Ok, I finally solved my problem! I mentioned it on 2007-12-02 iTunes vs. Squeezebox –– I like how iTunes lets me quickly collect the stuff I want. But then I can’t play it on my SqueezeBox. Suckage! I tried some suggestions from the Slim Devices forum ¹ and I finally figured out what I wanted: I want to select some files and “send them to the Squeezebox” – I don’t want to play the same song in iTunes and on the Squeezebox, for example.
2007-12-02 iTunes vs. Squeezebox
Brad Mohr’s script did exactly what I wanted it to do. Except that it assumed an old version of the server software, and it required me to change a little security setting, or it required me to figure out the “cauth” key. No good! Some looking at documentation that came with the new server, some looking at AppleScript examples elsewhere, some fiddling with netcat (nc), and soon I had something that seems to work.
Yes, netcat is the awesome! 😄
Anyway, here it is. To use:
1. Open the AppleScript editor → Applications → AppleScript → Script Editor.
2. Paste the code below.
3. Hit ⌘R to run it. Good for testing.
To install it, you have two options. Here’s how to have a stand-alone program:
1. Save, pick “Program” as the format to use. I used “Send iTunes Tracks To Squeezebox” as the name.
2. Select some tracks in iTunes.
3. Run the program. It will ask you whether you want to “Play” or “Append”.
Or to have it available from the scripts menu in iTunes:
1. Create the directory ~_Library_iTunes/Scripts
2. Save, pick “Script” as the format to use. I used “Send To Squeezebox” as the name.
3. Select the tracks in iTunes.
4. From the iTunes Script menu, pick “Send To Squeezebox”. It will ask you whether you want to “Play” or “Append”.
5. ...
6. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always seem to work, and I haven’t figured out why. 🙁 If you uncomment the `display dialog result buttons {"Ok"}` at the very end, you’ll see that when run from the Script Editor, everything works as expected, and when run from within iTunes, the result is the empty string. Always.
-- SlimPlay
-- by Alex Schroeder, kensanata@gmail.com
-- March 2008
-- by Brad Mohr, bmohr (AT) seanet (DOT) com
-- 22 January 2003
-- This script is absolutely free and may be used by anyone for any purpose.
-- Known Limitations:
-- Currently only supports a single Squeezebox.
-- Very little error checking
-- edit these properties to match your setup.
property squeezecenter_host : "localhost" -- URL or IP address of the SlimServer
property squeezecenter_port : "9090" -- server port number for the command line interface, default is 9090
tell application "iTunes"
set these_tracks to the selection of browser window 1
if these_tracks is {} then error "No tracks are selected in the front window."
set should_play to false
display dialog "What would you like to do with these tracks?" buttons {"Play", "Append", "Cancel"} default button 2
if the button returned of the result is not "Cancel" then
if the button returned of the result is "Play" then set should_play to true
set is_first_file to true
repeat with a_track in these_tracks
set carbon_filepath to the location of a_track
set track_title to the name of a_track
tell application "Finder" to set filepath to URL of carbon_filepath
set escaped_path to escape_path(filepath) of me
if should_play then
if is_first_file then
playlist_play_track(escaped_path) of me
set is_first_file to false
else
playlist_append_track(escaped_path) of me
end if
else
playlist_append_track(escaped_path) of me
end if
end repeat
if should_play then
begin_playing() of me
end if
end if
end tell
-- apostrophe causes trouble when sent to the shell
on escape_path(this_text)
set the escaped_text to ""
repeat with this_char in this_text
if this_char as text is equal to "'" then
set the escaped_text to the escaped_text & "%27"
else
set the escaped_text to the escaped_text & this_char
end if
end repeat
return the escaped_text
end escape_path
-- append the new track to the playlist
on playlist_append_track(escapedTrackPath)
send_command("playlist add " & escapedTrackPath)
end playlist_append_track
-- replace the existing playlist with the new track
on playlist_play_track(escapedTrackPath)
send_command("playlist play " & escapedTrackPath)
end playlist_play_track
-- tell the default (or only) server to begin playing
on begin_playing()
send_command("play")
end begin_playing
on send_command(command)
tell application "Finder"
set shell_command to "echo -e '" & command & "\\nexit' | /usr/bin/nc " & squeezecenter_host & " " & squeezecenter_port & "; exit 0"
-- display dialog shell_command buttons {"Ok"}
set result to do shell script shell_command
-- display dialog result buttons {"Ok"}
end tell
end send_command
#Music #Gadgets #iTunes #Mac #OSX #SqueezeBox