Controlling Winamp2/3/Sonique Programmatically

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Introduction

This article shows a method of controlling Winamp 1.x-2.x, Winamp3, and Sonique 1.x, programmatically from external programs.

Background

A while back, I was a beta tester for a cool little utility called Codename: Dashboard. Basically it is a sidebar-like program that serves as a holder for sub-components.

Anyway, there was a great Windows Media Player component for it, but nothing for Winamp. After having less-than-stellar experience with MP3s and WMP 6.4, I have pretty much refused to use it as my media player. (I know… I hear WMP9 is better. Time will tell.) This prompted me to write a component for Winamp…

There’s only one problem: I cant find ANY documentation on controlling Winamp3 remotely. It seems that the Nullsoft guys left out this capability in Wasabi. So after a bit of digging, here is what I came up with.

Using the code

First off, we have to figure out what player we are running:

HWND FindPlayer(int wanted) 
{
    HWND hwnd;

    if (wanted == 0 || wanted == 4) {
        hwnd = FindWindow("Sonique Window Class", NULL);
        if (hwnd != 0) {
            playerID = 4;
            return hwnd;
        }
    }

    if (wanted == 0 || wanted == 3) {
        hwnd = FindWindow("Studio", NULL);
        if (hwnd != 0) {
            playerID = 3;
            return hwnd;
        }
    }

    if (wanted == 0 || wanted == 2) {
        hwnd = FindWindow("Winamp v1.x", NULL);
        if (hwnd != 0) {
            playerID = 2;
            return hwnd;
        }
    }

    playerID = 0;

    return 0;
}

Next we figure out which command to send:

// Winamp 2 defines
#define W2_PREV             40044
#define W2_PLAY             40045
#define W2_PAUSE            40046
#define W2_STOP             40047
#define W2_NEXT             40048
#define W2_FILEPLAY         40029 

#define W2_ISPLAYING        104
#define W2_OUTPUTTIME       105
#define W2_JUMPTOTIME       106
#define W2_SETPLAYLISTPOS   121
#define W2_GETLISTLENGTH    124
#define W2_GETLISTPOS       125
#define W2_GETINFO          126


// Winamp 3 defines
#define W3_PREV                   'z'
#define W3_PLAY                   'x'
#define W3_PAUSE                   'c'
#define W3_STOP                   'v'
#define W3_NEXT                   'b'
#define W3_FILEPLAY               'l'


// Sonique 1 defines
#define S1_PREV                  'z'
#define S1_PLAY                 'x'
#define S1_PAUSE                 'c'
#define S1_STOP                 'v'
#define S1_NEXT            'b'
#define S1_FILEPLAY        'l'

Then we send the command to the proper window:

void SendW3Key(HWND hwnd_winamp,char message)
{
    short key = VkKeyScan(message);
    UINT scancode = MapVirtualKey(key, 0);
    PostMessage(hwnd_winamp, WM_KEYDOWN, key, scancode);
    PostMessage(hwnd_winamp, WM_CHAR, key, scancode);
    PostMessage(hwnd_winamp, WM_KEYUP, key, scancode);
}

So to bring it all together, it looks something like this:

private void AmpControl_Play(void)
{
HWND hwnd_winamp = FindPlayer(0);

    if (hwnd_winamp != 0) {
        if (playerID == 2) {
            SendMessage(hwnd_winamp, WM_COMMAND, W2_PLAY, 0);
        }
        else if (playerID == 3) {
            SendW3Key(hwnd_winamp, W3_PLAY);
        }
        else if (playerID == 4) {
            SendW3Key(hwnd_winamp, S1_PLAY);
        }
    }
}

The source includes Play, Pause, Next, Previous, Open and Stop. All packaged in an easy-to-use DLL project.

History

v1.0.0.0 - 11 Mar 2003 - Initial Release