
Unofficial Google Play Music Desktop Client - dcschelt
https://github.com/MarshallOfSound/Google-Play-Music-Desktop-Player-UNOFFICIAL-
======
cespare
> Never again will you have to hunt through your tabs to pause your music,

> Supports media keys (play, pause, stop, next, previous)

A relatively recent Chrome feature that many aren't aware of is the ability of
extensions and apps to use Chrome- or desktop-wide (global) hotkeys. So if
you're using the Google Play Music extension, you can, for example, hook it up
to your media keys and it will work even when Chrome isn't focused. Go to
chrome://extensions/ and scroll down the Keyboard shortcuts to learn more.

(I'm sure that there are many other reasons people prefer desktop apps, but
this was the big one for me.)

~~~
Inversechi
There is an extension that enables this for multiple music sites too:
[http://www.streamkeys.com/](http://www.streamkeys.com/)

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pjmlp
> Never again will you have to hunt through your tabs to pause your music, or
> stop listening to your favourite song because Chrome is guzzling up all your
> RAM..

> Dev Requirements

> Node.js (Recommend 4.2.x)

Yeah, right....

~~~
SeriousM
What's the problem with the requirements?

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phamilton
OP is challenging the claim that node will be more memory efficient than
Chrome.

~~~
bpicolo
Perhaps more importantly, Electron is literally Chromium.

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colindean
This is looking good, but Radiant Player is the current king of Google Play
Music on OSX.

[https://radiant-player.github.io/radiant-player-mac/](https://radiant-
player.github.io/radiant-player-mac/)

    
    
        brew install Caskroom/cask/radiant-player

~~~
Cyph0n
The difference is that Radiant requires Flash as far as I read.

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matwood
Last I checked so did the Google Play website player.

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moberemk
You should check again; it's tucked under the labs section but there's an
HTML5 audio player available as a Flash alternative. Doesn't work in Safari
though.

~~~
matwood
Ah, I was using Safari. Thanks!

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oxplot
> Never again will you have to hunt through your tabs to pause your music

Not exactly the same thing, but in Chrome, you can enable "Tab audio muting UI
control" in chrome://flags which allows you to click the speaker icon on tabs
that play music to mute it. Click again to unmute. Very handy for when you get
a phone call!

~~~
mintplant
Firefox has the same thing, enabled by default.

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JupiterMoon
The lack of this by default is something that has annoyed me whenever I have
been forced to use chrome.

~~~
terinjokes
To didn't enable a setting in Chrome, yet this still works for me, and has for
a while.

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corndoge
Literally just a webview in an X window. This is not a 'desktop app'. This is
bastardized web.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
When does a 'desktop app' become a 'bastardised web' (sic). Is it when it
communicates via http? When it renders HTML? Lots of apps that you may be
running (e.g. iTunes, the Mac app store) do this. If it's well integrated with
the host OS, I don't see what the problem is; would you rather it weren't
cross-platform, or it used another cross-platform framework, or it were
several separate codebases?

~~~
pjmlp
> When does a 'desktop app' become a 'bastardised web'

When it is a chrome over a gigantic web view instead of properly making use of
native UI widgets.

> iTunes, the Mac app store

Both good examples on how not to do it, specially on Windows.

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Roritharr
No Chromecast Support. Non-Starter for me.

~~~
unfocused
That was the first thing I went to find as well. It's too bad.

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jzelinskie
I noticed the tray icon for this in OSX isn't black. It would seem more native
if it matched.

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mark_l_watson
I encourage all open source projects so this is cool. That said, I just open
Play Music in a new Chrome window, not a tab, and use the keyboard to switch
between Chrome Windows and other apps. Easy enough. I also sometimes have my
iPad Pro running music while I work on my laptop.

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jrcii
Check out my favorite media player, cmus. It's a light weight iTunes
alternative for command line.

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JoBrad
I was a little surprised that the download was 50Mb, but this app is very well
done. Really like the theming options.

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pen2l
Heyyyyyy ... [http://i.imgur.com/VucG9gy.png](http://i.imgur.com/VucG9gy.png)
... That's basically Spotify (desktop application). The resemblance being so
high makes this a little iffy, and suggests this project won't stay up (at
least in its present form) for too long.

That said, why hasn't Google yet created a desktop application for Google Play
Music? It's mind-boggling to me. I would love to ditch Spotify (primarily
because 1) I don't like its searching/discovery UI, and 2) its desktop
application is slow and buggy as well)

~~~
on_and_off
>That said, why hasn't Google yet created a desktop application for Google
Play Music?

I don't understand the need (and I guess that Google does not either).

Is it because you need an offline mode ? That's the only addition I can think
of.

With the play music chrome extension, the website responds to media keys, so
outside of a dedicated app icon in the tray (even though the miniplayer has
one), I don't see what a desktop app would bring.

~~~
JoBrad
You can also play your local music with apps like Spotify. No desktop client
is a huge issue for me.

~~~
lern_too_spel
The only reason Spotify needs the ability to play local music is to play music
that is not on Spotify. Most other services, including this Google one, let
you upload your collection to play on any device.

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detaro
Why would I want to waste bandwidth/traffic quota on music I have locally?

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on_and_off
because that way you don't need to keep these files locally.

My collection is quite large, it is backed on a hard drive and also available
on Play Music.

Since they have a good matching algorithm, uploading an album is often
instantaneous.

It is probably not for everyone, but I really like this service.

~~~
detaro
Ok, maybe I worded that to strongly. It _is_ a great feature as an option, but
IMHO the software should still be able to use local files if they are
available.

