[Announce] Squeezelite-X

[rgdawson]

[removed]

[rgdawson]

[Announce] Squeezelite-X

Squeezelite-X is available in the Microsoft Store for Windows 10 (Version 1703+).

Squeezelite-X is a Windows 10 application that makes running Squeezelite on your PC easy. Squeezelite-X combines the excellent squeezelite software player (by Adrian Smith and Ralph Irving) with a dedicated imbedded web interface to your Logitech Media Server, all accessible from the windows tray.

Additional features include: WOL to wake your server, interactively change output devices, ability to specify advances squeezelite parameters, customizable tray icon menu, sleep/idle auto off timers, media key support for your keyboard, custom browser zoom. The application is multi-monitor Dpi aware as well.

This started as a DIY project for me several months ago, and was developed with advice and support from forum members over in the DIY area. Special thanks to Wirruna, oyvindo, Jeff07971, drmatt, bobbertuk and others for advice and suggestions and testing (and most importantly, encouragement).

Special thanks to Adrian Smith and Ralph Irving for writing squeezelite, to mherger for all his excellent work on LMS and Spotty, and to all who keep this technology alive. This is my humble gift back to the community that has given joy over the years.

Screenshots:

(Edit: I updated this post to show screenshots from Version 2.11.22, including Material Skin plugin by Craig Drummond)










For those of you that prefer, I'll keep a traditional non-store installer available at: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AlC6xWoP5Gkwgb5YHGQ1-VHk7TQZXw

R Greg Dawson

[skare]

Wow that is so nice!
Love the keyboard media key integrations

[bernt]

Fantastic!

Now I can finally ditch my ultra complicated setup on my work pc.

Neorouter and Squeezelite-X, that's it. Thanks!

[oyvindo]

Hi Greg,
I noted today that the local SL-X player name appears 3 times in the "Choose Player" pulldown list (and also on the LMS settings page under "Players). Each consecutive name has a trailing increasing number (2), (3), (4) and so on.
I suspect that this is a result from sudden crashes I've had with SL-X (as I mentioned earlier).
Question is; How do I clean this up?
Restarting LMS or SL-X does not help.

Rgds
Oyvindo

[rgdawson]

Hi Greg,
I noted today that the local SL-X player name appears 3 times in the "Choose Player" pulldown list (and also on the LMS settings page under "Players). Each consecutive name has a trailing increasing number (2), (3), (4) and so on.
I suspect that this is a result from sudden crashes I've had with SL-X (as I mentioned earlier).
Question is; How do I clean this up?
Restarting LMS or SL-X does not help.

Rgds
Oyvindo

Squeezelite-X will generate a unique Player Name if it is about to start squeezelite-win.exe and the LMS server says it already has a Player connected using that name. This is so that if you are running multiple instances, whether on multiple PCs, or multiple users on the same machine and the PlayerName was not unique, it will make it unique.

However, If Squeezelite-X terminated abnormally it could have left an instance of squeezelite-win.exe running in the background. So yes, this could be a result of a crash. Version 1.2 added code that eliminated the issue we (well at least I) was having with wifi. Are you running Version 1.2? V1.2 is in the store now and you can update to that (even though the store listing has not yet been updated by Microsoft to indicate Version 1.2 yet, the v1.2 package is what is there).

I also noticed this happening (squeezelite-win.exe left running) once when I was shutting down Windows and the shutdown process got aborted due to another program. In that case Squeezelite-X was shutdown, but squeezelite-win.exe was not. I have a fix for this coming.

A reboot of the PC should fix the issue because that will shut down any squeezelite-win.exe instances that may be running, or you can go into task manager and terminate the tasks there. (If you do Task Manager, Exit Squeezelite-X first, so you can safely terminate all remaining squeezelite-win.exe instances) BTW, if squeezelite-win.exe terminates abnormally, it may take LMS several minutes to realize and "forget" the player.

What version of Squeezelite-X are you running?

R Greg Dawson

[Jeff07971]

Hi Greg,

I have just noticed that my request for squeezelite to be disableable has been implemented - thanks for that !

I noticed it after checking the version (re the last post) I am on v1.2 but I do not remember updating SL-X, does it auto update ?

Thanks again

Jeff

[oyvindo]

What version of Squeezelite-X are you running?

I'm now on 1.2.0.0 and everything is just fine again.
Perhaps with the exception of the fact that not all my keyboard mediakeys do work as expected. But they used to - some time ago. Now, only the Play/Pause/FastForward/Reverse works ok, but the volume keys and mute doesn't. They used to work with SL-X as well, but now they only control the local player, and not the browser selected player, no matter what I do.

R
Oyvindo

[rgdawson]

Hi Greg,

I have just noticed that my request for squeezelite to be disableable has been implemented - thanks for that !

I noticed it after checking the version (re the last post) I am on v1.2 but I do not remember updating SL-X, does it auto update ?

Thanks again

Jeff

Yes, one of the nice things about Microsoft Store is that it autoupdates. I don't know how it works, especially while/if Squeezelite-X is running, but it will auto-update. Its a Microsoft Store thing.

R Greg Dawson

[rgdawson]

I'm now on 1.2.0.0 and everything is just fine again.
Perhaps with the exception of the fact that not all my keyboard mediakeys do work as expected. But they used to - some time ago. Now, only the Play/Pause/FastForward/Reverse works ok, but the volume keys and mute doesn't. They used to work with SL-X as well, but now they only control the local player, and not the browser selected player, no matter what I do.

R
Oyvindo

Squeezelite-X should have no impact on volume/mute as it does not intercept those keys. Play/Pause, Stop, Prev, Next are the only ones that Squeezelite-X responds to.

I'm not seeing this issue. Be advised, the Media Keys selection does not take effect until you press "Apply". Also, if you have multiple instances running on the same machine, and they both are set to respond to media keys, then the player may get duplicate commands (and two Play/Pause commands leaves you back where you started). So if you have multiple instances only configure one to use media keys. This can happen if multiple users are logged in and both have SL-X running. I'm trying to figure out how to determine within the instance whether its user has the live session, but I have not figured that out yet.

R Greg Dawson

[oyvindo]

Squeezelite-X should have no impact on volume/mute as it does not intercept those keys.

I'm sorry - I was under the impression that you had implemented support for all mediakeys.
Any particular reason why you decided not to support the volume keys (Volume seems rather essential, doesn't it?)

[oyvindo]

Yes, one of the nice things about Microsoft Store is that it autoupdates.

Well, yes - it did autoupdate - after I had already done it myself - manually - and I ended up having two instances of SL-X running concurrntly!

[drmatt]

I'd prefer to stick with a standalone installer myself.


Transcoded from Matt's brain by Tapatalk

[rgdawson]

I'm sorry - I was under the impression that you had implemented support for all mediakeys.
Any particular reason why you decided not to support the volume keys (Volume seems rather essential, doesn't it?)

The computer already responds to volume/mute keys to control the computer's volume, so that should work just fine without any additional SL-X action for the local player. (Your volume/mute keys should already work.) If I have SqueezeLite-X respond to the volume keys also, then you would have the computer adjusting its volume, and SqueezeLite-X adjusting the player volume simultaneously. I want to keep those activities separate and I don't want SqueezeLite-X to prevent the volume keys from performing normally outside of the Squeezelite-X app. I may want to turn down the player volume without turning down the computer volume and vice versa.

That is my thinking, but I am open to suggestions and ideas. Maybe a different key combination to control player volume, like Shift-Volume+/- or something.

R Greg Dawson

[rgdawson]

Well, yes - it did autoupdate - after I had already done it myself - manually - and I ended up having two instances of SL-X running concurrntly!

I should probably add code to not allow two instances to run by the same user. Another curious thing about updates is that after an update, Windows forgets if you have put the tray icon in the visible part of the tray. So after an update, the tray icon will go back to the hidden part of the tray. Since you are not expecting that, it is easy to think it is not running and run another instance. I have done this to myself before.

R Greg Dawson