How do you listen to notifications from iTunes on a Mac (Using the NSDistributedNotificationCenter)

Question

Looking for help/tutorials/sample code of using python to listen to distributed notifications from applications on a mac. I know the py-objc lib is the bridge between python and mac/cocoa classes, and the Foundation library can be used to add observers, but looking for examples or tutorials on how to use this to monitor iTunes.

Abbeyabbi

Does iTunes actually post distributed notifications these days? – Overarm

Yes it does.... under com.apple.iTunes.player, using notification watch i can see them. – Abbeyabbi

Answer 1

If anyone comes by to this question, i figured out how to listen, the code below works. However accessing attributes do not seem to work like standard python attribute access.

Update: you do not access attributes as you would in python i.e (.x), the code has been updated below, it now generates a dict called song_details.

Update3: Update to the code, now subclassing NSObject, removed adding the addObserver from the class. Will keep the code updated on github, no more updates here.

import Foundation
from AppKit import *
from PyObjCTools import AppHelper

class GetSongs(NSObject):
    def getMySongs_(self, song):
        song_details = {}
        ui = song.userInfo()
        for x in ui:
            song_details[x] = ui.objectForKey_(x)
        print song_details

nc = Foundation.NSDistributedNotificationCenter.defaultCenter()
GetSongs = GetSongs.new()
nc.addObserver_selector_name_object_(GetSongs, 'getMySongs:', 'com.apple.iTunes.playerInfo',None)

NSLog("Listening for new tunes....")
AppHelper.runConsoleEventLoop()

Abbeyabbi

Answer 2

The source code for GrowlTunes might give you some clues here. You'd have to translate from Objective-C to PyObjC, but eh, whatever. :)

GrowlTurnesController.m (Or grab the whole growl source tree and navigate to GrowlTunes so you can see it all in action.: here's a link to the directions on how to get the source

Kelda

Thanks for the help, managed to figure it out using pyobjc website & apple web site. – Abbeyabbi