Depreacted! There's now an API.

Spotify implemented AppleScript support! Jey.

I build a plugin for Adium. You get get it there: http://www.adiumxtras.com/index.php?a=xtras&xtra_id=8044

scrobbify + stuff : Tools to work around a missing API

Overview

There's a notable lack of AppleScript support in the Spotify player, and I (along with many others) would like to do interesting things with Spotify. Things like, updating my Adium status with what I'm listening to on Spotify, sticking what's now playing in the office on an LED message panel, and doing other interesting mashups.

So, here's a workaround, using Spotify's built-in scrobbling feature. What I'm attempting to do, is capture the network packets that are sent from the Spotify player to Last.fm's API, and extract what's now playing by inspecting the HTTP request.

Yep, it's all pretty backwards, but I think it's the only viable workaround, until either Spotify adds an AppleScript dictionary, or Last.fm provides some kind of real-time webhook interface.

using scrobbify

1. Be sure to enable scrobbling to last.fm in your Spotify player preferences.

2. In your custom scripts, use scrobbify like this:

    import scrobbify, sys
    
    def cb(now_playing, data):
        sys.stdout.write("Now playing: '%s' by '%s'.\n" % (now_playing['t'][0], now_playing['a'][0]))
        sys.stdout.flush()
        
    scrobbifier = scrobbify.Scrobbify(cb, interface='en0')
    scrobbifier.start()
    
    # Exit gracefully...
    try:
        while True:
            time.sleep(2**20)
    except (KeyboardInterrupt, SystemExit):
        scrob.stop()
   

The following meta-data is avaliable in the now_playing variable):

• Title [t]
• Artist [a]
• Album [b]
• Length [l] in seconds
• Track [n] of the album

OS X: Python pcap

Under OS X it's possible that easy_install will not find a version of pylibpcap. Use can install one with the help of MacPorts. Attention: You have to use the python2.6 binary in /opt/local/bin/ to be able to import pcap which is required by scrobbify.

Example applications

Here are some example applications using the scrobbify library to do things™.

Spobbilog

It's a very simple and basic example for scrobbify usage. It writes the songs you listen to in Spotify to a file (~/.spobbilog). The format of the file is

timestamp; title; artist; album \n

The textfile can be used as a very simple interface to other applications. For example you can get the last played title with the following shell command:

tail -n1 ~/.spobbilog | cut -f 2 -d ';'

Adjust the "2" to get other attributes of the last song.

Adium Script

With Spobbilog you have a history and the currently playing song. Let's use that log for some useful stuff. Insert the last played song into a message, by starting your message with /spotify or %_spotify. Make sure to have Spobbilog running and Last.fm posting enabled.

update Ladiocast metadata

Similar to the Adium Script you can run the updateLadioCast Apple Script which reads the .spobbilog file every 15 seconds and then updates the LadioCast metadata.

Feedback

I'm fairly certain the code is sub-optimal right now, so feel free to leave me some feedback, via email or even twitter. :)

Author of the example apps: toabi.