Playdar Colour Palette

Changes in this release:

• Removed the expired demo resolver for Spotify.
• Fixed an issue with non-standard install paths for re-install.
• Using more approproiate weight and target time for resolver pipeline.
• Restored original time allowed for HTTP headers in playdar-core.
• Restored earlier versions of Erlang and Mochiweb in case they were better supported.
• Napster, MP3tunes, and Magnatune now installed in default options.

Changes in this release:

• Added a resolver for Spotify.

This product uses SPOTIFY(R) CORE but is not endorsed, certified or otherwise approved in any way by Spotify. Spotify is the registered trade mark of the Spotify Group.

A premium Spotify account is required for the Spotify resolver to work.

The terms & conditions for the libspotify API suggest this resolver is in a grey area. Therefore, the Spotify resolver is presented here in its current form as an expiring demo. It is believed that the application more or less conforms to the terms, but clarification of the terms may be required.

This resolver for Spotify is implemented in C# using libspotify and libspotify-sharp. It is compatible with Mono on Mac OS X and Linux, and .NET 2.0 on Windows.

Note: Demo expired 1st December. There is no plan to extend the demo at this time, so the following links are no longer available, but you can find the source-code on my GitHub page.

• Spotify resolver for Playdar on Mac OS X
• Spotify resolver for Playdar on Linux (x86)

The following specific terms apply to your use of the Spotify Resolver:

• Steven Robertson, and not Spotify, is responsible for this application.
• Spotify declares that the API is provided “as-is,” without any warranties, and that expressly disclaims all implied warranties, including the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.
• Modifying or creating derivative works based on any part of the Spotify API is prohibited.
• Decompiling, reverse-engineering, disassembling, and otherwise reducing the Spotify API to source code or other human-perceivable form, is prohibited, to the full extent allowed by law.
• Ownership of the Spotify API and Service resides with Spotify.
• Spotify disclaims any liability for any interruptions in the Service as accessed via the Application.
• There is no data collected as part of this application, but if there were then it would be subject to a privacy policy provided with this software and not Spotify’s.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Most of the following applies only to the Spotify resolver on Mac OS X and Linux.

Both of the above downloads provide a shell script which would be listed in the Playdar config under script resolvers. You may need to ensure that execute permissions are given to the shell script. If using 64-bit x86 Linux you might need libspotify for Linux x86 64 (in resolver folder or on the library path). LAME is required for transcoding, and not provided with the download for Linux. On Mac you may need to ensure that the supplied lame executable has execute permission.

In all cases a plain-text file with the Spotify account username & password is currently required, named spotify.conf in the PLAYDAR_ETC folder. The Windar GUI will write this file for you, but needs to be manually entered on Mac and Linux.

[spotify]
username = user
password = pass

The PLAYDAR_ETC environment variable is used by this resolver, so you may need to provide something like the following before starting Playdar on the command-line.

export PLAYDAR_ETC=/home/steve/playdar-core/etc

The download for Mac OS X has the PLAYDAR_ETC environment variable set to the folder used by Playdar.prefPane.

A good first test is to run the resolver script and check that it returns the resolver information, as this shows that the resolver has the Mono dependency and that the Spotify user was able to login. The next step is to resolve and stream a track via Playdar.

The application has not been heavily tested, and probably contains a few relatively minor bugs. If the resolver stops working, you may need to kill the existing Spotify resolver process when restarting Playdar. This is because libspotify is restricted to a single process and so the hung process may lock the resource. This is beta software, and it will be a bit rough around the edges.

Changes in this release:

• Fixed missing UAC elevation required for uninstaller in Vista & Windows 7.

Changes in this release:

• Re-bundling the Napster resolver, using a new API key.
• Hiding the stat heart-beat log in the log panel.
• Stat heart-beat check period increased (3s).
• Increased the time allowed for HTTP headers to (1s) and streams (2s).
• Increased the time allowed for resolver results (20s).
• Using more recent Python 2.7 for py2exe compiled resolvers.
• Including test player and audioscrobbler plugins again.
• Re-tweaked some resolver weights.

Changes in this release:

• Better process handling in the installer.
• NSIS UAC plugin used in installer to run on finish, as user not admin.
• Updated the 16×16 icons used in tray and title bar.
• Using 32-bit compile options.

Changes in this release:

• Changed licence from GPL to LGPL.
• Improved installer, with option to remove Application Data.
• Reduced the total file-size of the installer.
• Improved the Playdar state detection using the stat method.
• Updated to Erlang R014A, and reduced to bare essentials.
• Removed the Napster resolver and plugin. There is potential that this will be re-introduced in the next Windar release.
• Removed the MPlayer-powered test player to reduce installer size. It will require better error handling for failed web requests which might be recovered by MPlayer automatically.
• Removed the Scrobbler plugin as it required an auth hack. This had been intended to work with the test player, and may instead be made to work independently in a future release.
• Removed the Startup folder shortcut from the installer.

• Pre-compiled binaries required have been compressed with 7-zip and added to GitHub.
• The main Windar solution is compatible with Visual Studio 2008 Express (free download).
• The page “Build and develop” has been added to the project wiki.