node-spotify-webhelper-portscanner

This package is a fork and a extension of the Node Spotify Web Helper module: https://github.com/nadavbar/node-spotify-webhelper It keeps the same interface as described in the docs below and extend it to use a port scanner to detect Spotify open ports that supports Spotify local protocol.

Node.js interface for the Spotify WebHelper API, based on this great article: http://cgbystrom.com/articles/deconstructing-spotifys-builtin-http-server/

The API interacts with the SpotifyWebHelper process via HTTP. For windows, the module checks whether SpotifyWebHelper.exe is running, and try to run it if not.

API:

This module exposes the SpotifyWebHelper object, which exposes the following methods:

• getStatus (cb : function(err, res)) - get current status information (name of song/artist which is currently playing, etc..)
• pause (cb : function(err, res)) - pause currently playing song
• unpause (cb : function(err, res)) - unpause currently playing song
• play (spotifyurl : string, cb : function(err, res)) - play the given spotify url
• Constructor (port : number (optional)) - Creates a new SpotifyWebHelper object, default port to communicate with the SpotifyWebHelper is 4370, other port can be specified when creating the object.

Examples - Get Status

var SpotifyWebHelper = require('node-spotify-webhelper');
var spotify = new SpotifyWebHelper();
 
// get the name of the song which is currently playing
spotify.getStatus(function (err, res) {
  if (err) {
    return console.error(err);
  }
 
  console.info('currently playing:',
    res.track.artist_resource.name, '-',  
    res.track.track_resource.name);
});

Examples - Port detection The following example will detect open ports for Spotify desktop applications. To detect open ports a forked and modified port scanner node module has been used: https://github.com/baalexander/node-portscanner

Each of those ports respond to the Spotify local protocol and can be used to communicate to Spotify desktop application on the same host.

var SpotifyWebHelper = require('node-spotify-webhelper-portscanner');
var spotifyClient = new SpotifyWebHelper(); // init with default port
spotifyClient.scanPorts({
  lowPort : 3000,
  highPort : 5000,
  timeout : 300
}
, function(error, ports) {
    if(!error)
      return console.log( ports );
    else return console.error(error);
});

where lowPort is the lower port number, highPort is the higher port number, timeout is the socket timeout for the port in msec.

An example of the ouput. A json containing a port number and an error field if any like:

[
  {
    "port": 4370
  },
  {
    "port": 4371,
    "error" : { "error" : "Error: socket hang up", "code" : "ECONNRESET"}
  }
]

Examples - Connect to a specific port As soon as a port is known to work, the Spotify Web Helper can be instantiated with that port to correctly communicate to Spotify running application on the same host:

var SpotifyWebHelper = require('node-spotify-webhelper-portscanner');
console.log("Connecting to Spotify on port [%d]...", openPort);
var spotifyClient = new SpotifyWebHelper( { port : openPort });
spotifyClient.getStatus(function (err, res) {
  if (err) {
    return console.error(err);
  }
  console.info('Currently Playing:',
    res.track.artist_resource.name, '-',
    res.track.track_resource.name);
});
return console.log("Spotify is listening on port [%d]", item);
 
});

Examples - Auto detect an open port and connect To automatically detect an open port and connect to this one, use the autoDectect option set to true.

var SpotifyWebHelper = require('../index');
var spotifyClient = new SpotifyWebHelper( { autoDectect : true }); // init with default port
spotifyClient.getStatus(function (err, res) {
  if (err) {
    console.error(err);
  }
  else if(res) {
    console.info('Currently Playing:',
      res.track.artist_resource.name, '-',
      res.track.track_resource.name);
  }
});

See examples/ folder for more examples and code.