you can delete all other crap that comes with it. Make sure the plugin is enabled in WMP.

Docked View:
Click to view attachment
Undocked View:
Click to view attachment

Download from Windows Live Gallery

I have submitted this to Gallery.live.com. But it's not available yet.

Known Issues:
1. The artwork will work only if you have folder.jpg in each album folder.
2. If folder.jpg is not present, it will show generic icon (same as what WMP11 uses).
3. It does not read artwork from the files itself. (I am working on it, but WMP API is seriously screwy on this.)
4. Long song/artist/album names will be trimmed.

Future Plans:
1. Better background graphic
2. Larger undocked view
3. Rating display
4. Artwork from files or may be amazon.

Lastly, I have used two images from WMP11. They are © Microsoft.

Any feedback is much appreciated.

That's pretty rad.

Keep up the good work.


Direct download to powertoy: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsme...gsignature.aspx

Thanks!

Hey did you have any problem using the gadget ? The Live gallery team rejected my submission saying it won't install.

I tried looking for that in the WMP 10 SDK using "player.currentMedia.getItemInfoByType(name, language, index)" to find out that if was left out on purpose I guess its the same for WMP 11 SDK.

The Live team is correct, it does not install normally, I had to extract it and place it the gadgets folder manually. Looks good for a first attempt, one thing I would like it see it do is scroll the text if the title is too long and such.

I think i might know the reason why. Did you select the folder and made it a zip file before renaming it from ".zip" to ".gadget"?
When you do that the zip file will have a folder inside with your files, what you want is to just have the files.

Zip -> folder_Name -> Files

Just highlight the files and right click Send To Compressed (zipped) folder so you get a nice .zip file like this

Zip -> files

Now you can rename it to a .gadget and send it to Gallery.live.com.

I fixed it. The scrolling text part is on my things to do this weekend.


I tried that. Somehow I keep on getting errors with getItemInfoByType. Also the player context, I can't connect it to the current song without creating another instance of wmplayer, which also starts playing the same song!


Oh damn, you are right. Fixed it. Thanks.

"<PARAM name="autoStart" value="false" />" this should help, I found it in the WMP 11 SDK.

Hey, if you would like i can implement a better album art system for you. I currently have a gadget that takes your now playing song, queries the music brainz database for the album name, and then queries amazon for the album art. If you drop me a PM i'd be happy to let you use the code in this gadget

I thought about connecting to amazon but personally I have many albums that are not listed anywhere. But I think I can follow this sequence.
1. Look up folder.jpg (just because it is faster)
2. Look up the mp3 file itself.
3. Look up amazon and so.

Could do that, i've created a second version of my now playing gadget to work with this winter api that retrieves the album from amazon. If you wanna drop me an email at developer@gadgetspark.com i can help you put the Amazon code into your gadget as a secondary source.

I got it
Player.currentMedia.getItemInfoByType("WM/Picture", "", 0).URL

Just needed the ".URL" to get the album art url instead of trying to get the MetadataPicture object. It will look something like this:
vnd.ms.wmhtml://localhost/WMP309efcb0-fe0d-409a-9b44-4408a8e68546.jpg
but it did display the album art for a web page i used to test it.

This has the potential to be the gadget I have been looking for, but...

Doesn't seem to work for me.

It displays the track name and album name but for some reason not the album art.

I have the folder.jpg in the folder where the music is...

Any ideas?

<edit>
I fixed it.. changed the code to find the folder.jpg to read this:-



It now works by finding the current track path in the registry, finding the last backslash (\) and chopping up to it and then adding folder.jpg to the end

Good idea there Loki, i was working on getting myn to take the path, work out the filename length and then remove it from the string therefore putting you at the backslash, but your idea is much better

Btw, i'm not related to this gadget, i'm working on something else

Sorry to hijack the thread.. but I just finished my own customisation of this gadget... I'm loving it....

I ripped the background for the iStat wireless gadget.. so can't share this until I have permission for the code for media player and the background...

dam that's good. you've my permission.

wow... thanks - this is what the latest one is looking like:-

Very nice mod of this gadget. Hope you get permission for the gfx.

can't wait for customized release!!!!

FTW w/ power user customization options!!

That looks great

I just installed it and no matter what music I play (from the Library, or just a music open with Media Player) it just says "Player Stopped" and if i start/stop/pause/restart WMP it stays this way.

Any ideas?