NowPlaying (improved)

This is an improved version of NowPlaying.

NOTE:
The best way to read this is by opening the README and/or ChangeLog files provided with the screenlet.
Here the text looks bad because the website doesn't show 2 consecutive space characters.

DOWNLOAD:
From this page as .tar.gz archive or from the PPA for the debian based systems: https://launchpad.net/~screenlets-dev/+archive/ppa
Terminal commands for installation from PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:screenlets-dev/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nowplaying-screenlet

New Features Summary:
+ General: Easy translations through launchpad
+ General: Wallpaper changer (Sets wallpaper according to the current artist or album) (requires gconftool-2)
+ General: Cover Copy (Copies the current cover to the song folder) (requires imagemagick)
+ General: History logging of the played tracks
+ General: Right click menu: 'Open cover with viewer' and 'Open cover location'
+ General: Sleep fade (Fade out volume, Quit player and Shutdown computer)
+ Skinning: Ability to edit the cover image right before showing it (so you can make more flexible skins)
+ Skinning: Rewritten the PlayerControls tag. (now supports transparency and don't have to be an actual visual group)
+ Skinning: Added the transparency option for images
+ Eyecandy: Fade effect for the following actions: screenlet startup, cover change, theme change, mouse hover, player start/quit, player play/stop, manual show/hide
+ API: Volume control (with mouse scroll wheel up/down/click)
+ API: Rating control
+ API: Updated/Improved most of them and added some more

Note for the Screenlets engine developers:
> The fade effect should be implemented directly into the screenlets engine so that all the screenlets can use it. I do belive that it would look way better.

Supported players:
- last tested with v0.3.4.2 - Abraca (XMMS2 GUI)
- last tested with v0.3.4.2 - Amarok 1
- last tested with v0.3.3.9 - Amarok 2
- last tested with v0.3.4.2 - Audacious
- last tested with v0.3.4.2 - Banshee
- last tested with v0.3.4.2 - Decibel-Audio-Player (v1.05 or greater)
- last tested with v0.3.4.2 - Esperanza (XMMS2 GUI)
- last tested with v0.3.4.2 - Exaile (with MPRIS Plugin enabled)
- last tested with v0.3.4.2 - gXMMS2 (XMMS2 GUI)
- last tested with v0.3.4.2 - Jajuk
- last tested with v0.3.4.2 - Juk
- last tested with v0.3.4.2 - Listen
- last tested with v0.3.4.2 - LXMusic (XMMS2 GUI)
- last tested with v0.3.3.0 - MPD
- last tested with v0.3.4.2 - Muine
- last tested with v0.3.4.2 - qmmp (with MPRIS Plugin enabled)
- last tested with v0.3.4.2 - QuodLibet (with Picture Saver plugin enabled)
- last tested with v0.3.4.2 - Rhythmbox
- last tested with v0.3.4.2 - Songbird (needs MPRIS Addon)
- last tested with v0.3.4.2 - XMMS2 (with/without GUI.. doesn't matter)
- Maybe other players with MPRIS support
- Definitely other XMMS2 clients

Included skins:
- Border_Fade-200px
- Border_Fade-400px
- Broken_Glass
- corner_tr_b
- corner_tr_b_only_cover
- Coversutra-Searchbar-Album-Art
- Coversutra-Searchbar-Jewel-Case
- Coversutra-Searchbar-Vinyl-Art
- default
- default-old
- lucid-dark
- lucid-light


Known Bugs:
> Listen: Next/Previous buttons don't work (The dbus call is correct but from that to the player something is not working fine.)
> Songbird: It works but the screenlet lags a lot. Although it uses MPRIS just like Exaile or qmmp which run fine.

If there are any problems please report them so that we can make this screenlet even better.
The screenlet contains only a few themes because of the uploading limit.

Something I'd like to see in this screenlet is the ability to run multiple instances. Unfortunately I still didn't figure out how to do that.

For more details please read the changelog...

Changelog containing all the modifications done since the Alexibaba mod v.0.3.3.0:

v.0.3.4.3 (2011-02-27)

+ Added gettext support for launchpad translation (thanks to boamaod)
+ Fixed sleepfade issues with low duration values

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v.0.3.4.2 (2011-02-21)

+ Improved APIs:
> General: Added set_vol(), stop() and quit() functions (only to those that could provide the functionality)
> Banshee: First searches for cover in the song directory and then tries other places
> Banshee: Fixed play button bug reported by EcstasyGold
> Listen: Made a workaround to get the volume manipulation work (not very elegant but works)

+ Added sleep fade in the right click menu:
> During a determined period of time the volume slowly fades out and at the end of the process the player and/or the computer can be shutted down
> When you first click it, it starts. When clicked again it stops the process.
> It has a new group in the options called 'Sleep'
> Slow volume fading is not supported by: Amarok 2, Banshee, Jajuk, MPD, QuodLibet
> Player quit option is not supported by: Amarok 2, MPD
> The shutdown feature requires zenity to get the user password.
>> The password is not stored. When the sleep fade process ends or is stopped the password is removed from memory. Safer this way.

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v.0.3.4.1 (2011-02-14)

+ Fixed right click menu options 'Open cover with viewer' and 'Open cover location' for skins using cover_manip.sh

+ Added API support for: Decibel-Audio-Player, Jajuk, Juk, Muine, qmmp
>> For Jajuk to work you shouldn't modify the 'Frame title' pattern: ~%title (%artist)~

+ Players using Mpris or Xmms2 got their own API's extended from MprisAPI and XMMS2API

+ Cover copy support for Banshee

+ For player APIs supporting cover search in the song directory: (You may thank Passaralho for pointing this out)
> You can set a preferred cover name in options under the 'Cover' tab (will first search for this one - case insensitive)
> Default preferred cover names: cover, folder, front (in this order - case insensitive)
> Accepted extensions: jpg, jpeg, png, bmp

+ Added Rating control:
> Updated the default and default-old skins with this feature
> Player APIs providing support: Amarok 1, Banshee (Only show rating, can't manipulate it), Exaile
>> The Exaile API uses the "qdbus" binary to work with ratings. For some reason the python dbus module doesn't work with it.
> Made 2 methods for theme creators:
>> First: The "ratinggroup" tag which adds the 5 stars with only 1 line
>> Second: The "rating" tag which requires star* sub-tags (this one can use independent x, y, width, height, transparency and basename)
>> To see examples go to the default skin xml file

+ Added Volume control:
> Vol up/down by scrolling up/down over the screenlet
> Mute/Unmute with middle click on the screenlet
> Currently supported by the following API's:
>> Abraca, Amarok 1, Amarok 1 no pydcop, Audacious, Decibel-Audio-Player, Esperanza, Exaile, gXMMS2, Jajuk, Listen (only mute/unmute), LXMusic, Muine, qmmp, Rhythmbox, Songbird, XMMS2
>> Amarok 2 got no volume control because I can't install it along with Amarok 1. I'm quite sure it has the ability to do this.

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v.0.3.4.0 (2010-02-10)

+ Right click on the screenlet and you'll see 2 new options: 'Open cover with viewer' and 'Open cover location' (the use of them is quite obvious)
> The image viewer and file browser can be changed in the options under the 'General' tab which replaced the 'Scrolling' tab.
>> By default the binaries are the defaults for ubuntu: eog and nautilus

+ Debugging can be turned on from the 'General' tab of the options
> You'll get more terminal output if you activate this

+ Skinning: transparency option for images
> Supported types: image, albumcover, buttons
>> Text types already have the alpha value so there's no need to add this option to them
> Here's a usage example:
>> The transparency value goes from 0 (fully visible) to 1 (invisible)

+ Skinning: rewritten player controls
> The 'playercontrols' tag is rewritten into the 'buttons' tag
> The buttons are now on the same surface as the rest of the elements
> It can now use transparent png images and the transparency option newly included
> Each button has it's own coordinates and dimensions so you can place them wherever you want
> If you want you can still use the 'playercontrols' tag as I made it backwards compatible (so the old themes still work :) )
> however if you use 'playercontrols' you'll have the old limitations

+ Fade effect: (This should be implemented directly in the screenlets engine so that all the screenlets can use it; hopefully the developers will do)
> This fade feature was not tested very good and so it might still contain bugs
> The screenlet checks if compiz is running. If it's not running, the fade effect is disabled.
>> You can manually enable/disable it from options.
> Fade in when screenlet is started
> Cover changing: Fade out previous cover, fade in new cover
> Theme changing: Fade out previous theme, fade in new theme
> Fade in when player found / Fade out if no player found
> Fade in if playing / Fade out if not playing
> Fade in/out on mouse hover
> Right-click menu option: 'Show/Hide'
>> Hide the screenlet (it's still there but with 100% transparency, right click again and click on the 'Show/Hide' option to make it visible)
> Almost all the presented fade actions can be enabled/disabled from the 'Fade' tab from options

+ New Default Skin: (The old one is still there also)
> This theme is ment to be released and updated with the screenlet and represents an example of all the skinning possibilities available
> It can be used as a tutorial as it has a list with everything you can use
> Looks good with the Darkness (rgba true) gtk2 theme

+ Changed cover fetching order: LastFM, Amazon, Discogs

+ Fixed bug reported by danino73:
> After the cover was fetched it was not painted on the screen

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v.0.3.3.9 (2011-01-20)

+ MPD: python-mpd is included so you don't have to install it.
+ MPRIS: You can add a third mpris player in options now.
+ All API: Added get_url() and get_url_dir() to be able to fetch the current song path

+ New Feature: Cover Copy (requires imagemagick to get image dimensions and to change the image format)
> Copy the cover to the songs folder.
> Added in the 'Cover' tab in options.
> It replaces the existing cover only if the new one is bigger (resolution not size in bytes) (can be activated/deactivated)
> It can also remove any other image present in the directory except for the cover (can be activated/deactivated)
> It doesn't work with all the players because some of them don't provide the file location.
>> Supported: Abraca, Amarok 1, Audacious, Esperanza, gXMMS2, Listen, LXMusic, MPD, MPRIS based, Rhythmbox, XMMS2

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v.0.3.3.8 (2011-01-17)

+ Performance optimizations
> The skinning feature introduced in v.0.3.3.3 was quite a load for the CPU because the cover_manip.sh script was called each time the screenlet was getting data from the player.
> The cover was also fetched each second. Now it gets the cover only when changing the track.
> Wallpaper feature had the same situation as the cover.
> The screenlet was basically doing an unnecessary full update each second. Now it's only comparing the last known necessary values with the current ones before deciding on updating or not.

+ History logging improved.

+ Fixed the launch/kill player feature for all the tested players.

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v.0.3.3.7 (2011-01-13)

+ Amarok1_no_pydcop: API fixes..

+ QuodLibet: Fixed cover showing.
> Requires "Picture Saver" plugin to be enabled.

+ Audacious: Added support (API)
+ Songbird: Added support

+ Xmms2: Added support (API)
> It works with or without a GUI. All it needs is the xmms2d (daemon) and the nyxmms2 binary to control it.
> However I've tested the following GUIs and all worked fine: gxmms2 abraca lxmusic esperanza

+ Mpris: Cover path corrected for paths containing: ( ) [ ] ' ! @ &

+ Wallpaper: Corrected bug..
> The dot in the artist/album name was acting like a wild card character when searching image

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v.0.3.3.6 (2011-01-11)

+ Banshee: Fixed API problems
> Fixed the null artist/title/album returns which blocked the screenlet
> Added the current Banshee cover path: [ ~/.cache/media-art/ ] but the old one works too: [ ~/.cache/album-art/ ]

+ Listen: Improved API
> Added the current Listen cover path: [ ~/.cache/listen/cover/ ] the old one works too: [ ~/.listen/cover/ ]
> Added the current cached cover naming method: [ album.jpg ] but the old one works too: [ artist+album.jpg ]

+ MPRIS: Improved API
> Fixed the null artist/title/album returns which blocked the screenlet
> Improved cover get method: Implemented the same method applied for the Amarok 1 API

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v.0.3.3.5 (2011-01-10)

+ Amarok 1: Cover quality increase (moved the implementation into the APIs)
+ Amarok 1: Removed the no cover image which looks bad on many skins
+ Cleaned the code a bit and increased a small amount of performance.

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v.0.3.3.4 (2011-01-09)

+ Wallpaper changer fixes:
> Artists name like: AC/DC or Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley weren't working so in the image name the following characters must be written as _ (underline): \ / ' " [ ]
> Other players than amarok weren't working because of a small error that occurred in a check performed. (thanks to BOAMAOD for pointing out the Rhythmbox problem)

+ Rhythmbox API improvement:
> Improved the get_cover_path function:
>> Mixed the original API made by vrunner with the custom one made by Alexibaba
>> Added the new rhythmbox covers path [ ~/.cache/rhythmbox/covers ] but the old one [ ~/.gnome2/rhythmbox/covers ] is still working too.

+ Wallpaper changer improvement:
> While playing, it checks for album/artist wallpaper and if there's none it can log the artist name. (This way it makes a sorted list of artist wallpapers you need to get.)

+ New feature: History logging of songs played
> There's a new tab in options called History
> It logs the current time and the current playing track.
>> Note: If you loop a single track, the track is logged only the first time it's played.

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v.0.3.3.3 (2010-12-25)

+ New skin: Broken_Glass (needs NowPlayer v.0.3.3.3 or later)

+ New feature: Cover can be processed through a bash script right before updating the screen. (all supported players)
> The Steps:
>> 1. When changing the cover the screenlet searches for a [ cover_manip.sh ] script in the theme folder
>> 2. If it exists then the cover is copied in the theme folder with the name: cover.png
>> 3. Now the script is executed (the returned image must replace cover.png)
>> 4. The path to the new cover.png is passed to the skin engine and it get's shown.
> Broken_Glass is the best example (it's actually the reason I added the feature... I really wanted such theme)
> I hope this feature will bring up many new and great themes as skinning is much more flexible now.
> Dependencies: sudo apt-get install imagemagick
>> The dependency isn't required by the screenlet but by the Broken_Glass theme to manipulate the cover image.

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v.0.3.3.2 (2010-12-24)

+ New Feature: Wallpaper changer (all supported players) (gnome only - uses gconftool-2)
Details:
> Sets wallpaper according to the current album or the current artist (in this order - in case both are present)
> You can activate it from the new [ Wallpaper ] tab created in options
> You should set the path to the wallpaper applied when not having a cover or not playing (by default it sets your current one)
> You have to set the album and artist folder paths in the options
>> The paths must be absolute. Don't use ~/Pictures instead of /home/YourUsername/Pictures
>> The folders should contain images with the album/artist name as it is written in the player tag (case insensitive)
>> The image extension doesn't matter as long as it is there.
>>> For example: If the artist is Eminem the image Eminem.jpg will work fine while Eminem won't

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v.0.3.3.1 (2010-12-20)

+ Fixed the & character which appeared as & for the album text (all supported players)

+ The screenlet is now locally searching for a better image than the thumbnail provided by dcop which is quite small (amarok only)
Search places (in this exact order):
> ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok/albumcovers/large
> ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok/albumcovers/tagcover
> song path: *.png *.jpg *.jpeg (selects the first image found)

+ The image shown when not having a cover can be changed by replacing [ UI/no-cover.png ] with a custom one. (amarok only)
> To restore the default one just remove [ UI/no-cover.png ] from the screenlet folder