Vb.net And Windows Live Messenger Plugin

	Vb.net And Windows Live Messenger Plugin
	Discussion by Jimmy89 with 4 Replies. Last Update: May 30, 2008, 1:47 pm

Jimmy89

HI,
I am currently developing a media player for a friend. I amusing VB.Net and just making him a quick program. He asked whether it was possible to link it with the messenger live music plugin (like the one used in WMP). I said i'll get back to him on that.

What i would like to know is where to start? I have found a dll in the Live Messenger directory that can is called 'psmsong.8.1.0178.00.dll' and has a description of 'MSN Messenger Status Plugin' How can i implement this into the program. I have a way of passing current details (artist, album, song, current time, etc) but i just need to know how to get that to Live Messenger.

Thanks
-jimmy

Thu Jan 17, 2008 Reply New Discussion

FirefoxRocks

I don't know if it will help or not, but maybe taking a look at this will give you some ideas:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2434

It's really old and obviously hasn't been updated, last support was for Firefox 1.5. But it is almost the same feature, putting the data in the Music portion of Windows Live Messenger.

Fri Jan 18, 2008 Reply New Discussion

Jimmy89

FirefoxRocks, Thanks for that link. That is the kind of idea I'm looking for, but I think i've solved my own problem. ^_^

I did a bit more digging around the Internet and stumbled upon the Fanatic Forums. I had a look around (its a great place for coding) and found a thread about this exact topic, and sure enough there was code on how to do it! Boy was i excited!

I copied the code and right away it worked! I'll copy the code here for anyone that wants to have a look at it, but this is all from http://forums.fanatic.net.nz/.

Firstly, declare the following.

CODE

Private Declare Function SendMessage Lib "user32" Alias "SendMessageA" (ByVal Hwnd As Integer, ByVal wMsg As Integer, ByVal wParam As Integer, ByVal lParam As Integer) As Integer
Private Declare Function FindWindow Lib "user32" Alias "FindWindowA" (ByVal lpClassName As String, ByVal lpWindowName As String) As Integer
Private Declare Function FindWindowEx Lib "user32" Alias "FindWindowExA" (ByVal hWnd1 As Integer, ByVal hWnd2 As Integer, ByVal lpsz1 As String, ByVal lpsz2 As String) As Integer

Private Const WM_COPYDATA As Short = &H4AS

Then, Put this code into the same form,

CODE

Public Function VarPtr(ByVal o As Object) As Integer
Dim GC As System.Runtime.InteropServices.GCHandle = System.Runtime.InteropServices.GCHandle.Alloc(o, System.Runtime.InteropServices.GCHandleType.Pinned)
Dim ret As Integer = GC.AddrOfPinnedObject.ToInt32

GC.Free()
Return ret
End Function

Private Structure COPYDATASTRUCT
Dim dwData As Integer
Dim cbData As Integer
Dim lpData As Integer
End Structure

Public Sub SetMusicInfo(ByRef r_sArtist As String, ByRef r_sAlbum As String, ByRef r_sTitle As String, Optional ByRef r_sWMContentID As String = vbNullString, Optional ByRef r_sFormat As String = "{1} - {0}", Optional ByRef r_bShow As Boolean = True)

Dim udtData As COPYDATASTRUCT
Dim sBuffer As String
Dim hMSGRUI As Integer

'Total length can not be longer then 256 characters!
'Any longer will simply be ignored by Messenger.
sBuffer = "Music\" & System.Math.Abs(CInt(r_bShow)) & "\" & r_sFormat & "\" & r_sArtist & "\" & r_sTitle & "\" & r_sAlbum & "\" & r_sWMContentID & "\" & vbNullChar

udtData.dwData = &H547S
udtData.lpData = VarPtr(sBuffer)
udtData.cbData = Len(sBuffer) * 2

Do
hMSGRUI = FindWindowEx(0, hMSGRUI, "MsnMsgrUIManager", vbNullString)

If (hMSGRUI > 0) Then
Call SendMessage(hMSGRUI, WM_COPYDATA, 0, VarPtr(udtData))
End If

Loop Until (hMSGRUI = 0)
End Sub

And then, place these codes whenever you want to change or clear what is being sent to Messenger.

CODE

'Displays song info (MSN Messenger)
Call SetMusicInfo(My.Settings.CurrentArtistPlaying, "Not Passed", My.Settings.CurrentSongPlaying)

CODE

'Clear song info
Call SetMusicInfo("", "", "", , , False)

For some reason, the second variable in 'SetMusicInfo' doesn't pass to Messanger, not that bothers me cause i don't need it! This was tested with Windows Live Messenger 8.1 (Build 8.1.0178.00)

Enjoy!

Fri Jan 18, 2008 Reply New Discussion

FeedBacker

Strange Error
Vb.net And Windows Live Messenger Plugin

Hi there, this looks exactly what I need for a personal project I'm working on. However I keep on getting the error:

'Settings' is not a member of 'My'

The code works fine up to the point where I use the Call SetMusicInfo function. If I understand it correctly, this should appear in Sub Page_Load, whenever I want this to display.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Douglas

-question by Douglas

Fri May 30, 2008 Reply New Discussion