Controlling Music from Windows & Winamp

[SteveB69]

I don't use any music software other that winamp & windows file explorer.

I have all my music in e:\My Music
Is there a way to use VC like this so if I say, play Hound Dog by Elvis Presley it will?

I have no idea where to start on this, I gather it needs to scan & create an xml of my music directory but...

[PegLegTV]

a great starting point is going to be using

File.Getfiles
http://voxcommando.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Actions#GetFiles

this will scan the chosen file path and store the found result's in {Match.1} and so on

[Kalle]

Here is a bit more than a starting point 

http://voxcommando.com/forum/index.php?topic=2402.msg20727#msg20727

[SteveB69]

Thanks PeglegTV, I have already been well over the wiki, forum, you tube etc. What I cannot do is figure out how to use these commands, how to piece the puzzle...

Kalle, I followed the link & have done this.

Selected the code & copied it to VC command tree, I now have 3 commands, looking into them I don't follow what's going on. How do I scan my music directory? At the moment I don't have a mp3.xml in place?

Code: [Select]

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<!--VoxCommando 2.2.0.9-->
<commandGroup open="False" name="get my mp3s" enabled="True" prefix="" priority="0" requiredProcess="" description="">
  <command id="354" name="get my mp3 files" enabled="true" alwaysOn="False" confirm="False" requiredConfidence="0" loop="False" loopDelay="0" loopMax="0" description="In this example, I scan my mp3 directory's folders/subfolders. Be careful of which directory you choose here!">
    <action>
      <cmdType>PayloadXML.Clear</cmdType>
      <params>
        <param>payloads\myMp3s.xml</param>
      </params>
      <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
    </action>
    <action>
      <cmdType>Launch.Capture</cmdType>
      <params>
        <param>C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe</param>
        <param>/C dir d:\mp3  /b /s </param>
        <param>True</param>
      </params>
      <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
    </action>
    <action>
      <cmdType>RegExTool.Open</cmdType>
      <params>
        <param>True</param>
      </params>
      <cmdRepeat>0</cmdRepeat>
    </action>
    <action>
      <cmdType>Results.RegEx</cmdType>
      <params>
        <param>(.+\\(.+)\.mp3)</param>
      </params>
      <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
    </action>
    <action>
      <cmdType>Results.MatchToXML</cmdType>
      <params>
        <param>payloads\myMp3s.xml</param>
        <param />
        <param>True</param>
      </params>
      <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
    </action>
    <phrase>get my mp3 files</phrase>
  </command>
  <command id="399" name="play mp3" enabled="true" alwaysOn="False" confirm="False" requiredConfidence="0" loop="False" loopDelay="0" loopMax="0" description="">
    <action>
      <cmdType>OSD.ShowText</cmdType>
      <params>
        <param>Playing {PF.1}</param>
      </params>
      <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
    </action>
    <action>
      <cmdType>Sound.PlayStream</cmdType>
      <params>
        <param>{1}</param>
      </params>
      <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
    </action>
    <phrase>please play the track</phrase>
    <payloadFromXML phraseOnly="False" use2partPhrase="False" phraseConnector="by" Phrase2wildcard="anyone" optional="False">payloads\myMp3s.xml</payloadFromXML>
  </command>
  <command id="356" name="stop this track" enabled="true" alwaysOn="False" confirm="False" requiredConfidence="0" loop="False" loopDelay="0" loopMax="0" description="">
    <action>
      <cmdType>Sound.StopStream</cmdType>
      <params />
      <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
    </action>
    <phrase>stop this track</phrase>
  </command>
</commandGroup>

[nime5ter]

The command group you've posted includes three commands.

The first command, "get my mp3 files" is the one that scans the directory of your choosing, and generates the payload XML file containing track titles, associated with the file path to each track.

The other two commands are simply one way for users to play songs and stop songs, using VoxCommando's built-in Sound.PlayStream & Sound.StopStream actions. It's up to you whether that's how you want to use the payloadXMl once generated.

So, the command that you'll need to customize is the "get my mp3 files" command.

Above you mention that your music is stored in e:\My Music, so you should edit the Launch.Capture action to point to the correct directory, rather than d:\mp3 (which is the directory that the example command currently uses).

That command also uses regular expressions to isolate the file names of individual tracks as well as the file path for each track. These are then written to the payload xml file called "payloads\myMp3s.xml", which will appear in your payloads folder if the file is successfully generated.

The regular expression is expecting the music tracks to be mp3 files, and is then capturing the file names to use as song titles in the payload xml file that it generates.

If your music tracks are not in mp3 format, this would need to be altered. If the file names for your song tracks include a lot more information than just the song title, the regular expression may need to be more sophisticated in order to isolate the correct pattern and capture just the song title.

[SteveB69]

Thanks for the above.

I changed the directory to my music directory, VC then created the mymp3s.xml & put it in the payload folders, however the XML file is blank?

The below comes up in the history window:-

Results.RegEx:(.+\\(.+)\.mp3)
Error: No matches foun

d

Results.MatchToXML:payloads\myMp3s.xml&&&&True
Error: no matches to export

They are all MP3s, there are 11,792 of them. I've made sure Read Only in the files property is turned off.
All the files are within folder within the main My Music folder although there is one mp3 that sits on it's own within My Music/

Any ideas please?

Code: [Select]

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<!--VoxCommando 2.2.1.2-->
<command id="335" name="get my mp3 files" enabled="true" alwaysOn="False" confirm="False" requiredConfidence="0" loop="False" loopDelay="0" loopMax="0" description="In this example, I scan my mp3 directory's folders/subfolders. Be careful of which directory you choose here!">
  <action>
    <cmdType>PayloadXML.Clear</cmdType>
    <params>
      <param>payloads\myMp3s.xml</param>
    </params>
    <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
  </action>
  <action>
    <cmdType>Launch.Capture</cmdType>
    <params>
      <param>C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe</param>
      <param>/C dir E:\Tencent\My Music\  /b /s </param>
      <param>True</param>
    </params>
    <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
  </action>
  <action>
    <cmdType>RegExTool.Open</cmdType>
    <params>
      <param>True</param>
    </params>
    <cmdRepeat>0</cmdRepeat>
  </action>
  <action>
    <cmdType>Results.RegEx</cmdType>
    <params>
      <param>(.+\\(.+)\.mp3)</param>
    </params>
    <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
  </action>
  <action>
    <cmdType>Results.MatchToXML</cmdType>
    <params>
      <param>payloads\myMp3s.xml</param>
      <param />
      <param>True</param>
    </params>
    <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
  </action>
  <phrase>get my mp3 files</phrase>
</command>

[nime5ter]

The regular expression is expecting the music tracks to be mp3 files, and is then capturing the file names to use as song titles in the payload xml file that it generates.

If your music tracks are not in mp3 format, this would need to be altered. If the file names for your song tracks include a lot more information than just the song title, the regular expression may need to be more sophisticated in order to isolate the correct pattern and capture just the song title.

Regular expressions work by evaluating strings (in this case, file names) to find specific patterns. We specify the pattern that we want to find in the regular expression.

The regular expression is not working because your file names do not follow the pattern expected in the example command.

I left the RegExTool.Open action in the command (but currently disabled) to remind users that they'll need to customize the regular expressions for their own needs. To enable the RegEx Tool, change the command repeat value from 0 to 1.

This command is really meant for users with more technical computer experience. I've now edited my original post to explicitly mention that.

[jitterjames]

Actually that regex pattern should work for any music file in any directory so I don't think it's the problem.  Your path to the top level folder has spaces in it so you need to put quotes around it.  This is a rule when doing any kind of file command in a Windows console (command prompt).

So your second parameter in the Launch.Capture action should probably be as follows:

Code: [Select]

/C dir "E:\Tencent\My Music\"  /b /s

[nime5ter]

Thanks j. Nice catch.

[jitterjames]

I don't use any music software other that winamp & windows file explorer.

On a side note, if you have that many music files you absolutely should be using a good music management / playback software such as MediaMonkey.

There are absolutely no downsides to doing this (other than a bit of a learning curve) and so, so many advantages.  If you are interested in controlling your music by voice with VoxCommando then MediaMonkey is an excellent choice and the free version is extremely functional so you are unlikely to feel like you need to buy the full version.

Playing individual songs by name one at a time might be thrilling the first few times but it is going to get old pretty fast.  Compare that to what we've been able to do with MediaMonkey since version 0.5x of VoxCommando

[nime5ter]

By the way, if you roll over individual actions in the history window, you can generally see more details about what is happening at each stage.

When actions are designed to return results, you should see what results are returned when you roll over that action.

In this case, once it is evident that the regular expression is not finding matches, if there are no obvious problems with the regular expression then the next step is to try to see what happened at the previous step.

If you roll over the line ...

Launch.Capture:C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe&&/C dir E:\Tencent\My Music\ /b /s &&True

... rather than returning the list of file paths found, it would probably just show an empty result:

info:

This can be helpful for figuring out which line of the command needs attention.

[SteveB69]

Thanks for the help guys.

/C dir "E:\Tencent\My Music\"  /b /s

That got VC to scan & log my music files.

Couple more questions.
What software is the music playing in, I can't find any related window & thus can't stop of pause the music manually?
How do I get it to open whatever song in Winamp?
I've had a twiddle with the play mp3 command, it opens winamp, but doesn't play it.

Code: [Select]

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<!--VoxCommando 2.2.1.2-->
<command id="326" name="play mp3" enabled="true" alwaysOn="False" confirm="False" requiredConfidence="0" loop="False" loopDelay="0" loopMax="0" description="">
  <action>
    <cmdType>OSD.ShowText</cmdType>
    <params>
      <param>Playing {PF.1}</param>
    </params>
    <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
  </action>
  <action>
    <cmdType>Launch.RawParam</cmdType>
    <params>
      <param>D:\Program Files (x86)\Winamp\winamp.exe</param>
      <param>{1}</param>
    </params>
    <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
  </action>
  <phrase>Play Winamp</phrase>
  <payloadFromXML phraseOnly="False" use2partPhrase="False" phraseConnector="by" Phrase2wildcard="anyone" optional="False">payloads\myMp3s.xml</payloadFromXML>
</command>
Stop playing.
Command is coming up as recognized but not stopping. I guess it won't matter once I get this playing in winamp but it's coming back with a history of

Sound.StopStreamUnexpected error:

Re what to play with, I used to DJ a few yearsback & I have always found winamp 2.95 a very solid bit of kit with crossover & excellent library organisers. Then when windows brought in the search box on top of all explorer bars it got even easier to use.
I did DL MediaMoneky a couple of weeks back but honestly, I'd rather stick with winamp as I have been using it since around 2000.

[nime5ter]

What software is the music playing in, I can't find any related window & thus can't stop of pause the music manually?

As I said initially, VoxCommando is playing the stream. I provided two VC commands -- one for starting the stream, and the other command I provided is for stopping it. I don't know why it doesn't work for you, sorry.

You can edit those 2 commands to use the actions: Audio.Play & Audio.Stop instead of the older, Sound.** actions. Maybe the Audio.** actions will work better for you.

This is not generally how one would manage and interact with a music library, however. Generally, we want to use a media program so that we can load playlists, choose artists, navigate tracks etc.

That is why VoxCommando provides plugins for:

Emby (MB3)
iTunes
Kodi
JRiver Media Centre
MediaMonkey
Media Portal
Sonos
Windows Media Center

How do I get it to open whatever song in Winamp? I've had a twiddle with the play mp3 command, it opens winamp, but doesn't play it.

If Winamp is the default program you use to play mp3 files, then use the Launch.OpenFile action. Depending on the program, usually this would cause the playlist already loaded in that program to be discarded in order to play just the one track that you've asked for in your voice command. But I don't know what Winamp will do.

However, all this will do is start playing the track you've requested. If you want more control in Winamp, you'll have to find a way to interact with Winamp, either using command line or whatever methods Winamp provides. You'd need to conduct some research on Winamp's site and figure that out for yourself. You can also try searching our forum to see if any users have provided info on using VC with Winamp. VC does not have a Winamp plugin.

[jitterjames]

... one for starting the stream, and the other command I provided is for stopping it. I don't know why it doesn't work for you, sorry.

There seems to be a small bug in the Sound.StopStream action.  It is expecting a parameter even though it does not use it.  The workaround until the next release of VC which will include a fix, is just to put any thing in the first parameter.  You can to use the parameter helper to add an extra parameter, and then just write 'blah'.

Here is a replacement for just that one command.

Code: [Select]

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<!--VoxCommando 2.2.1.5-->
<command id="356" name="stop this track" enabled="true" alwaysOn="False" confirm="False" requiredConfidence="0" loop="False" loopDelay="0" loopMax="0" description="">
  <action>
    <cmdType>Sound.StopStream</cmdType>
    <params>
      <param>blah</param>
    </params>
    <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
  </action>
  <phrase>stop this track</phrase>
</command>

[nime5ter]

If you want more control in Winamp, you'll have to find a way to interact with Winamp, either using command line or whatever methods Winamp provides. You'd need to conduct some research on Winamp's site and figure that out for yourself. You can also try searching our forum to see if any users have provided info on using VC with Winamp. VC does not have a Winamp plugin.

I don't know whether this will work with your ancient version of Winamp or not, but since I am off work today, I searched our forum and found a reference to working with Winamp:

http://voxcommando.com/forum/index.php?topic=1598.msg14210#msg14210

In the post, user xtermin8r is describing a command line solution.

We can use command line utilities in VC with our Launch.** actions. He provides a link to documentation for the CLEveR command line utility for Winamp.

I went there, and downloaded the CLEveR.exe file. I put that directly in my VoxCommando folder. I then composed a few test commands in VC by following their documentation.

I've posted them here. You can try them out. If they work with your 2003 version of Winamp, then they will hopefully give you a starting point for creating more of your own commands.

NOTE: My Launch.** actions are expecting the CLEveR.exe file to be in the main VC folder. If you want to put that executable elsewhere, then all the commands in VC will need to point to the filepath where that program is stored.

Code: [Select]

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<!--VoxCommando 2.2.1.4-->
<commandGroup open="True" name="winamp using CLEveR command line" enabled="True" prefix="" priority="0" requiredProcess="" description="">
  <command id="128" name="Launch Winamp" enabled="true" alwaysOn="False" confirm="False" requiredConfidence="0" loop="False" loopDelay="0" loopMax="0" description="">
    <action>
      <cmdType>Launch.RawParam</cmdType>
      <params>
        <param>{Path.PFx86}\Winamp\winamp.exe</param>
      </params>
      <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
    </action>
    <phrase>Launch Winamp</phrase>
  </command>
  <command id="124" name="Play track/playlist {1}" enabled="true" alwaysOn="False" confirm="False" requiredConfidence="0" loop="False" loopDelay="0" loopMax="0" description="You can use this to start playing tracks or playlists. You'd have to add the filepaths to your playlists to the payloadXML file, which currently just has individual tracks.">
    <action>
      <cmdType>Launch.Hidden</cmdType>
      <params>
        <param>CLEveR.exe</param>
        <param>loadplay "{1}"</param>
      </params>
      <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
    </action>
    <phrase>play track, launch playlist</phrase>
    <payloadFromXML phraseOnly="False" use2partPhrase="False" phraseConnector="by" Phrase2wildcard="anyone" optional="False">payloads\myMp3s.xml</payloadFromXML>
  </command>
  <command id="136" name="Stop playback" enabled="true" alwaysOn="False" confirm="False" requiredConfidence="0" loop="False" loopDelay="0" loopMax="0" description="">
    <action>
      <cmdType>Launch.Hidden</cmdType>
      <params>
        <param>CLEveR.exe</param>
        <param>stop</param>
      </params>
      <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
    </action>
    <phrase>stop playback</phrase>
  </command>
  <command id="159" name="Volume {1}" enabled="true" alwaysOn="False" confirm="False" requiredConfidence="0" loop="False" loopDelay="0" loopMax="0" description="">
    <if ifBlockDisabled="False" ifNot="False">
      <ifType>(A)==(B)</ifType>
      <ifParams>{1}&amp;&amp;down</ifParams>
      <then>
        <action>
          <cmdType>Launch.Hidden</cmdType>
          <params>
            <param>CLEveR.exe</param>
            <param>voldn</param>
          </params>
          <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
        </action>
      </then>
      <else>
        <action>
          <cmdType>Launch.Hidden</cmdType>
          <params>
            <param>CLEveR.exe</param>
            <param>volup</param>
          </params>
          <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
        </action>
      </else>
    </if>
    <phrase>Volume {1}</phrase>
    <payloadList>up,down</payloadList>
  </command>
  <command id="137" name="Set Winamp volume to {1} percent (enable Python plugin for this)" enabled="true" alwaysOn="False" confirm="False" requiredConfidence="0" loop="False" loopDelay="0" loopMax="0" description="Per documentation at: http://www.etcwiki.org/wiki/Winamp_command_line, uses volume values from 1-255. Python is used for the conversion from percentage value. A payload xml table with conversions pre-calculated could be used instead of Python.">
    <action>
      <cmdType>TTS.Speak</cmdType>
      <params>
        <param>Setting Win amp volume to {1} per cent.</param>
      </params>
      <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
    </action>
    <action>
      <cmdType>PY.ExecString</cmdType>
      <params>
        <param>result = 255*{1}/100</param>
      </params>
      <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
    </action>
    <action>
      <cmdType>Launch.Hidden</cmdType>
      <params>
        <param>CLevER.exe</param>
        <param>volume {LastResult}</param>
      </params>
      <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
    </action>
    <phrase>Set Winamp volume</phrase>
    <payloadList>0,10,20,25,30,40,50,60,70,80,90,100</payloadList>
    <phrase>percent</phrase>
  </command>
  <command id="147" name="How long is this track?" enabled="true" alwaysOn="False" confirm="False" requiredConfidence="0" loop="False" loopDelay="0" loopMax="0" description="Try this. Then disable current OSD.ShowText and enable the 2 disabled actions and test again to see the difference.">
    <action>
      <cmdType>Launch.Capture</cmdType>
      <params>
        <param>clever.exe</param>
        <param>songlength</param>
      </params>
      <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
    </action>
    <action>
      <cmdType>OSD.ShowText</cmdType>
      <params>
        <param>Track length is {LastResult}</param>
      </params>
      <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
    </action>
    <action>
      <cmdType>Results.RegEx</cmdType>
      <params>
        <param>(\d+)\:(\d+)</param>
      </params>
      <cmdRepeat>0</cmdRepeat>
    </action>
    <action>
      <cmdType>OSD.ShowText</cmdType>
      <params>
        <param>This track is {Match.1.1}m {Match.1.2}s long.</param>
      </params>
      <cmdRepeat>0</cmdRepeat>
    </action>
    <phrase>How long is this track?</phrase>
  </command>
  <command id="160" name="Pause/resume playback" enabled="true" alwaysOn="False" confirm="False" requiredConfidence="0" loop="False" loopDelay="0" loopMax="0" description="">
    <action>
      <cmdType>Launch.Hidden</cmdType>
      <params>
        <param>clever.exe</param>
        <param>playpause</param>
      </params>
      <cmdRepeat>1</cmdRepeat>
    </action>
    <phrase>pause playback, resume playback</phrase>
  </command>
</commandGroup>
I downloaded and installed Winamp to test the commands, and they all work for me. However, I had to use a more recent version of Winamp because I was not able to install version 2.95 when I tried to download it.