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

[Blackened Apple]

Hey everyone,

Can anyone tell me if iTunes sends out notifications for events like song changes?

[tkermit]

It doesn't.

[Blackened Apple]

Ok, thank you very much. I'd appreciate if it were available, other music apps have similar on-screen notifications...

[Blaine]

Yeah, this would be pretty cool.

[tkermit]

You could look for an app that sends out Growl notifications and then install Hiss, which converts them to proper ML notifications (no need for Growl to be installed).

[hafr]

Originally Posted by Blackened Apple

Hey everyone,

Can anyone tell me if iTunes sends out notifications for events like song changes?

Originally Posted by tkermit

You could look for an app that sends out Growl notifications and then install Hiss, which converts them to proper ML notifications (no need for Growl to be installed).

Image

Install Hiss, then install Bowtie. http://bowtieapp.com

Tada.

[heghead]

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!

[nyolc8]

Originally Posted by heghead

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.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5h9ebi25ec...NowPlaying.zip

Give it a go and let me know how it goes!

I just Love it! Thank you!

[hafr]

Originally Posted by heghead

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.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5h9ebi25ec...NowPlaying.zip

Give it a go and let me know how it goes!

Wow, that was great, thanks a lot! But a reboot is not necessary

I compared it, and Hiss + Bowtie that I recommended took several hundred MB's of RAM, your app only uses 8,4 MB...

[roland.g]

That's great. I might try that.

But my main question is does the notification go away or do you need to clear it.

One of my beef's with Notifications in iOS is that if it tells me I have new mail and then I read the new mail in the mail app independent of going through the notification to get to it, when I pull down the notification center later on my phone, it still shows. GameCenter does this a lot too. Once I read the mail item or delete it or whatever, I want notification center to be on the same page.

Maybe I have something set up wrong.

Will your app just keep producing a list of songs I needs to remove from the list?

[nyolc8]

roland.g: notification dissapears automatically from the notification center as soon the music stopped or paused.

[heghead]

Originally Posted by roland.g

Will your app just keep producing a list of songs I needs to remove from the list?

Right before a new track notification is sent to Notification Centre, the previous one is removed.

Originally Posted by nyolc8

I just Love it! Thank you!

Originally Posted by hafr

Wow, that was great, thanks a lot! But a reboot is not necessary

I compared it, and Hiss + Bowtie that I recommended took several hundred MB's of RAM, your app only uses 8,4 MB...

Thanks for the positive feedback everyone!

[Icy1007]

It seems that if I press forward or backwards multiple times it only shows an alert for the first song. I'd have to wait for the alert to disappear before pressing forward/backward for the next song to appear.

EDIT: Hmm, nm. It seems that it has an issue with some song names. Most songs prompt an alert, but some songs won't display an alert.

EDIT2: It seems a pattern of songs that have artists that start with a [ don't display an alert.

EDIT3: Yep, I removed the [ from the beginning of the artist and now it prompts an alert.

Just thought you'd want to know.

[heghead]

Originally Posted by Icy1007

It seems that if I press forward or backwards multiple times it only shows an alert for the first song. I'd have to wait for the alert to disappear before pressing forward/backward for the next song to appear.

Hmm, nm. It seems that it has an issue with some song names. Most songs prompt an alert, but some songs won't display an alert.

I have the same issue. It's caused because of the way the script is written. I tested running the script continually (which would dramatically improve the responsiveness of the notifications) however instead of using 0.5%-2% CPU it used 30+% CPU.

As a compromise the script only runs once every second, dramatically decreasing resources needed, but slowing down the responsiveness of the notifications.

If you do have any songs in particular which don't show a notification, let me know what their names are and I can edit the script to fix it

EDIT: Okay, I'll look into a fix for the [ issue! Thanks!!

[Icy1007]

Activity Monitor is reporting NowPlaying as using between 0.5% and 0.7% of my CPU (Max of 800%).

Does seem right? Just wondering.

EDIT: And it seems to be using more cpu% when no song is playing... using 1.0% when nothing is playing.

Anyway, it's not that big a deal 0.5-1.0 is nothing. Thanks for the script

[heghead]

Originally Posted by Icy1007

Activity Monitor is reporting NowPlaying as using between 0.5% and 0.7% of my CPU (Max of 800%).

Does seem right? Just wondering.

Yep, that looks fine to me, same as what I see most of the time

I'm looking into the bracket issue now - thanks so much for picking it up. I will have a revision uploaded in a few hours.

[Icy1007]

Originally Posted by heghead

Yep, that looks fine to me, same as what I see most of the time

I'm looking into the bracket issue now - thanks so much for picking it up. I will have a revision uploaded in a few hours.

I noticed only 2 of my 1000+ songs have a [ as the first character of the artist name. lol.

I just happened to play one of those two when I first started up NowPlaying.

[heghead]

Hi Everyone,

Please click the link below to download the new version of NowPlaying. It is now hosted on MediaFire so that I can monitor downloads and upload new versions easily.

New to v1.1:

• Fixed Square Bracket bug - Thanks to Icy1007 for discovering the bug!

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

[diogolg]

Originally Posted by heghead

Hi Everyone,

Please click the link below to download the new version of NowPlaying. It is now hosted on MediaFire so that I can monitor downloads and upload new versions easily.

New to v1.1:

• Fixed Square Bracket bug - Thanks to Icy1007 for discovering the bug!

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

Perfect!

[bndoarn]

Originally Posted by heghead

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!

Thank you so much for this. I spent hours trying to do this the other day (while also trying to learn how to write apple scripts) and I failed miserably. It functioned fine but the CPU usage was ridiculous. However, I did mange to write an applescript by myself that will open your app when iTunes opens and quit when iTunes quits, lol. Thank you again.

[Icy1007]

Originally Posted by heghead

Hi Everyone,

Please click the link below to download the new version of NowPlaying. It is now hosted on MediaFire so that I can monitor downloads and upload new versions easily.

New to v1.1:

• Fixed Square Bracket bug - Thanks to Icy1007 for discovering the bug!

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

Thanks. I took a look at your script. I like how you fixed the "Bracket Bug".


EDIT: Not sure how adding a space before and/or after the symbol fixes it, but whatever works. lol

[heghead]

Originally Posted by Icy1007

Thanks. I took a look at your script. I like how you fixed the "Bracket Bug".


EDIT: Not sure how adding a space before and/or after the symbol fixes it, but whatever works. lol

Haha thanks The issue is actually with the terminal-notifier app I use to send the notifications, so there's no way I can fix it properly

I didn't actually add a space, I had to use a different unicode character which looks just like a square bracket with a space before it... lol it was the only solution which I could find which actually worked..

[garbeth]

Originally Posted by heghead

Hi Everyone,

Please click the link below to download the new version of NowPlaying. It is now hosted on MediaFire so that I can monitor downloads and upload new versions easily.

New to v1.1:

• Fixed Square Bracket bug - Thanks to Icy1007 for discovering the bug!

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

And this is why I love this community! Thanks!

[Icy1007]

Originally Posted by heghead

Haha thanks The issue is actually with the terminal-notifier app I use to send the notifications, so there's no way I can fix it properly

I didn't actually add a space, I had to use a different unicode character which looks just like a square bracket with a space before it... lol it was the only solution which I could find which actually worked..

Oh, really? lol That's interesting.

[aziatiklover]

Pretty epic! Thanx