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I'm trying to use the SystemMediaTransportControls in an background audio app. I am using the MediaPlayer class to play the audio. Setting the music properties, thumbnail all seems to work fine, but setting the control buttons (i.e. "next" button) is not working at all. My use case is somewhat unique in that I can't get a complete playlist at once, the next track is only available through a internal method call.

Here is what I am doing:

This part is working fine, the volume control shows all the audio information and thumbnail correctly:

var playbackItem = new MediaPlaybackItem(source);
var displayProperties = playbackItem.GetDisplayProperties();
displayProperties.Type = Windows.Media.MediaPlaybackType.Music;
displayProperties.Thumbnail = RandomAccessStreamReference.CreateFromUri(new Uri(_currentTrack.AlbumArtUrl));
displayProperties.MusicProperties.AlbumArtist = displayProperties.MusicProperties.Artist = _currentTrack.Artist;
displayProperties.MusicProperties.Title = _currentTrack.SongTitle;
displayProperties.MusicProperties.AlbumTitle = _currentTrack.Album;
playbackItem.CanSkip = true;
playbackItem.ApplyDisplayProperties(displayProperties);
_player.Source = playbackItem;

This part is not working, the "Next" button is still disabled, the "Record" button is not showing.

var smtc = _player.SystemMediaTransportControls;
smtc.ButtonPressed += OnSMTCButtonPressed;
smtc.IsEnabled = true;
smtc.IsNextEnabled = true;
smtc.IsRecordEnabled = true;

I've been trying to look for answers online but was unable to find anything useful. Any answer is appreciated.

Romasz
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sqexpress
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1 Answers1

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In UWP, apart SMTC, there is something like CommandManager - to properly work with your SMTC you will have to disable it. Just put the line:

mediaPlayer.CommandManager.IsEnabled = false;

once you initialize the player and it should work. You will find more information at MSDN:

If you are using MediaPlayer to play media, you can get an instance of the SystemMediaTransportControls class by accessing the MediaPlayer.SystemMediaTransportControls property. If you are going to manually control the SMTC, you should disable the automatic integration provided by MediaPlayer by setting the CommandManager.IsEnabled property to false.

Romasz
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  • That works well - thanks! It also look like if you decided to go down the rout of manually control SMTC, you will need to handle what happens if you app goes to background as well. I've found another way to enable controls in SMTC via CommandManager: set CommandManager.NextBehavior.EnablingRule = MediaCommandEnablingRule.Always, and handle the NextReceived event from CommandManager. – sqexpress Oct 10 '16 at 15:43