Appendix: The phplay Remote Control Interface

The phplay remote control interface gives any Photon application control over the behavior of the currently registered phplay.

To control phplay remotely, a Photon application must:

1. Find phplay
2. Fill in the remote message structure
3. Send the message to phplay

Find phplay

To ensure that only one instance of phplay listens for remote messages, a connector is created with a unique registered name ("phplay") when the first phplay instance is created.

Any Photon application can connect to phplay by calling the Photon library function PtConnectionFindName(). For example:

PtConnectionClient_t *client = PtConnectionFindName( "phplay", 0, 0 );

Fill in the remote message structure

The MvRemote_t structure describes the messages received by phplay from remote applications.

typedef struct MvRemoteMsg
{
enum MvCommandType  CommandType;
int                 KeypadNum;
int                 bToDelete;
char                newurl[MV_MAX_URLLEN];
int                 reserve_1;
int                 reserve_2;
int                 reserve_3;
} MvRemoteMsg_t;

It contains at least the following members:

CommandType

Valid commands that phplay accepts are:

• CMD_PLUGIN_EJECT_DISK
• CMD_PLUGIN_ENTER
• CMD_PLUGIN_LAST_CHAPTER
• CMD_PLUGIN_LOAD_DISK
• CMD_PLUGIN_L_R
• CMD_PLUGIN_MUTE
• CMD_PLUGIN_NEXT_CHAPTER
• CMD_PLUGIN_OPEN_URLS
• CMD_PLUGIN_OSD
• CMD_PLUGIN_PAUSE
• CMD_PLUGIN_PLAY_PAUSE
• CMD_PLUGIN_POWER
• CMD_PLUGIN_SCAN_BACK
• CMD_PLUGIN_SCAN_FORWARD
• CMD_PLUGIN_SLOW_MOTION
• CMD_PLUGIN_START
• CMD_PLUGIN_STEP
• CMD_PLUGIN_STOP
• CMD_PLUGIN_TITLE
• CMD_PLUGIN_VGA_TV
• CMD_PLUGIN_VOL_DOWN
• CMD_PLUGIN_VOL_UP

KeypadNum

The track number phplay should play if plugin that's currently loaded is multitrack. This field is used in association with CMD_PLUGIN_ENTER.

bToDelete

A boolean that instructs phplay to delete from the file system, the URL contained in the newurl field of the MvRemoteMsg_t message, when the associated plugin is unloaded. This field is use in association with CMD_PLUGIN_OPEN_URLS.

newurl

String that contains the URL to be played (1023 char max). This field is used in association with CMD_PLUGIN_OPEN_URLS.

Send the message to phplay

Here are some code examples that use the Photon library function PtConnectionSend().

Send an open URL command to phplay:

{
    PtConnectionClient_t *client = PtConnectionFindName( "phplay", 0, 0 );
    if( client )
    {
        MvRemoteMsg_t msg = {0};
        msg.CommandType   = CMD_PLUGIN_OPEN_URLS;
        strcpy(msg.newurl, "http://www.sky.net/~jdeshon/jad0025a.wav");
        // or strcpy(msg.newurl, "file:///var/media/revenge.wav");
        // or strcpy(msg.newurl, "/var/media/revenge.wav");
        PtConnectionSend( client, 0, &msg, 0, sizeof(msg), 0 );
    }
}

Send a start command to phplay:

{
    PtConnectionClient_t *client = PtConnectionFindName( "phplay", 0, 0 );
    if( client )
    {
        MvRemoteMsg_t msg = {0};
        msg.CommandType   = CMD_PLUGIN_START;
        PtConnectionSend( client, 0, &msg, 0, sizeof(msg), 0 );
    }
}

Send a change track command to phplay:

{
    PtConnectionClient_t *client = PtConnectionFindName( "phplay", 0, 0 );
    if( client )
    {
        MvRemoteMsg_t msg = {0};
        msg.CommandType   = CMD_PLUGIN_ENTER;
        msg.KeypadNum     = 5;    // go to track 5
        PtConnectionSend( client, 0, &msg, 0, sizeof(msg), 0 );
    }
}