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How can I get the title of the currently playing media in windows 10 with python

Whenever audio is playing in windows 10, whether it is from Spotify, Firefox, or a game. When you turn the volume, windows has a thing in the corner that says the song artist, title, and what app is playing like the photo below (sometimes it only says what app is playing sound if a game is playing the sound)
I want to somehow get that data with python. My end goal, is to mute an application if it is playing something I don't like, such as an advertisement.

Turns out this is possible without a workaround and by accessing this info directly using the Windows Runtime API (winrt).
All code shown uses Python 3 and the winrt library installed via pip
Collecting Media/'Now Playing' information
The following code allows for you to collect a dictionary of the media information available to Windows using the winrt wrapper for the Windows Runtime API. It does not rely on a window's title/application name changing as in the other answers here.
import asyncio
from winrt.windows.media.control import \
GlobalSystemMediaTransportControlsSessionManager as MediaManager
async def get_media_info():
sessions = await MediaManager.request_async()
# This source_app_user_model_id check and if statement is optional
# Use it if you want to only get a certain player/program's media
# (e.g. only chrome.exe's media not any other program's).
# To get the ID, use a breakpoint() to run sessions.get_current_session()
# while the media you want to get is playing.
# Then set TARGET_ID to the string this call returns.
current_session = sessions.get_current_session()
if current_session: # there needs to be a media session running
if current_session.source_app_user_model_id == TARGET_ID:
info = await current_session.try_get_media_properties_async()
# song_attr[0] != '_' ignores system attributes
info_dict = {song_attr: info.__getattribute__(song_attr) for song_attr in dir(info) if song_attr[0] != '_'}
# converts winrt vector to list
info_dict['genres'] = list(info_dict['genres'])
return info_dict
# It could be possible to select a program from a list of current
# available ones. I just haven't implemented this here for my use case.
# See references for more information.
raise Exception('TARGET_PROGRAM is not the current media session')
if __name__ == '__main__':
current_media_info = asyncio.run(get_media_info())
current_media_info will be a dictionary in the following format and information can then be accessed as required within the program:
{
'album_artist': str,
'album_title': str,
'album_track_count': int,
'artist': str,
'genres': list,
'playback_type': int,
'subtitle': str,
'thumbnail':
<_winrt_Windows_Storage_Streams.IRandomAccessStreamReference object at ?>,
'title': str,
'track_number': int,
}
Controlling Media
As the OP says that their end goal is to control media, this should be possible with the same libraries. See here for more information possibly (I didn't need this in my case):
Microsoft WinRT Docs - Windows.Media.Control - GlobalSystemMediaTransportControlsSession class
(e.g. await current_session.try_pause_async())
(Getting Media thumbnail)
It is in fact possible to also 'scrape' the album art/media thumbnail (displayed on the right in the OP's screenshot) of the media currently playing (although the OP didn't ask for this but someone might want to do it):
from winrt.windows.storage.streams import \
DataReader, Buffer, InputStreamOptions
async def read_stream_into_buffer(stream_ref, buffer):
readable_stream = await stream_ref.open_read_async()
readable_stream.read_async(buffer, buffer.capacity, InputStreamOptions.READ_AHEAD)
# create the current_media_info dict with the earlier code first
thumb_stream_ref = current_media_info['thumbnail']
# 5MB (5 million byte) buffer - thumbnail unlikely to be larger
thumb_read_buffer = Buffer(5000000)
# copies data from data stream reference into buffer created above
asyncio.run(read_stream_into_buffer(thumb_stream_ref, thumb_read_buffer))
# reads data (as bytes) from buffer
buffer_reader = DataReader.from_buffer(thumb_read_buffer)
byte_buffer = buffer_reader.read_bytes(thumb_read_buffer.length)
with open('media_thumb.jpg', 'wb+') as fobj:
fobj.write(bytearray(byte_buffer))
This will save a media_thumb.jpg to the current working directory (cwd) which can then be used elsewhere for whatever.
Docs & References:
Stackoverflow - The main 'inspiration' for this Python answer; originally in C#
Github xlang - Using Windows RT API with xlang and Python
Github xlang - Async usage for IAsync* interface methods
Microsoft WinRT Docs - Windows.Media.Control - TryGetMediaPropertiesAsync()
Microsoft WinRT Docs - Windows.Storage.Streams - IBuffer Interface
Potentially chose from multiple available media streams?
Please note that I haven't tested or tried this and is merely a pointer for anyone who may want to experiment:
Microsoft WinRT Docs - Windows.Media.Control - GetSessions()
(would be accessed with sessions.get_sessions() above)
As opposed to current use of
Microsoft WinRT Docs - Windows.Media.Control - GetCurrentSession()
(accessed with sessions.get_current_session() above)

I am getting the titles of the windows to get the song information. Usually, the application name is displayed in the title, but when it is playing a song, the song name is shown. Here is a function that returns a list of all the window titles.
from __future__ import print_function
import ctypes
def get_titles():
EnumWindows = ctypes.windll.user32.EnumWindows
EnumWindowsProc = ctypes.WINFUNCTYPE(ctypes.c_bool, ctypes.POINTER(ctypes.c_int), ctypes.POINTER(ctypes.c_int))
GetWindowText = ctypes.windll.user32.GetWindowTextW
GetWindowTextLength = ctypes.windll.user32.GetWindowTextLengthW
IsWindowVisible = ctypes.windll.user32.IsWindowVisible
titles = []
def foreach_window(hwnd, lParam):
if IsWindowVisible(hwnd):
length = GetWindowTextLength(hwnd)
buff = ctypes.create_unicode_buffer(length + 1)
GetWindowText(hwnd, buff, length + 1)
titles.append(buff.value)
return True
EnumWindows(EnumWindowsProc(foreach_window), 0)
return titles

I don't have an example of how to do it in python, instead I can point you in the right direction. What you want is to use winrt python module https://github.com/microsoft/xlang/blob/master/src/package/pywinrt/projection/readme.md to access WinRT api https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/uwp/api/windows.media?view=winrt-19041 . There is not a lot of documentation around winrt python module so you might have to dig around the win rt api documentation to figure out how. Good luck!

How to create and use objects from the Inventor COM API in python (pywin32)

I'm attempting to use Autodesk Inventor's COM API to create a python script that will generate PDFs of a selection on Inventor Drawings, these PDFs will then be processed in particular ways that aren't important to my question. I'm using pywin32 to access the COM API, but I'm not particularly familiar with how COM APIs are used, and the pywin32 module.
This is the extent of the documentation for Inventor's API that I have been able to find (diagram of API Object Model Reference Document), and I have not been able to find documentation for the individual objects listed. As such, I'm basing my understanding of the use of these objects on what I can find from examples online (all in VB or iLogic - Inventor's own simple built-in language).
A big issue I'm coming up against is in creating the objects I'd like to use. Simplified example below:
from win32com.client import *
# user chooses file paths for open and save here...
drawing_filepath = ""
# Open Inventor application, and set visible (so I can tell it's opened for now)
app = Dispatch('Inventor.Application')
app.Visible = True
# Open the file to be saved as a pdf (returns a Document object)
app.Documents.Open(drawing_filepath)
# Cast the opened Document object to a DrawingDocument object (it is guaranteed to be a drawing)
drawing = CastTo(app.ActiveDocument, "DrawingDocument")
# Create and setup a print manager (so can use "Adobe PDF" printer to convert the drawings to PDF)
print_manager = ??? # How can I create this object
# I've tried:
# print_manager = Dispatch("Inventor.Application.Documents.DrawingDocument.DrawingPrintManager") #"Invalid class string"
# print_manager = drawing.DrawingPrintManager() #"object has no attribute 'DrawingPrintManger'
# print_manager = drawing.DrawingPrintManager # same as above
# print_manager = drawing.PrintManger # worked in the end
print_manager.Printer = "Adobe PDF"
print_manager.NumberOfCopies = 1
print_manager.ScaleMode = print_manager.PrintScaleModeEnum.kPrintFullScale
print_manager.PaperSize = print_manager.PrintSizeEnum.kPaperSizeA3
# Print PDF
print_manager.SubmitPrint()
So I can't figure out how to create a DrawingPrintManager to use! You can see I've avoided this issue when creating my DrawingDocument object, as I just happened to know that there is an ActiveDocument attribute that I can get from the application itself.
I also:
don't know what the full list of attributes and methods for DrawingPrintManager are, so I don't know how to set a save location
don't know for sure that the two Enums I'm trying to use are actually defined within DrawingPrintManager, but I can figure that out once I actually have a DrawingPrintManager to work with
If anyone with more experience in using COM APIs or pywin32 can help me out, I'd be really appreciative. And the same if anyone can point me towards any actual documentation of Inventor's API Objects, which would make things a lot easier.
Thanks
Edit: After posting I've almost immediately found that I can get a PrintManager (can't tell if a PrintManager or DrawingPrintManager) by accessing drawing.PrintManager rather than drawing.DrawingPrintManager.
This is a workaround however as it doesn't answer my question of how to create objects within pywin32.
My problem moving forward is finding where I can access the PrintScaleModeEnum and PrintSizeEnum objects, and finding how to set the save location of the printed PDF (which I think will be a a separate question, as it's probably unrelated to the COM API).

I'm not familiar with python and pywin32, but I try to answer your questions.
Documentation of Inventor API is available in local installation "C:\Users\Public\Documents\Autodesk\Inventor 2020\Local Help" or online https://help.autodesk.com/view/INVNTOR/2020/ENU/
Generaly you are not able to create new instances of Inventor API objects. You must obtain them as a result of appropriate method or property value.
For example:
You CAN'T do this
doc = new Inventor.Document()
You MUST do this
doc = app.Documents.Add(...)
With print manager is this
print_manager = drawing.PrintManger
# this returns object of type Inventor.DrawingPrintManager
# when drawing is of type Inventor.DrawingDocument
See this for more details

Python Neuroglancer Getting Input

Below is a snippet of code from Google's publicly available Neuroglancer. It is from an example on their github. Could someone explain what exactly this code does and how it does it? I am having trouble understanding it, and don't know what exactly the variable s is. Thank you for the help.
def my_action(s):
print('Got my-action')
print(' Mouse position: %s' % (s.mouse_voxel_coordinates,))
print(' Layer selected values: %s' % (s.selected_values,))
viewer.actions.add('my-action', my_action)
with viewer.config_state.txn() as s:
s.input_event_bindings.viewer['keyt'] = 'my-action'
s.status_messages['hello'] = 'Welcome to this example'

This example adds a key binding to the viewer and adds a status message. When you press the t key, the my_action function will run. my_action takes the current state of the action and grabs the mouse coordinates and selected values in the layer.
The .txn() method performs a state-modification transaction on the ConfigState object. And by state-modification, I mean it changes the config. There are several default actions in the ConfigState object (defined in part here), and you are modifying that config by adding your own action.
The mouse_coordinates and selected_values objects are defined in Python here, and link to the typescript implementation here. The example also sets a status message on the config state, and that is implemented here.
It might be useful to first point to the source code for the various functions involved.
the example is available on GitHub
viewer.config_state
viewer.config_state is a "trackable" version of neuroglancer.viewer_config_state.ConfigState
viewer.config_state.txn()

Using libsecret I can't get to the label of an unlocked item

I'm working on a little program that uses libsecret. This program should be able to create a Secret.Service...
from gi.repository import Secret
service = Secret.Service.get_sync(Secret.ServiceFlags.LOAD_COLLECTIONS)
... get a specific Collection from that Service...
# 2 is the index of a custom collection I created, not the default one.
collection = service.get_collections()[2]
... and then list all the Items inside that Collection, this by just printing their labels.
# I'm just printing a single label here for testing, I'd need all of course.
print(collection.get_items()[0].get_label())
An important detail is that the Collecction may initially be locked, and so I need to include code that checks for that possibility, and tries to unlock the Collection.
# The unlock method returns a tuple (number_of_objs_unlocked, [list_of_objs])
collection = service.unlock_sync([collection])[1][0]
This is important because the code I currently have can do all I need when the Collection is initially unlocked. However if the Collection is initially locked, even after I unlock it, I can't get the labels from the Items inside. What I can do is disconnect() the Service, recreate the Service again, get the now unlocked Collection, and this way I am able to read the label on each Item. Another interesting detail is that, after the labels are read once, I no longer required the Service reconnection to access them. This seems quite inelegant, so I started looking for a different solution.
I realized that the Collection inherited from Gio.DBusProxy and this class caches the data from the object it accesses. So I'm assuming that is the problem for me, I'm not updating the cache. This is strange though because the documentation states that Gio.DBusProxy should be able to detect changes on the original object, but that's not happening.
Now I don't know how to update the cache on that class. I've taken a look at some seahorse(another application that uses libsecret) vala code, which I wasn't able to completely decipher, I can't code vala, but that mentioned the Object.emit() method, I'm still not sure how I could use that method to achieve my goal. From the documentation(https://lazka.github.io/pgi-docs/Secret-1/#) I found another promising method, Object.notify(), which seems to be able to send notifications of changes that would enable cache updates, but I also haven't been able to properly use it yet.
I also posted on the gnome-keyring mailing list about this...
https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-keyring-list/2015-November/msg00000.html
... with no answer so far, and found a bugzilla report on gnome.org that mentions this issue...
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=747359
... with no solution so far(7 months) either.
So if someone could shine some light on this problem that would be great. Otherwise some inelegant code will unfortunately find it's way into my little program.
Edit-0:
Here is some code to replicate the issue in Python3.
This snippet creates a collection 'test_col', with one item 'test_item', and locks the collection. Note libsecret will prompt you for the password you want for this new collection:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
from gi import require_version
require_version('Secret', '1')
from gi.repository import Secret
# Create schema
args = ['com.idlecore.test.schema']
args += [Secret.SchemaFlags.NONE]
args += [{'service': Secret.SchemaAttributeType.STRING,
'username': Secret.SchemaAttributeType.STRING}]
schema = Secret.Schema.new(*args)
# Create 'test_col' collection
flags = Secret.CollectionCreateFlags.COLLECTION_CREATE_NONE
collection = Secret.Collection.create_sync(None, 'test_col', None, flags, None)
# Create item 'test_item' inside collection 'test_col'
attributes = {'service': 'stackoverflow', 'username': 'xor'}
password = 'password123'
value = Secret.Value(password, len(password), 'text/plain')
flags = Secret.ItemCreateFlags.NONE
Secret.Item.create_sync(collection, schema, attributes,
'test_item', value, flags, None)
# Lock collection
service = collection.get_service()
service.lock_sync([collection])
Then we need to restart the gnome-keyring-daemon, you can just logout and back in or use the command line:
gnome-keyrin-daemon --replace
This will setup your keyring so we can try opening a collection that is initially locked. We can do that with this code snippet. Note that you will be prompted once again for the password you set previously:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
from gi import require_version
require_version('Secret', '1')
from gi.repository import Secret
# Get the service
service = Secret.Service.get_sync(Secret.ServiceFlags.LOAD_COLLECTIONS)
# Find the correct collection
for c in service.get_collections():
if c.get_label() == 'test_col':
collection = c
break
# Unlock the collection and show the item label, note that it's empty.
collection = service.unlock_sync([collection])[1][0]
print('Item Label:', collection.get_items()[0].get_label())
# Do the same thing again, and it works.
# It's necessary to disconnect the service to clear the cache,
# Otherwise we keep getting the same empty label.
service.disconnect()
# Get the service
service = Secret.Service.get_sync(Secret.ServiceFlags.LOAD_COLLECTIONS)
# Find the correct collection
for c in service.get_collections():
if c.get_label() == 'test_col':
collection = c
break
# No need to unlock again, just show the item label
print('Item Label:', collection.get_items()[0].get_label())
This code attempts to read the item label twice. One the normal way, which fails, you should see an empty string, and then using a workaround, that disconnects the service and reconnects again.

I came across this question while trying to update a script I use to retrieve passwords from my desktop on my laptop, and vice versa.
The clue was in the documentation for Secret.ServiceFlags—there are two:
OPEN_SESSION = 2
establish a session for transfer of secrets while initializing the Secret.Service
LOAD_COLLECTIONS = 4
load collections while initializing the Secret.Service
I think for a Service that both loads collections and allows transfer of secrets (including item labels) from those collections, we need to use both flags.
The following code (similar to your mailing list post, but without a temporary collection set up for debugging) seems to work. It gives me the label of an item:
from gi.repository import Secret
service = Secret.Service.get_sync(Secret.ServiceFlags.OPEN_SESSION |
Secret.ServiceFlags.LOAD_COLLECTIONS)
collections = service.get_collections()
unlocked_collection = service.unlock_sync([collections[0]], None)[1][0]
unlocked_collection.get_items()[0].get_label()

I have been doing this
print(collection.get_locked())
if collection.get_locked():
service.unlock_sync(collection)
Don't know if it is going to work though because I have never hit a case where I have something that is locked. If you have a piece of sample code where I can create a locked instance of a collection then maybe I can help

Monitoring Clementine with DBus using Python

I'd like to do the exact same thing that is explained here :
How to continuously monitor rhythmbox for track change using python
but with Clementine instead of Rhythmbox.
Problem is, I couldn't find the equivalent of playingUriChanged to give to the connect_to_signal method.
The only thing I could find with qdbus that seemed relevant was
signal void org.freedesktop.MediaPlayer.TrackChange(QVariantMap)
but it takes a parameter.
I'm not familiar with DBus so any help is appreciated.
Thanks

It does not take a parameter, it returns parameter (hash map)
code extracted from this script:
def TrackChange(Track):
# use Track["URI"], Track["title"], Track["artist"] etc
def Connect(name):
global root, player, tracklist
# first we connect to the objects
root_o = bus.get_object(name, "/")
player_o = bus.get_object(name, "/Player")
tracklist_o = bus.get_object(name, "/TrackList")
# there is only 1 interface per object
root = dbus.Interface(root_o, "org.freedesktop.MediaPlayer")
tracklist = dbus.Interface(tracklist_o, "org.freedesktop.MediaPlayer")
player = dbus.Interface(player_o, "org.freedesktop.MediaPlayer")
# connect to the TrackChange signal
player_o.connect_to_signal("TrackChange", TrackChange, dbus_interface="org.freedesktop.MediaPlayer")