Winamp Readout
After creating some very simple applications in WinBinder to test to see how things worked out, I decided to try and make something a little more challenging. So I came up with the idea of a Winamp interaction application, starting off slowly with just the plan to get the current track and artist name from Winamp and displaying it to the user. From there, if I wanted to, I could expand the program to possible do statistics on what you’ve played. (I do realise that there are applications that already do this, but this is a learning process).
So after getting the WinampCOM object working, I managed to get what I required out of Winamp, and was displaying it to the user. Then I had a mini-brainwave about people using Winamp, more specifically using it while in a full screen application, where you can’t see the Winamp window anymore. I know myself I load up my winamp and let it loose on random play with my mp3’s, but if I was in a full screen app, I would’nt be able to see whats playing (short of alt+tabbing anyway). So I dug around some more with COM objects and then suddently remembered about the SAPI.SpVoice object.
So 5minutes later, the application is now reading out the track names as you switch, and also reading in the ID3 tags if they exist. Not only that, but after a suggestion from Jace Arnold to make it pause the track while its talking, another 5minutes later and that was in as well! So after starting off, this is what it ended up looking like…
It also minimises to the tray, as I have a serious pet peeve about programs taking up taskbar space which could easily run from the taskbar in the background.
Download Links
Winamp Readout (906kb) - winamp-readout_setup_1.0a.zip
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