spotify-remote — Control Spotify from the browser

Synopsis

spotify-remote allows you to control Spotify from a browser. Currently it works by talking to Spotify via its AppleScript interface, so only OS X is supported at the moment.

Aim

spotify-remote tries to be a lightweight client-server solution for controlling your Spotify, being as battery-friendly and mobile-friendly as possible.

One of the major issues regarding performance at the moment is the usage of AppleScript to poll the Spotify client. The aim is to either optimize the usage of AppleScript to shrink its CPU consumption or find a different solution altogether.

Installation

1. Install Node.js

2. Install spotify-remote in a shell:

   $ npm install -g spotify-remote
   

Update

$ npm update -g spotify-remote

Starting and using spotify-remote

1. Make sure Spotify is running.

2. Start the spotify-remote server in a shell:

   $ spotify-remote
   

3. Open http://localhost:3333 in your browser

If you need a different port, just use the PORT environment variable:

$ PORT=1337 spotify-remote

Credits

• Robin Mehner
• Thorsten Ball
• Matti Besser for the first design
• André Haveman for spotify-node-applescript
• Frank Yan for html5slider

Todo

This thing is work in progress and the result of a hack day. It's working relatively well, but of course there's a lot to do. Things that come to mind are:

• Linux support (Spotify is supposed to have a DBUS-Interface)
• Windows support (if anyone is up to it)
• Make it even more battery friendly
• Test & fix on Android devices
• Search for tracks
• Play arbitrary tracks
• Playlist support (as in: see the current track in the playlist)

Contributing

To get started with spotify-remote development, install it locally:

$ git clone https://github.com/rmehner/spotify-remote.git
$ cd spotify-remote
$ npm install
$ npm start
$ open http://localhost:3333

To run the test suite, do the following:

$ npm test

Pull requests are very welcome: hack away and contribute! If you need any help, don't hesitate to ask!

License

MIT, see LICENSE

Spotify is a registered trademark of Spotify Ltd. spotify-remote is in no way affiliated with Spotify, we're just a little tool sitting on top of the Spotify.app and their webservices.

We come in peace.