[RELEASE]XSqueeze - Squeezebox player, music chooser and visualiser for XBMC

hmmm - I guess it depends on whether you want to be able to exit the add on and leave the audio going?

I might make it an option to run it that way at least.

I want to look at if I can tie into the xbmc now playing interface etc, so I don't have to write my own, and then the addon woudl work with all skins and integrate better. But I doubt it's really possible without getting into the C++ XBMC core which is too scary so far.

OK I have just pushed a new version - v0.0.2 - which adds a Now Playing display with cover art and the next three upcoming tracks.

It looks like not much extra, but I have moved it all over to a proper object oriented structured - I've done a lot of Java but Python is noticeably different in this area (more like Smalltalk IIRC) - so it took me a bit to get my head around it. The groundwork is there to now more quickly and easily flesh things out in such a way as to write a really nice controller, and maybe eventually bolt on a SlimProto handler instead of SqueezeSlave without breaking the controller side of things. That is, the squeeze bit is all an object on it's own that could be re-implemented. (In Java terms, you'd re-implement the interface).

My plan from here is to investigate several paths:

1. See if I can integrate into XBMC's existing Now Playing/Playlist management stuff. XBMC Now Playing is pretty good and that would work nicely with other skins etc, keep the UI consistent. The XBMC playlist management is crap, though, so there'd have to be some sort of custom UI to play with the SB playlists more directly.

2. Write a custom Now Playing/controller pager, and a Playlist manager (as two windows) - and then maybe run the add on into a service that hooks into LMS so these windows can be called directly at all times like other skin pages.

3. Just leave as is, but make the Now Playing way prettier. I might start here while I investigate 1 and 2.

With options 1 and 2, I will need some advice/help from XBMC devs to see what's possible - the documentation isn't awfully great and I would like to get an idea of wat is in theory possible before I spend too much time working on something that might never work. All of this is a hack, really - kind of like using an external video player I guess.

oops v0.0.3 just pushed, stupid windows / unix \ path issues!!

Sorry!

Stuck at step 2.

Server address? Is that the LMS server address?

v0.0.4 is out, with cover art for upcoming tracks (see screenshot in post 1)

@castalla - seriously?? What other server address could it be? I thinks it's pretty clear :

2. Run Squeezeslave

e.g. squeezelave.exe 192.168.1.1

....the IP address is your server address


Squeezeslave mimics a player so needs to be pointed at a server....

Seriously? Yes .... thanks!

Doh.

Double doh ......

What's the Player MAC - is it the MAC for the machine that xbmc is running on?

castalla Wrote:Double doh ......

What's the Player MAC - is it the MAC for the machine that xbmc is running on?

Got it! It works with the default of 1

1. Got it to play an album - but trying Internet Radio - BBC iPlayer - Radio Five Live - reports Stopped

2. Trying on a different LMS server got this:

C:\TEMP>squeezeslave.exe 192.168.1.10
Error connecting to 192.168.1.10:3483
Connection to Squeezebox Server 192.168.1.10 failed.

Yes the MAC is the MAC of your local squeezeslave, or any SB you want to control. If you are running squeezeslave locally, it defaults to a MAC of 00:00:00:00:00:01 - hence the default setting.

But if you want to control another squeezebox, squeezeslave running elsewhere, have manually set squeezeslave to use another MAC, or are using the openelec squeezeslave service, then you need to use the actual MAC of the player:

You can get this info from LMS->Settings->Information

I have not yet tried radio - this works on your actual squeezeboxes though, I presume?

Re: other server error - that's a squeezeslave error, nothing to do with this addon, so you'll need to figure that out (using correct ip? port? firewall issue??)

Just tried some local radio stations here - seems to work fine for me?