Don't remember the exact name but KDE has something like this built-in. I was actually fairly amazed how much this kind of simple UX improvement can be satisfying.
Show HN: See your current Spotify song in the menu bar
21–30 of 50 posts
Re: Show HN: See your current Spotify song in the menu bar
#22Nice feature!
Just curious, how long did the API extension approval take? (been waiting for almost 3 months on mine)
Re: Show HN: See your current Spotify song in the menu bar
#23That 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.
Everything is web tech with Spotify though. So it's clear why we've ended up here.
The very old native Spotify desktop client was objectively better than what we have now.
Re: Show HN: See your current Spotify song in the menu bar
#24It'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.
Modern OSes, as much as they pretend not to, are patchworks of antiquated components and designs where it's a wonder that anything integrates at all.
Why is the OS not handle states and events globally? If I turn on do not disturb, it show show me as unavailable on Outlook/Teams/Google Workplace. Yet the "official" method is to go into individual apps and switch it. And god help you if you turned on DND but forgot you had an alarm, instead of vibrating first it's just going to ring loudly in the middle of wherever you are (talking of iOS, I know android has a few options but it's still messy).
Scrolling is still "viewing" as if the screen was an A4 (or similar) paper. You could have dynamic vision tracking with a magnifier to boost ergonomics, but no, the button for "close window" that is used once in 10 minutes is as big as the start menu or the right click button and is the same px size as the text you're reading.
Context awareness is absolutely crap on EVERY major OS, be it android or iOS or Windows, and I'm pretty sure MacOS and Linux too. Everything is a silo (fine) but does not integrate together. (Side note, if anyone wants to fix this feel free to contact me via my email in my profile. I'm not really a coder but I know a bit about systems engineering.)
Re: Show HN: See your current Spotify song in the menu bar
#25Did Spotify finally update their macOS Icon to fit the design guidelines introduced 4 years ago?
Re: Show HN: See your current Spotify song in the menu bar
#26It'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.
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Re: Show HN: See your current Spotify song in the menu bar
#27Does OSX not have an MPRIS equivalent?
Re: Show HN: See your current Spotify song in the menu bar
#28I wrote a simple tool to do just that in the taskbar on my window manager: https://fau.re/20230810_spotifyctl/
I've added key bindings to pause, or play the next/previous tracks.
Re: Show HN: See your current Spotify song in the menu bar
#29It'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.
Displaying playback status in the menu bar means you have one less reason to switch to the app and “engage” with it.
Re: Show HN: See your current Spotify song in the menu bar
#30Nice feature! Just curious, how long did the API extension approval take? (been waiting for almost 3 months on mine)
Hmm, that's odd. Not sure exactly which approval you are referring to, but here is my experience:
The Spotify Web API actually required no approval, because it does not integrate with the user's account.
The current version of my app uses AppleScript, and was approved by the App Store within 24 hours. The next version will use Scripting Bridge, but I don't anticipate that will be an issue.
In the most technical sense, my app is not really an extension to the Spotify app, it is a standalone app that communicates with the Spotify app using Apple Events.
Hope this helps :-)