Music Monkey

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This plugin allows you to browse and play back your local music collection using MediaMonkey software in the background.

Downloading and Installing

The latest version of the MusicMonkey plugin is v1.1.

Download:MusicMonkey.zip (1360 downloads)

Requirements

A PC with MediaMonkey 4.0 and .NET Framework 3.5 is required. MediaMonkey is used for the actual playback so hardware "extenders" are not supported.

Configuration

Make sure MediaMonkey 4.0 is installed and running properly.
Unzip the downloaded file to your NextPVR data directory.
Start NPVR, right-click, and select 'Settings'.
Choose 'Plugins' on the left and enable/check 'MusicMonkey' in the list.
Choose Ok, restart NPVR, and choose MusicMonkey in the main menu.
The MediaMonkey application should start up and then you can browse and select music to play inside NPVR.

Using the Plugin

Control

CTRL+B (Blue): toggles between the Browse, Now Playing, and ScreenSaver screens
PLAY (Ctrl+P): shows playback popup for current item when browsing
ESCAPE/BACK: Goes up one level when browsing
CTRL+Y (Yellow): shows letters popup to jump to when browsing "Fields"
F9: Goes directly to the "root" level when browsing

Library Items

There are 2 kinds of Library Items that can be displayed at the "root" level when browsing: 1) Playlists or 2) Fields. Playlists can be either the root level or one of the top level playlist "groups". Fields can be a list of different database fields with nested grouping/filtering. The example below will add a root library item that will first display all years for your tracks and when you select a year it will show all albums from that year.

Field List or Playlist: This property can be a list of fields separated by a ; that allows for nested grouping/filtering. See http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Songs_table for available fields. It can also be the root playlists ('/') or a top-level playlist group/folder (e.g. '/MyGroup').

v1.1 Pandora stations and Internet Radio favorites (launched in default external browser): You can now add your Pandora stations feed as a library/menu item. Format (put in 'Field List or Playlist' property): _Pandora FEEDS_URL where FEEDS_URL is the URL obtained from the "A Listener's stations" section from the Pandora feeds webpage. You can also add internet radio favorites as a library/menu item. Format: _Favs FOLDER where FOLDER is a folder containing Internet Explorer favorites (.url) files.

ScreenSaver

You can select a different screensaver for the plugin to use in the settings. Two are included with different font sizes. You can create your own by creating a similar skin file with a name that begins with 'SS_'. The content shifts around the screen by default but can be disabled by setting the 'Shift Frequency' to 0.

Optional MediaMonkey Configuration

You may want to make some of the following settings in MediaMonkey to have a better experience:

Disable splash screen: Tools | Options | General > Uncheck 'Show splash screen at startup'
Startup in "Micro" mode: Put MediaMonkey in Micro Mode before you close it and when it starts up from NPVR you won't see the whole application window flash in front of NPVR.
Disable media playback hotkeys: Tools | Options | General | Hotkeys > Uncheck 'Global' for most of the Playback hotkeys or you will get actions performed twice when controlling from NPVR.
Disable file re-association: Tools | Options | General | OS Integration > Uncheck 'Re-associate File Types on startup' to avoid occasional UAC dialogs for 'COM Elevator' popping up behind NPVR and making it look frozen.
Add the same file to a playlist twice and respond to the duplicate dialog and set it to not show again or it might pop up over NPVR forcing you to respond with a mouse.

Screenshots

Browsing Fields and Jump To Letter Popup

Browsing Playlists and Playback Popup

Now Playing list

(Moving) Screensaver

Support

This plugin is discussed in the MusicMonkey thread in the Add-ons support forum.

Un-installation

Delete the \Plugins\MusicMonkey, \Skin\Default\MusicMonkey, and \Thumbs\MM directories and the Plugins\Common\Interop.SongsDB.dll file found under your NextPVR data directory.

Author(s)

Developed by cncb.

History

v1.1 (10 August 2012)

Can add tracks to existing playlists and create new playlists
Shows progress bar and playback time at bottom of browsing screen
Now Playing list management (remove, reorder)
Pandora stations (feed) and internet radio favorites can be browsed and launched in external browser
Screensaver text can be customized and skins were tweaked to better handle longer titles

v1.0 (12 December 2011)