Show HN: See your current Spotify song in the menu bar • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: See your current Spotify song in the menu bar

#11

Post by vsnf » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 6:53 AM UTC

dumpeldown wrote: post #9

For Windows, this tool serves my purpose very well: https://github.com/dsafa/audio-band

> THIS PROJECT IS NO LONGER MAINTAINED HERE

> This project has been unmaintained for a while now.

> Here is a link to an updated and currently maintained fork

The link points to https://github.com/AudioBand/AudioBand for the curious

Re: Show HN: See your current Spotify song in the menu bar

#12

Post by vsnf » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 7:07 AM UTC

actionfromafar wrote: post #10

spike021 wrote: post #8

Nice! Back in around 2012 or so Spotify still didn't even do MacOS notifications so I rigged up an easy AppleScript to do it (I want to say with Growl first and a bit later with native notifications? Been a while). It's always surprising to me that Spotify/Apple Music/etc. don't seem to want to natively add functionality like this to their UX.

Spotify wants you to spend time in their app. Apple is just doing Apple things, I guess.

Not that I want to spend any time at all in their app. Each passing day it gets simultaneously more neglected, and also receives random UX overhauls that make my life worse.

Re: Show HN: See your current Spotify song in the menu bar

#13

Post by LorenzA » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 7:17 AM UTC

dumpeldown wrote: post #9

For Windows, this tool serves my purpose very well: https://github.com/dsafa/audio-band

the spotify app has a mini player that seems to do a similar thing https://community.spotify.com/t5/Community-Blog/Introducing-...

Re: Show HN: See your current Spotify song in the menu bar

#14

Post by guappa » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 7:22 AM UTC

vsnf wrote: post #12

actionfromafar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify wants you to spend time in their app. Apple is just doing Apple things, I guess.

Not that I want to spend any time at all in their app. Each passing day it gets simultaneously more neglected, and also receives random UX overhauls that make my life worse.

I am starting to think that having designers as full time employees is counter productive.

Re: Show HN: See your current Spotify song in the menu bar

#15

Post by rswail » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 7:23 AM UTC

I use this: https://www.spotify-notifications.app/

Does what it says on the tin. Doesn't provide controls, but I usually have the spotify app open somewhere underneath other windows, so the play/pause/forward/back work.

Re: Show HN: See your current Spotify song in the menu bar

#16

Post by rubymamis » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 7:31 AM UTC

serial_dev wrote: post #7

That it's not part of the official app just shows you how strange our industry's prioritization practices are, and if it doesn't have an ROI, it won't happen. We should encourage developers to think about their users and have some pride and craftsmanship when it comes to shipping stuff to their users.

There's almost no soul in the game today. I's everywhere - movies, songs, software etc.

Re: Show HN: See your current Spotify song in the menu bar

#17

Post by kylegalbraith » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 7:42 AM UTC

It's very strange how these types of nice UX things seem to be lacking in big modern apps nowadays. I think we all know why, they aren't revenue drivers. But, surely this wouldn't be that hard for Spotify to do themselves.

Shout out to this project and all the others mentioned in this thread that are adding the niceties that seem to be missing.

Re: Show HN: See your current Spotify song in the menu bar

#18

Post by globular-toast » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 7:52 AM UTC

This was the kind of thing we added to our desktops 20 years ago. When people posted screenshots there would always be a now playing that was probably signalling something, like "Deep Black Heart - My Emotions are Real".

Re: Show HN: See your current Spotify song in the menu bar

#19

Post by benwad » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 8:11 AM UTC

kylegalbraith wrote: post #17

It's very strange how these types of nice UX things seem to be lacking in big modern apps nowadays. I think we all know why, they aren't revenue drivers. But, surely this wouldn't be that hard for Spotify to do themselves. Shout out to this project and all the others mentioned in this thread that are adding the niceties that seem to be missing.

My guess is it's also down to the proliferation of cross-platform UX toolkits that allow for A/B testing of every single component. Making a cool UX thing that requires native OS features would go against that philosophy. And, as you say, it's not a revenue driver so nobody will be fighting for it.

Re: Show HN: See your current Spotify song in the menu bar

#20

Post by luigi23 » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 8:44 AM UTC

vsnf wrote: post #12

actionfromafar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify wants you to spend time in their app. Apple is just doing Apple things, I guess.

Not that I want to spend any time at all in their app. Each passing day it gets simultaneously more neglected, and also receives random UX overhauls that make my life worse.

They dont care if you want it or not. Spotify also doesnt provide shortcuts on ios, so its all planned. They want to farm real user actions and engagements, not applescripts.