SpotCommander

SpotCommander is an open source web-based remote control for the GNU/Linux version of Spotify. The application is written in PHP and HTML5, and thus optimized especially for mobile devices, like smartphones or tablets. It has a visual appealing, responsive and intuitive user interface.

Features

The application offers amongst others the following features:

• Launch and quit Spotify
• Now playing
• Control playback
• Change Spotify's volume
• Toggle shuffle and repeat
• Browse playlists, albums and starred items
• Search for tracks
• Recently played
• Queue
• Gestures
• Keyboard shortcuts

Installation

Note: This must be done as root.

Preconditions

Install Apache web server

• To be able to use SpotCommander, it is neccessary to have an Apache web server installed on the device, which should be controlled remotely later. Apache and PHP can be installed this way:

 $ pacman -S apache php php-apache

See the LAMP article for more detailed information about Apache.

Configuration of Apache

• Configure Apache to serve the HTML5 cache manifest with the correct MIME type, in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf add:

 AddType text/cache-manifest .appcache

• To be able to run the application, the sqlite extension of PHP is required. First, install the package:

 $ pacman -S php-sqlite

• Now edit the php configuration in /etc/php/php.ini:

 $ nano /etc/php/php.ini

• Comment out the following lines, to enable the needed extensions:

 extension=curl.so
 ...
 extension=openssl.so
 ...
 extension=pdo_sqlite.so
 ...
 extension=sqlite3.so

Note: Make sure you have the openssl package installed.

• Restart Apache:

 $ systemctl restart httpd.service

• It is neccessary to give Apache access to /tmp. Search in /usr/lib/systemd/system/httpd.service for the line PrivateTmp=true and change it as follows:

 PrivateTmp=false

To make this change take effect, a reboot is needed.

Other required packages

• In addition the following packages need to be installed:

 $ pacman -S inotify-tools xautomation wmctrl 

Install SpotCommander

• Go into the web server root directory:

 $ cd /srv/http/

• Download the tar.bz2 file:

 $ wget -N http://www.olejon.net/code/spotcommander/files/spotcommander-8.5.tar.bz2

• Extract the tar.bz2 file:

 $ tar -jxvf spotcommander-8.5.tar.bz2

• Remove the tar.bz2 file:

 $ rm spotcommander-8.5.tar.bz2

• Go into the spotcommander folder:

 $ cd spotcommander

• Set the correct file permissions:

 $ chmod 755 . && chmod 755 bin/* && chmod 777 cache/* && chmod -R 777 db/ && chmod 666 run/*

• Create a symlink, to be able to execute the SpotCommander daemon:

 $ ln -fs $(pwd)/bin/spotcommander /usr/local/bin/spotcommander

• Adjust the config file:

 $ nano config.php

• Set config_path to SpotCommander's root:

 $ define('config_path', '/srv/http/spotcommander');

• Start the daemon:

 $ spotcommander start

• If you have followed the instructions carefully, you should be able to open SpotCommander under http://localhost/spotcommander now.

Note: If it doesn't work and /srv/http/spotcommander/run/daemon-log.txt complains about qdbus, check out the workaround in this issue

Add daemon to startup (optional)

If you want the SpotCommander deamon to start automatically, you have to add it to the startup list of your desktop environment. An easy way to execute the right command, is to write a simple bash script:

 #!/bin/bash
 spotcommander start

• Under GNOME

Open the startup applications dialog and add the bash script here:

 $ gnome-session-properties

• Under KDE

Create a symlink to the script in the KDE autostart folder:

 $ ln -s /path/to/above/script ~/.kde4/Autostart/

Usage

After you have set up the server successfully, every device in your local network should be able to access SpotCommander under the ip adress of the server. For example, if the server would have the ip 192.168.0.24:

 http://192.168.0.24/spotcommander/

To find out your current ip adress, execute the following:

 ip addr

If you cannot access the server, make sure, that apache is accessible by other hosts in the LAN. Check in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf to what hosts it is listening to. The line should look like this:

 Listen 80

See also

• Official web site with more detailed information