Author Topic: NANY 2012 Release: MPH (Media Player Hotkeys) (Read 108,516 times)

skwire · « **on:** October 17, 2011, 06:35 AM »

NANY 2012 Entry Information

Application Name	MPH (Media Player Hotkeys)
Supported OSes	Windows 7. Probably works, but not tested on, Windows XP/Vista/8/10
Web Page	Website
Download Link	Download
Author	Jody Holmes (Skwire Empire)

Description
MPH (Media Player Hotkeys) is a hotkey application designed to allow you to control various audio, video and media players from one set of global hotkeys.

Features

Actions: Play, Pause, PlayPause, Stop, Next, Previous, Volume Up, Volume Down, Volume Mute and Show Popup Menu.
You can set however many hotkeys per action as you would like.
Extremely flexible hotkey system. You can even use mouse buttons and the mouse wheel.
Popup menu has configurable icon size: 16, 32, 48, 64 or 128 pixels.
Currently, 19 applications are fully or partially supported: 1x1, AIMP, AIMP3, ALPlayer, ALSong, Billy, CoolPlayer, Foobar2000 WA, Foobar2000, KMPlayer, Light Alloy, Media Player Classic, Pandora Desktop App, PotPlayer, Quintessential Media Player, Screamer Radio, STP, Spider Player, Spotify, Trout, VLC, Winamp, and Windows Media Player.

Screenshots

Usage
Installation
Download the zip file and extract its contents into a new folder. Run MPH.exe to start the application.

Using the Application
Set some hotkeys and try it.

Uninstallation
Delete the folder you unzipped it to. The application doesn't write to the registry.

skwire · « **Reply #1 on:** December 17, 2011, 01:53 AM »

[reserved]

zircle · « **Reply #2 on:** December 17, 2011, 02:26 AM »

This looks pretty neat. Does this give priority for a certain media player over another? I notice when say i have ITunes and Foobar open, the pause/play button either doesn't work or gives ITunes priority even though neither are focused.

skwire · « **Reply #3 on:** December 17, 2011, 02:38 AM »

Hmmm...iTunes isn't supported directly so I'm surprised it works but, yes, you can reorder the supported applications in the Players tab.

kyrathaba · « **Reply #4 on:** December 17, 2011, 01:01 PM »

Very nice looking app, skwire!

mouser · « **Reply #5 on:** December 22, 2011, 03:14 PM »

Written up at ghacks today:
http://www.ghacks.net/2011/12/22/configure-your-own-media-player-hotkeys/

skwire · « **Reply #6 on:** December 22, 2011, 03:25 PM »

Cool, thanks for the heads up.

skwire · « **Reply #7 on:** December 22, 2011, 05:53 PM »

Website | Download v1.0.2 - 2011-12-22 + Added support for AIMP3 (http://www.aimp.ru). ; (Thanks, qw)

Martin0815 · « **Reply #8 on:** May 10, 2012, 02:04 PM »

Hi,

tried MPH together with my MS Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 and ... it does not seem to work.
Using the tray context menu 1by1 reacts as expected, but using the multimedia keys does not cause a reaction.

Any hints how to make it work?

Best regards,

Martin

skwire · « **Reply #9 on:** May 10, 2012, 03:03 PM »

Quote from: Martin0815 on May 10, 2012, 02:04 PM

tried MPH together with my MS Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 and ... it does not seem to work.
Using the tray context menu 1by1 reacts as expected, but using the multimedia keys does not cause a reaction.

Hi, Martin, and welcome to the DonationCoder site. May I assume you have set up individual hotkeys for each action that correspond to your multimedia keys?

Martin0815 · « **Reply #10 on:** May 10, 2012, 03:48 PM »

Quote from: skwire on May 10, 2012, 03:03 PM

Quote from: Martin0815 on May 10, 2012, 02:04 PM
tried MPH together with my MS Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 and ... it does not seem to work.
Using the tray context menu 1by1 reacts as expected, but using the multimedia keys does not cause a reaction.

Hi, Martin, and welcome to the DonationCoder site. May I assume you have set up individual hotkeys for each action that correspond to your multimedia keys?

Sorry, I didn't get the point.

I set up single hotkeys, e.g. PlayPause, VolumeUp, VolumeDown, ShowHidePlayer.

But e.g. Volume(Up|Down) still uses the system volume up or down.

So I changed all configure hotkeys to use the modifier Ctrl and even now e.g. VolumeDown controlled the system volume by decreasing it, not the players (1by1) volume.

I thought the concept of MPH is to define/setup individual hotkeys.

skwire · « **Reply #11 on:** May 10, 2012, 04:57 PM »

Would you mind emailing me your config.ini and hotkeys.lst file to: skwire [at] dcmembers [dot] com?

Also, which operating system are you using?

Martin0815 · « **Reply #12 on:** May 10, 2012, 05:50 PM »

Quote from: skwire on May 10, 2012, 04:57 PM

Would you mind emailing me your config.ini and hotkeys.lst file to: skwire [at] dcmembers [dot] com?

Also, which operating system are you using?

Files and information sent to you via email!

Greets,

Martin

skwire · « **Reply #13 on:** May 10, 2012, 06:16 PM »

Thank you for the files. The fact that you previously mentioned that the tray/popup menu works as expected tells me that MPH is sending the correct commands to control 1x1. I tested your files here and all four hotkeys work fine with the latest 1x1 player (v1.76).

This leads me to believe that there is a conflict going on with your multimedia keys. It's possible that the IntelliType Pro software you're using is causing this conflict. Can you verify within IntelliType Pro that your media keys haven't been assigned to other functions or something similar? I use an older MS Natural keyboard like the one shown here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Natural_keyboard. However, I do not use the IntelliType Pro software; I just use the basic driver that Windows installs for it. If it's possible, maybe try disabling the IntelliType Pro software and see if that gets things working. Please let me know. Thanks.

skwire · « **Reply #14 on:** July 13, 2012, 10:46 PM »

Website | Download v1.0.3 - 2012-07-12 + Added support for Spotify (http://www.spotify.com).

Rockets · « **Reply #15 on:** October 29, 2012, 01:42 AM »

Could you add mplayer too, please?

skwire · « **Reply #16 on:** October 29, 2012, 04:16 AM »

Hello, Rockets, and welcome to the DonationCoder site. AFAIK, mplayer, by itself, doesn't include a GUI. Did you have in mind a particular GUI for mplayer?

Rockets · « **Reply #17 on:** October 29, 2012, 12:52 PM »

I use this one:
http://mplayer-ww.com/eng/

skwire · « **Reply #18 on:** October 29, 2012, 06:17 PM »

Quote from: Rockets on October 29, 2012, 12:52 PM

I use this one:
http://mplayer-ww.com/eng/

I did try to get that one to work in the past but was unable to. This is a common problem with "front-end" type of players such as this one. SMPlayer and MPUI are two other mplayer front-ends that I haven't been able to get to work. The problem is exacerbated when those front-ends use custom skins instead of regular controls.

Now, that being said, if you have some AutoHotkey code that you happen to use that DOES control mplayer-WW, I'd be happy to test it out and add the support to MPH.

ewemoa · « **Reply #19 on:** December 16, 2012, 04:58 AM »

Quote from: mouser on December 22, 2011, 03:14 PM

Written up at ghacks today:
http://www.ghacks.net/2011/12/22/configure-your-own-media-player-hotkeys/

Quote from: ghack article

Media player hotkeys allow you to control the media player with the keyboard and even if the program window is not the active window on the system. That’s handy if you are working in fullscreen applications or do not want to switch regularly between the window you are working in and the media player window.

With multiple displays, it seems a matter of time before one wants to have a video playing on one display while working on another display -- e.g. watching a development-oriented video tutorial on one display while following tutorial steps on another.

In my environment, it turns out that the media keys are not very convenient to use so I chose to use the fourth mouse button for play / pause using VLC. This seems to be working well so far with MPH

Thanks skwire for MPH (and mouser for the article link)

P.S. I appreciate the "Start minimized", "Minimize to tray", and "Close to tray" options!

skwire · « **Reply #20 on:** December 16, 2012, 05:05 AM »

@ewemoa: Thanks for the report and kind words. Much appreciated.

ewemoa · « **Reply #21 on:** December 16, 2012, 07:32 AM »

I'd like to be able to jump back a bit in the currently playing video but I have not succeeded in figuring out how to do this with MPH.

Is this currently possible?

I think in VLC there are a variety of actions:

Shift+Left -> very short backwards jump
Alt+Left -> short backwards jump
Ctrl+Left -> medium backwards jump
Ctrl+Alt+Left -> long backwards jump

skwire · « **Reply #22 on:** December 16, 2012, 02:42 PM »

Quote from: ewemoa on December 16, 2012, 07:32 AM

Is this currently possible?

No, it's not. I designed MPH with the intention that only the main or basic actions of players would be supported. You could set up global hotkeys for these actions directly within VLC, no?

ewemoa · « **Reply #23 on:** December 16, 2012, 10:59 PM »

Thanks for the response.

Quote from: skwire on December 16, 2012, 02:42 PM

No, it's not. I designed MPH with the intention that only the main or basic actions of players would be supported. You could set up global hotkeys for these actions directly within VLC, no?

Aha. I didn't remember the global hotkeys angle earlier. I will give this a try. Thanks for the idea

ewemoa · « **Reply #24 on:** December 20, 2012, 04:41 AM »

Sometimes I have MPH running while no media players are running -- I got to thinking it might be convenient in such a situation for an appropriate player to get started up if one of the configured MPH hotkeys was entered. In my brief testing and scanning of the documentation, I got the impression that this is not how things work currently. Assuming that's correct, how does this idea sound?

Random implementation-related thoughts...

I guess that somehow MPH would need to know or become aware of paths of appropriate starting programs (e.g. if a player is launched via a batch file, the path of that batch file). FWIW, I wouldn't mind specifying such information in an ini file

If MPH did have that info, may be upon receiving a hotkey, if it found no players running corresponding to the hotkey, it could start the top-most matching player.

P.S. The suggested global hotkey idea for rewinding has been working ok. Thanks again for the pointer