Ever since I started using LMS, nearly seven years ago, I have wished
for some form of automation. What I mean is that I want a way to add
commands to the playlist, so that certain tasks can be performed. For
instance:
Pause or stop playback for a specified time, then resume playing
with the next track in the playlist. (sometimes useful when a sync group
has drifted out of sync)
Stop playback, clear the playlist, then load and begin playing a
different playlist.
Maybe this capability exists in plugins that I am not aware of. But
since I'm not aware of those options, I decided to try coming up with
something on my own.
I am not a developer, so I do not have code to share, just a concept. So
I'm not posting this in Third-party Software. And even though what I'm
doing works only in Linux, I think the concept can be applied in other
environments, so I think this fits best in the LMS forum.
I have added a folder named Commands to the top level of my music
library. In that folder there are several audio files containing 30
seconds of silence. The Title tags of those files all begin with
"[Command]", followed by a description of the task to be done. For
instance, the first example I mentioned above becomes "[Command] pause
group all then play next".
Next, some way of monitoring what's currently playing is needed. This
can probably be achieved with the PlayLog or LMS Event Trigger plugins.
I already have a shell script running that gets Now Playing updates
through the Command Line Interface, so that is what I use. With a few
lines added to that script, it now checks the title of every new track,
and if it begins with "[Command]" it calls another script with the rest
of the title as a parameter.
My hope is that in time the second script will evolve into something
more sophisticated, but right now it's just a chain of IF statements. If
one of them matches the parameter used when calling a script, it sends a
command or a sequence of commands through the CLI. Using the same
example:
Code:
--------------------
sleep 2
echo "01%3A23%3A45%3A67%3A89%3Aab pause 1" > sqz_fifo_in
sleep 15
echo "01%3A23%3A45%3A67%3A89%3Aab pause 0" > sqz_fifo_in
sleep 1
echo "01%3A23%3A45%3A67%3A89%3Aab playlist index +1" > sqz_fifo_in
--------------------
That pauses the group player, waits fifteen seconds, then unpauses and
jumps to the next track.
It's not elegant, but it works. I'm sure it would work much better as a
plugin, but it's not likely that I will ever make that happen. So if
anyone would like to take this crude concept and develop it into
something powerful, be my guest. But even if that never happens, I hope
someone will find the concept useful and modify it to fit their needs.
Next problem: running commands based on time, rather than sequence in a
playlist. I have tried doing something like that with alarms in the
past, without much success. But maybe it would help to set up a dummy
player, only for the purpose of running commands. I am not ready to go
there yet, but if someone else is ready, do go ahead!
If nothing else, I hope real developers will get a good laugh out of my
fumbling attempts to make this work. :D
LMS 8 nightly; 3 Squeezelite players connected by powerline ethernet; 5
wireless players connected via Airplay Bridge; 1 SqueezeAmp player
no high-end or esoteric audio gear
1 Squeezebox Radio (upgraded UE Smart Radio) now mostly retired
------------------------------------------------------------------------
RobbH's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=67008
View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=112979
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