Proxi already provides triggers and tasks to control iTunes [1] but nothing relevant for the last.fm player.
If you want the easy way, the blueprint for Last.fm is available at the bottom of this page.
1How to do it: Some Details
In fact, this player doesn’t provide any applescript API or anything of the kind to control it easily and I never thought I could find a way to until I looked into the proxi example blueprints and in particular the one for VLC.
You can see an easy way to control the application, that can be associated to any trigger you’ll want (like a keypress or a remote control):
- in the tasks, first select launch application
- set it to launch Last.fm
- check the "Activate if application is already running" box.
- add a new "Key Press" task to press one of the Last.fm shortcut, for example Command+P to start playing.
So now, we can control the Last.fm player without problems, but it brings the application to the front and we have to manually switch back to whatever we were doing. Wouldn’t it be nice if proxi also managed that? The VLC blueprint doesn’t give any hint on that, but there is a solution: using a bit of applescript and more proxi power.
- Go to your trigger and add an extra value, select "Active Application" in the drop down menu,
- add a new "applescript" task and type in the code:
tell application ""
activate
end tell
- then drag and drop "ActiveApp" from the Values window between the " in the code.
- You are done!
You can replicate this for the different functions of the Last.fm player. Or just download one of the blueprint I provide:
2Keyboard Control
This is the blueprint to control last.fm from your keyboard.
To install the blueprint, download it, open the proxi editor and drag and drop the blueprint on it.
This blueprint provides five keyboard shortcuts to control Last.fm from the keyboard:
- ctrl+⌘+enter:play
- ctrl+⌘+left:stop
- ctrl+⌘+right:skip
- ctrl+⌘+up:love
- ctrl+⌘+down:ban
3Griffin AirClick Control
This is the blueprint to control Last.fm with a Griffin Airclick.
To install the blueprint, download it, open the proxi editor and drag and drop the blueprint on it.
This blueprint defines trigger to use with your Griffin AirClick remote so you can listen to Last.fm from your sofa:
- play/pause button: play and stop
- next button: skip
- volume up/down buttons separately: volume up/down
- volume up/down buttons at the same time: love
- previous and next buttons at the same time : ban
(note that they’ll only work if the last.fm application is focused)
4Apple Remote Control
This is the blueprint to control last.fm from your apple remote.
To install the blueprint, download it, open the proxi editor and drag and drop the blueprint on it.
This blueprint defines trigger to use with your Apple Remote so you can listen to Last.fm from your sofa:
- play/pause button: play
- play/pause button held: stop
- next button: skip
- previous button held : ban
- menu button held : love
- +/- : volume control
(note that they’ll only work if the last.fm application is focused)
