SMTC4J

Simple Java Library for getting information about the current playback from the windows system media transport controls (SMTC).

Requirements

• Java 21 or later
• Windows 10 or later
• GSON library for JSON parsing

Usage

Load the native library

SMTC4J.load();

Start the automatic update scheduler

long updateIntervalMillis = 500; // e.g., update every 500ms
SMTC4J.startUpdateScheduler(updateIntervalMillis);

Access the cached information

Media info (title, artist, album, duration, cover, source app):

MediaInfo mediaInfo = SMTC4J.getCachedMediaInfo();
System.out.println("Title: " + mediaInfo.getTitle());

Playback state (play/pause/stop code, position in seconds):

PlaybackState playbackState = SMTC4J.getCachedPlaybackState();
System.out.println("State code: " + playbackState.getStateCode());
System.out.println("Position: " + playbackState.getPosition());

Press media keys (PLAY, PAUSE, STOP, NEXT, PREVIOUS):

Using the scheduler:

SMTC4J.scheduleKeyPress(MediaKey.PLAY);

Or directly:

SMTC4J.pressKey(MediaKey.NEXT);

Important Notes

This only works on Windows 10 and later versions, as it relies on the Windows SMTC API. <br> The the jars in the releases are built for x64 architecture. <br> If you you really need x86 support, you can build the native library from source using the provided C++ code. <br> If you try to call the native methods on a thread on which COM is already initialized, it may lead to crashes. <br> To avoid this, you should use the provided scheduler methods which handle threading and COM initialization internally.