Music

OSX XM Satellite Radio Widget [REPOST]

Since we moved over to the new blog. I have reposted the old post with edited comments incase you are here looking for help on getting the widget working.

I saw some people having an issue not retrieving the channel list from the xm radio service. This is usually due to the online account not activated with a radio ID. You will have to link the radio ID through the xm radio website. I noticed this happen because I had one of my radios turned off and it was the one that was tied my online subscription. Hope this helps!

Today (3/14/07) I have completed my widget entry for WWDC. The widget uses the wonderful XM online radio services with AJAX and open source media player called mPlayer. It was built using Dashcode for Tiger and graphics created with Lineform by Freeverse. Lots of time went into this project. If you like it and want to support its development or you feel a sudden urge to send a comment or donate paypal to timothycantorglenn@hotmail.com thank you in advance….

This widget contains the mplayer binaries for PPC and Intel platforms and works up to v10.4.10 of OSX.

Features of the widget include:

By holding shift and clicking on a preset button you can store your favorite channel.

Playlist (headphones button)

By clicking this button you can add the currently playing song to a list which you can click to load up ITMS and purchase the song/artist/album.

Scan Channels (Up/Down)

When you click these buttons you can see what’s on other channels without having to tune over to them.

Known Issues:

Dropped network connections does not close mPlayer. Workaround: Close mPlayer process from Activity monitor (7/01/07)

People who upgrade from Tiger to Leopard should clear their cookies and delete the plist for the widget if any.

go here

I have been informed that the widget is on Mac Update. I’m not sure how they got my widget, but thanks to whomever uploaded it. Also I have verified that the widget works just fine on 10.5.1 PPC. If you are having problems with the widget, it may be that the network connection is taking longer than expected. Please be patient as this widget relies on a service provided by XM radio. I have also been informed that this software has been awarded 100% Clean of spyware and malware from Softpedia.
The latest Apple update 10.4.11 seemed to have a new javascript parser and it would rewrite the widget source files and cause parsing errors. I was just notified that this version will work on Leopard 10.5 (Thanks David!) as well. I assume that widgets developed with Dashboard Beta are affected by this. Good to know Apple is taking some tips from MS!

Archived Comments:

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Posted by: Kevin on

Friday, November 30, 2007

Love the widget. Works great. Be nice if you could log-off, similar to Shadoworks version. I also use AirFoil to broadcast my XM to stereo via airport express. Works great with all other music widgets I have (even shadoworks version) except this one. Any ideas? I have also contacted Airfoil support. Any info appreciated. Thanks.

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Posted by: ryan on

Saturday, December 01, 2007

how do you make it work? all i have is a blank widget.

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Posted by: tim Glenn on

Monday, December 03, 2007

Kevin. Since this widget uses and shell player you will need to write a script to access the mPlayer
application. Unlike shadow’s version which loads up through a wmv plugin which you need to install.
For the logoff, I don’t see a reason. You can reload the widget. Close it. Or stop the stream and let your login session timeout

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Posted by: Tim Glenn on

Monday, December 03, 2007

Ryan,

You need an XM radio account. Also you will need to download the correct version for your OS.

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Posted by: Kevin on

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Thanks Glenn. I shared that info with Airfoil developers as well. I am pretty foreign to script writing but will look into it.
I have been stopping the stream but wasn’t sure how long it took for my session to time out. There really isn’t any indication of being timed out. I just press log-on again to restart the stream when the play button doesn’t respond.

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Posted by: Ryan on

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

I have an xm account, and I have the one that says it works with leopard. All I get is what looks like the screenshot.

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Posted by: Ryan on

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

When I look in the console, it says “com.NimbusBlue.widget.XMMXPlayer undefined: Parse error (line: 1)”

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Posted by: Tim Glenn on

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Looks like you are running 10.5.1 on PPC? I haven’t been able to test the widget with that. So who knows what is wrong. Until I get my own version of Leopard and guinea pig my G5 you’ll have to wait. Can you post the rest of the block where it tells you what filename?

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Posted by: Tim Glenn on

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Kevin,

Ya, Airfoil guys shouldn’t have a problem trying to access an application executed from a shell command. Especially if they can access running processes. The Airfoil UI doesnt allow you to access any application in the activity monitor. I am not sure about the timeout for the cookie, but I could put a test in there that logs you in when you hit play only if you have a login/pw set. Maybe in the next version when I can afford Leopard. I should also have the bug fixed where you drop your wifi connection and mplayer doesn’t close properly.

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Posted by: Kevin on

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Here is Airfoil’s tech comments: Airfoil is incapable of hijacking the audio coming from this widget, as it uses a hidden copy of mplayer to produce the audio, and Airfoil is unable to find it. You can try to install the “Instant Hijack” extra, using the “Install Extras” panel, accessible from the Airfoil application menu. Once installed, hold down the “Option” key while clicking on the source selector at the bottom of the Airfoil window, and see if mplayer is visible in the list, while listening to your XM radio using the widget. If so, select it, and you should be able to use it as your source.

When I do the above it sees almost everything listed in the activity monitor except mplayer. Maybe just not possible with Airfoil. Thanks for your work. Where do I submit donations? This is the only viable xm widget out there.

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Posted by: Tim Glenn on

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Kevin, when you play the widget it will spawn a process called mPlayer if you look in the activity monitor (Hierarchally) under
Dock > NimbusBlueXMMXWidget > mplayer

I am not sure if AirFoil can go that deep. I looked at the Airfoil site and they say you can use applescript, and that might help. Not sure. I’ll have to do some research on how I can get the player to run outside the Dock process. Maybe in version two. Thanks for your support! You can click on the support us link at the
home page

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Posted by: Kevin M on

Sunday, December 09, 2007

I have ou widget installed on my macbook pro and my wife’s iMac. Both are running Leopard now however my wife widget will not tune. When I select the tune drop down box I just get Tune with a check mark. Is this XMRadio not allowing multiple logins or something else. Thanks for the great widget!

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Posted by: Larry on

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Great widget. Not sure from the comments above how can stop it. Specifically, how do you stop the stream, or unload the widget?

thanks again

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Posted by: Larry on

Friday, December 14, 2007

Maybe it was just too obvious. I was able to stop the stream by clicking the play button another time.

Again, great widget….thanks

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Posted by: Tim Glenn on

Friday, December 14, 2007

Thanks Larry, ya I thought about putting full A/V controls on the widget, but it was overboard. When you pause a stream it needs to cache the stream, and i was getting some caching playback problems with the mPlayer, so I decided to stop the player all together. The only caveat is if you dont stop the player and disconnect from the network you may get another stream loaded because the widget is not telling the mplayer to close when the network goes out. Thus, the workaround to go into the Activity Monitor and kill the process. I got a script that I can run to kill the mPlayer if a network connection is killed.. but probably won’t come out till I write version 2….

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Posted by: Larry on

Friday, December 14, 2007

Upgraded to 10.5.1 today and the widget is not working.

Specifically, I clicked login and it says I am authenticated but it does not get the list of stations. So all that is in the dropdown is Tune with a check mark.

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Posted by: Scott on

Thursday, December 20, 2007

I installed it on a G5 Power pc running system 10.4.11. It logs on shows channel info. Displays it’s streaming but I have no audio. Any suggestions.

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Posted by: Tim Glenn on

Friday, December 21, 2007

10.5.1 PPCVERIFIED

Seems that some users have been having some issues with 10.5.1 PPC

and this widget. I have been able to verify that the widget does work with those specifications. Be aware that the widget uses the internet web services provided by XM satellite. You need to be connected to the internet and you may have some lag connecting to their service.

Thanks everyone for your support!

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Posted by: Eric Litman on

Friday, December 21, 2007

Same issue as Larry and Jed. I get the authentication message and an indication that all channels have been loaded, but then nothing displays on the front side of the widget.

10.5.1 Intel here.

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Posted by: Tim Glenn on

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Sounds like systems are operating differently. If its not your network connection or the connection to the Xmradio servers you may have this problem.

read this.

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Posted by: Tim Glenn on

Friday, December 28, 2007

It looks like the dashboard webkit is having an issue with reading a file.
Since the dashboard uses Safari 3’s webkit it may have something to do with the authorization cookie not being issued/read properly.
did you try deleting the old player and the plist and your cookies?
“widget-com.NimbusBlue.widget.XMMXPlayer.plist”

You may want to use Pacify program and reinstall the WebKit that came with 10.5.1. or wait for 10.5.2 they may have fixed it?

let me know..

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Posted by: Larry on

Friday, December 28, 2007

Sweet

I deleted the widget, deleted all my Safari cookies, reinstalled the widget and it downloaded the station list after I logged in.

Thanks. Running Leopard 10.5.1 on an Intel MacBook.

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Posted by: Kevin on

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Just upgraded to Leopard 10.5.1 and having a slightly different issue. I log-in just fine, select the channel I want and click done. The display streams in the correct information however the audio portion says “loading” for about 30 seconds and then indicates “stopped stream.” Tried many of the suggestions above and still no luck. Any suggestions welcome.

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Posted by: Tim Glenn on

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Kevin,
look in the console log and you should see all the actions that are happening with the widget. When it says loading, you should have some entries in your console log that mentions buffering stream. You may have some blockage or a weak connection. have you tried using the lower bitrate?

Larry,

glad it works! I will create a FAQ

page and copy the useful comments from here.

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Posted by: JedTheHead on

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

UPDATE

/WORKING!!!: First, the plist file mentioned above is in ~/Library/Preferences/

It seems that removing the plist file, the widget, the cookies and restarting Dashboard (‘killall Dock’) did the trick.

Thanks!!! O&A at work now.. w00t.

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Posted by: David on

Saturday, January 12, 2008

I just started using the new updated Airfoil 3 and if you option click the application selection list, mplayer is now listed and I can send sound from the widget to my Airport Express!

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Posted by: Kevin on

Sunday, January 13, 2008

David that is wonderful news!! I will update right away to airfoil 3.0.! If only I can get my widget to work with Leopard on my Intel Macbook Pro. Still having issues with widget not connecting. Tried all above suggestions except updating Webkit libraries. Could not find the Pacify program to extract from my installation DVD

. Any other suggestions?

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