Objective-C, constantly run method whilst Mac OS X application is running

Question

i'm currently writing an application in Objective-C which displays the artist name of the song currently being played in iTunes, however i want the artist name to update when the song changes.

This is the method i have so far which gets the artist name and sets a NSTextField to display the artist name.

 - (void)updateArtistName {
iTunesApplication *iTunes = [SBApplication applicationWithBundleIdentifier:@"com.apple.iTunes"];
     NSString *artistNameString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@", [[iTunes currentTrack] artist]];
     [artistName setStringValue:artistNameString];}

Any help would be much appreciated, thanks, Sami.

uh..is there a question here? no question marks or question words. — Jesse Naugher, Feb 02 '11 at 23:26

Logan Bailey · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-02T23:59:29.253

3

What you're looking for is: NSDistributedNotificationCenter. http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/Notifications/Articles/Registering.html

To figure out which notifications Itunes is sending most people suggest using: https://github.com/kballard/NotificationWatcher

edited Feb 02 '11 at 23:59

answered Feb 02 '11 at 23:35

Logan Bailey

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Does iTunes post a distributed notification when the song changes? – Dave DeLong Feb 02 '11 at 23:52
Yes, it does. I don't remember the notification name, though. – Wevah Feb 02 '11 at 23:54
From What I can tell from NotificationWatcher is Itunes will send a Distributed Notification com.apple.iTunes.playerInfo – Logan Bailey Feb 03 '11 at 00:05

Objective-C, constantly run method whilst Mac OS X application is running

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