Songbird and Pidgin flying together [english]
Ok, I really like my Songbird (aside from it's strong usage of memory and cpu and the current inability to write mp3 tags). I want the song currently playing in my Songbird written into my Pidgin status message. Should be possible, right? It is! See the screenshot for the result (please note that the status boxes at the bottom are created by a Pidgin plugin, more details on that later...). It's not possible without a little effort, but all you need is a plugin for each of the two applications. Nothing tricky, let me walk you through the settings.
Pidgin needs the MusicTracker plugin to read 'Now Playing' messages from music players. Head over to it's homepage and grab the latest version, install it into Pidgin. Just use the settings as seen on the screenshot:
Now that Pidgin is ready and waiting, here's the Songbird plugin you'll need: Live Tweeter. Install it the Mozilla-way, drag the .xpi onto Songbird, open it in Songbird, whatever way you prefer. The plugin adds a new section in the Songbird options, the important part is the tab named 'Messenger'. See my settings (deactivate the textfile option, I just use that for another application):
Now you should be ready to go! Just restart both applications (I'm not sure if that's necessary). Attention: Don't be confused if the changed message is not shown by Pidgin. It doesn't show it to you. But you could either add yourself as your buddy to verify if everything is working or install the Pidgin plugin called MyStatusbox, avalable in the Plugin pack.
Did everything work out for you? Feel free to drop a message...
Hier geht es um alles, was mir einfällt, gefällt, auffällt und missfällt. Ob Technik, Software, Sport oder Politik, ich schreibe über jedes Thema, welches mir die Minuten wert scheint. Kommentare und Meinungen (auch andere) sind jederzeit willkommen. Viel Spaß!
Na ja: Die Chaote [...]
Kiwii
28 Apr 2009
yes it work!
however its necessary to restart both programs (pidgin and songbird) to make this work
thanks a lot
Joshua
2 Sep 2009
Have you figured out how to improve integration with Samurize using LiveTweeter? I’m using the text file but miss having album name, track time, and progress info like with windows media player.
Ormus
2 Sep 2009
Hi Joshua,
LiveTweeter does not support the additional fields yet, it’s on the roadmap for version 1.5 though. See the homepage of LiveTweeter for details.
Joshua
2 Sep 2009
Thanks. I was actually looking at that after I made the post earlier. I found a solution after reading this http://code.google.com/p/songbird-livetweeter/issues/detail?id=48&q=.txt#c6 and looking at the livetweeter.js file.
By editing the value of data in the if statement at line 249 to include some of the variables listed at line 212 I get the info I want.
var data = artist1+’\n\n’title1‘\n\n’album1‘\n\n’length‘\n\n’+duration;
With the newline characters its easy to use several text meters in Samurize to position everything separately and with some funky meter maths I can convert duration into minutes and seconds.
Ormus
2 Sep 2009
Nice workaround, Joshua! Thank you for posting it.
Joshua
2 Sep 2009
It was nothing. I did forgot to mention that duration is the total number of seconds for the song multiplied by 1,000,000. I don’t know what length is for.
Anonym
17 Okt 2009
For Songbird versions 1.2 and above.. We need to have the MPRIS addon which can be downloaded from here.. http://addons.songbirdnest.com/addon/1626/versions