Pushing 'Now Playing' to external LCD display

[Sean Campbell]

Hello!

To be honest, I'm not really a programmer and have very little experience working with APIs.  I'd probably drown in unfamiliar terms if I read through the documentation on my own... That said, I'm betting what I'm looking to do would involve leveraging the API, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask here.

Is there a feature in the API that would allow me to display the currently playing track to an external LCD display?  I used to see this a lot years ago with people displaying their current Winamp track on an external display.  I'd love to set something like this up for Rdio, as I find it irritating to have to find the Rdio player among the countless windows I have open any time I want to learn what the current song is.  I typically don't have my interest peaked until mid-way through, so the usual toast display at the start of a song doesn't really help here.  And if there's nothing but a dead end with an external display, I suppose I could just use the mini player and force it to stay on top, but I cherish screen real estate and would rather not lose a chunk of it.

If there is some sort of hook that can be used for this, I'm hoping to get my more programming savvy buddy to help throw something together.

Thanks for reading!

-Sean

[R. Kevin Nelson]

Hi Sean,

This is definitely doable, but most of the work is in getting the hardware setup and running.  If you're on a mac, your best bet is to poll the Rdio app with Apple Script (documentation here) to get the current track info.

From there, your program that uses AppleScript will need to communicate with your hardware and LCD setup, which is a bit out of scope for this forum.

Sound reasonable?

Best,

Kevin

-- -- --

R. Kevin Nelson

Product Manager - API & Partnerships

Rdio, Inc.

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[Rebecca Stecker]

Hi Sean,

What you're describing sounds like one of the features to be found in the Rdio phone app.  The music can be playing on your computer while your phone is in remote control mode.

It's funny you mention this though since I've had the same thought! I have a little LCD screen and an Arduino to drive it sitting on my craft table at home.  I've started poking at the Chrome USB API [https://developer.chrome.com/apps/usb] and started writing my own driver to hook it an my Arduino up.  So far I've been able to feed data from the Arduino into Rdio (using the JS API) but haven't had time to figure out how to pipe data down to the device yet... Some day soon! Soon! (isn't that the tune to all hobby projects?)

So far I've found the real hangup has been writing the driver that I flash the EPROM on the Arduino with, but that's because I'm not that hot with C. Or device drivers. Once I figure it all out though I hope to post something... then you too can have your own Rdio screen!  

Have fun & happy hacking

--

 Rebecca Stecker

Newest member to Rdio's API team

[Ian Gilman]

Sean,

If your LCD is smart enough to run a web browser (like many TVs these days, or a tablet device, etc.), it's a piece of cake to build something like that in a webpage. For instance:

http://iangilman.com/rdio/now-playing/

-- Ian Gilman

-- digital renaissance man

-- www.iangilman.com

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[Sean Campbell]

I did 100% forget that the mobile app can be used as a sort of remote control for the desktop player.  I think I'll follow the old adage of KISS instead of going down the much more complex route of building something.  I'll just work out some sort of mount to prop up my phone beneath my monitor, get a loooong USB charger, and turn off the timeout on the screen.

Three cheers for Rdio for building in that functionality to their app.  Another reason I'm glad I chose them!

Thanks everyone, take care!

-Sean