plugin that allows the squeezecenter webUI to play through the local sound card?

[flynn]

is there a plugin that allows the squeezecenter webUI to play through the local sound card? i'm still relatively new to squeezecenter, but this seems like the obvious killer plugin and i haven't found it yet...

[tcutting]

There are a few applications which do what you want (basically, a player which runs on the "local" pc).
There are three "software" players I am aware of which allow your PC to be a player. These aren't "plugins" however, but run on a PC, and appear as a squeezebox that you can then control through the Web UI.
There is SqueezePlay, which is really an emulator of the controller (GUI and all), which includes the (currently beta) player which is also available on the controller. The advantage of Squeezeplay is that it is being developed by Logitech/Slim Devices, and is planned to have the highest compatibility of all the software players (play the most formats - act most like the "hardware" players). This software is "beta" however, so it's not completely bug free. Also, it runs with the SqueezePlay GUI (which, as I said, is basically the same as the controller GUI) - there are skins available, I believe, which can make it more "desktop computer" friendly.
There is SoftSqueeze, which is a Java-based application which emulates the Squeezebox hardware. You can select a skin which looks like the SB3 (classic), or the Transporter - you even get a graphical remote control.
Finally, there is squeezeslave. Squeezeslave is "gui-less" - it is launched from a command line, and then runs without any display. I personally use this one - I run "Moose" which is a dedicated GUI to Squeezecenter for windows, and Moose then can be configure to run squeezeslave as a background task.
Be aware that the software players (at least SoftSqueeze and squeezeslave) are not 100% compatible with all formats - for example, they only support 44.1kHz sample rates. They also don't always play well with certain internet radio streams. They also don't synchronize accurately with hardware players. All that being said, they do work reasonably well for probably >90% of typical uses (I actually have squeezeslave playing music as I type this).
Hope that helps (and hope that actually answers what you were asking!)
Tom

[flynn]

Thanks for the great answer, tcutting.

I'm actually interested in the SqueezeCenter plugin, because the SqueezeCenter WebUI is actually pretty darn good for browsing through a collection, and it's web-based making remote access straightforward. I can't believe there isn't a "local playback" plugin for that...

SoftSqueeze, for example, is not as effective for browsing through a collection (just like the hw it emulates). Scrolling through a list of 100 artists 1 line at a time isn't my idea of a PC UI.

I haven't tried Moose - maybe that's the closest thing to using SqueezeCenter itself...
http://www.rusticrhino.com/drlovegrove/index.html

[aubuti]

I haven't tried Moose - maybe that's the closest thing to using SqueezeCenter itself...
http://www.rusticrhino.com/drlovegrove/index.html

Go ahead and try Moose, but you should understand that it's not a software player. It is a frontend for SC, ie, it controls what gets sent to your SB hardware players, just like the SC web ui (only better).

[Philip Meyer]

>is there a plugin that allows the squeezecenter webUI to play through
>the local sound card?
>
What would you expect a webUI to sound like? ;-)

Phil

[radish]

Scrolling through a list of 100 artists 1 line at a time isn't my idea of a PC UI.

Right - but because SoftSqueeze (for example) connects to SC like any other player, you can still use the Web UI (or a Controller, or iPeng, etc etc) to control it. You don't have to use the SoftSqueeze UI if you don't want to. The ultimate example of this is Squeezeslave, which doesn't even have it's own UI!