Projects/Open Source/Banshee/Plugins/Lirc

I haven’t worked on this project since about 2006. But feel free to enjoy the code.

This is a small plugin for the Banshee Music Player and it works great. This code uses the lirc-sharp bindings that I have written. I use a background thread that calls Lirc.NextCommand() which is a blocking call, and when it returns I pull the command (which is one called from the system/user lircrc) and do as it intends. The plugin itself is incredibly simple using this set of bindings.

In the future I’m toying with the idea of writing a standalone application that keeps a persistent connection with the lirc daemon, and would interface with Banshee using it’s D-Bus interface. This would also allow Banshee to be launched remotely, and would isolate any problems that may arise from the two programs. The only con of this approach is that I might have to do some work to extend the Banshee D-Bus interface, but that would be a good thing for Banshee in the long run :)

Ideas to work on:

  • Target for first revision of plugin:
    • Toggling playback (play/pause) [toggle-playback] {IMPLEMENTED}
      • individual play and pause commands too [play and pause] {IMPLEMENTED}
    • Next / Previous track [next and previous]
    • Fast-forward and rewind [fast-forward and rewind] {IMPLEMENTED}
    • Changing Banshee’s volume [volume-up and volume-down] {IMPLEMENTED}
    • Mute (idea from Josiah Ritchie <josiah.ritchie@gmail.com>) [mute] {IMPLEMENTED}
  • Future ideas:
    • Changing sources
    • Raising the window (great for when you’re across the room and want to see the interface if it’s on another workspace)
    • Album cover enlarge (idea from Josiah Ritchie <josiah.ritchie@gmail.com>)
    • Toggle shuffle and repeat modes (idea from Josiah Ritchie <josiah.ritchie@gmail.com>)

The source is hosted on my personal svn repository. Check out by issuing:

   svn co http://svn.vanstaveren.us/banshee-lirc-plugin

The compilation of this plugin isn’t just plug ‘n chug, but almost as easy…

  • First, compile and install lirc-sharp.
  • Check out the source here, and install it. I recommend using the –enable-user-plugin flag so it installs to ~/.gnome2/banshee/plugins.
  • Before you start banshee you need to manually copy the lirc-sharp library files into your plugins dir. The Makefile does not automatically do this for you. Just run:

   cp /usr/lib/lirc-sharp/* ~/.gnome2/banshee/plugins

Then, start Banshee :) That should do the trick!

Feel free to report bugs to me via e-mail!