Tasker Is Music Playing Plugin

A must-have for all Tasker users who need to know if music is currently playing.

---=== Please note that this plug-in requires the application Tasker to be installed before use ===---

Are you a Tasker user? Do you need to know if music is currently playing for you to set up your tasks correctly? If yes on both questions, then this plug-in is written especially for you.

The plug-in itself uses no resources whatsoever when not used, no services are used. The memory footprint is minimal even when executing.

When installed, you will be able to ask the system if any application is currently playing audio through the media stream. The Media stream is used by all media players such as Google music, Spotify, Audio Book players etc.

This plug-in uses a two step process to achieve this, since Android system currently doesn't support a straight forward interrupt mechanism for discovering if music is played.

This is how you will get things done in Tasker:

Step 1, set up a State profile.

Context:

1. Is Music Playing? -> Yes

Task:

1. Set %IS_MUSIC_PLAYING = 1

Exit task:

1. Clear %IS_MUSIC_PLAYING

Since Android doesn't support interrupt based handling on playing music, you have to ask the system if music is playing before you act on your %IS_MUSIC_PLAYING variable.

Step 2, Ask the system if music is playing according to the following guide:

Context:

1. "When do you want to check if music is playing?"

Task:

1. "Your logic before the check is needed"

2. Plug-ins -> Is Music Playing? -> Query system (This will force an update of %IS_MUSIC_PLAYING via the first profile)

3. Wait 500ms (In order to let the first profile have time to populate %IS_MUSIC_PLAYING correctly)

4. If %IS_MUSIC_PLAYING is set

5. "Your logic if music is playing"

6. Else (Step 5 above will happen if %IS_MUSIC_PLAYING is set, step 7 below will happen if %IS_MUSIC_PLAYING is not set.)

7. "Your logic if music is not playing"

8. End if

9. "Your logic after the check is done"

An example of how to use it when you get an incoming text message and want to read it out loud. Then music should be paused, but only if it is currently playing.

Context:

1. Incoming text message

Task:

1. Wait around 2 seconds, depending on how long your message alert is (This needs to be done since the message alert signal will pause the music)

2. Plug-ins -> Is Music Playing? -> Query system

3. Wait 500ms

4. If %IS_MUSIC_PLAYING is set

5. Pause music

6. Read text message out load

7. Play music

8. Else

9. Read text message out load

10. End if

User feedback states that if you toggle play/pause in a task just before you want to check if music is playing, don't forget to add about a 1 second delay to ensure that the toggle is happening on the device before the check.

If you have problems with anything, send a mail and I will sort it out.