Feature Request - Display music details if music is playing

[aidenmitchell]

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In order to help us sort your issue, we ask that you provide the following information:

• [x] Mac model: iMac 21.5" Late 2012
• [x] macOS version: MacOS Mojave 10.14.6
• [x] Monitor setup: 1 monitor

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Description of issue / Feature request

It'd be cool if on the screensaver, above the video description, the name and artist of the current song playing on my Mac could show up. I use Spotify, but iTunes would be good to add too.

[glouel]

Hey @ilovecats516

That's pretty cool idea indeed ! I had a quick check and it looked simple enough... but Catalina being the killjoy it is for screen saver makes it impossible.

It's very easy to get currently playing song via AppleScript for Spotify, iTunes or Music (found this here for Spotify : https://stackoverflow.com/a/46325321 and this for iTunes/music : https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/297240/getting-the-file-path-of-a-currently-playing- ).

The problem is, AppleScript is being clamped down massively since Mojave (more info here if interested : https://www.felix-schwarz.org/blog/2018/08/new-apple-event-apis-in-macos-mojave), for an app to be allowed to use it, you need to ask for entitlements. In the "debug app" that I use to develop Aerial, after much fiddling, that indeed works, you get prompted like this :

Then I can read the info :

Now the sad part, in order to get this to work you need a temporary entitlement called com.apple.security.temporary-exception.apple-events. If you make an "app", you can ask for this yourself. But Aerial is a screen saver (.saver file extension) a system plugin that's run by another app (in Catalina, /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/PlugIn/legacyScreenSaver.appex) and it is its entitlements that dictates what all 3rd party screen savers (including Aerial) can do (macOS first party screen savers can have their own entitlements, but we can't !). And just like reading external drives, writing outside the sandbox container, or accessing the keyboard (see the pinned Catalina issue for more info), it lacks the apple-events entitlement too.

So, as much as I'd like to add this, right now it doesn't look possible. We'll have to see if things change when Catalina gets released but right now they are in a pretty bad place for those kind of "advanced features" !

[aidenmitchell]

That's too bad it won't work come Catalina. Hopefully, there will be a workaround, or Apple will loosen their security a tad. Thanks anyway, and what a fast response. I'm glad Aerial is active and that developers actually respond to issues and suggestions.

[glouel]

Time passed a bit, but 2.3.4beta3 includes both Apple Music and Spotify integration ;)

[Pcar17]

@glouel,

This is a great idea! However, I'm not seeing the Apple Music track that's playing showing up on an M1 MBA running macOS 11.4 (20F71) running the latest build, 2.3.4beta3.

Is there anything that I have to do in order to activate it besides "enabling" it? Or anything I should do to diagnose?

Thanks!

[glouel]

@Pcar17 The track that plays when Aerial starts will not show up, but if you press next on your keyboard (that doesn't interrupt the screensaver) the track change should be detected. If it's not let met know I'll try to investigate, thanks !

[Pcar17]

@glouel,

Wow....what too you so long to respond! Maybe 15 seconds?

lol!

But, yes, that was it. It works perfectly. What a nice feature!

[glouel]

Haha I just had the notification and was around ;)

Check here for more info on the current limitations and what will change : https://ko-fi.com/post/Apple-Music-and-Spotify-integration-W7W056GL2