Now Playing Module

The Now Playing module detects media playing on your system in real time, lets you design OBS browser overlays inside the built-in OBS Overlay Studio, and exports Snaz-compatible text and JSON files.

How it Works

The background daemon polls native OS media sessions every second:

• Windows: Uses C++/WinRT Global System Media Transport Controls (GSMTC). Automatically detects Spotify, Apple Music, web browsers (YouTube, Twitch), VLC, and other Windows media apps.
• Linux: Uses direct libdbus-1 MPRIS (org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.*), preferring the active playing player.

Album artwork is only read, downloaded (file:// / http(s)://), and Base64-encoded when the active song changes, minimizing CPU and memory overhead.

OBS Overlay Studio & Previews

• Enable this module (nowPlayingEnabled): When turned off, deletes shared/current_song.json, shared/current_song.js, and track-info.json so browser overlays hide cleanly, while emptying PlayingNow.txt and Track*.txt without deleting them so OBS Text sources stay bound.
• Live Previews: View updates live inside the embedded Live OBS Stage Preview in Now Playing (OBS Checker / Dark / Light stage and Live Track / Demo Track), or click Browser Preview (shared/preview.html) for a browser test page (Checker / Dark / Light and Demo / Idle).
• Presets & Style:
  • Includes 7 built-in presets (classic Classic Dark, glass Frosted Glass, neon Neon Cyber, compact Compact Pill, vinyl Vinyl Studio, minimal Minimal Clean, banner Lower-Third) plus Reset to Defaults.
  • Customize background gradients, border width/color, accent color, title/artist/album text colors, backdrop blur, shadow intensity, outer glow, and 3 Album color target modes (card, accent, subtle exposing --osmv-album-hue / --osmv-album-rgb).
  • Manage Saved Presets (Multi-Scene OBS) with Save Preset, Update, Delete, and Scene URL (?preset=<Name>).
• Layout & Content:
  • Configure 5 positions (bottom-right, bottom-left, top-right, top-left, center), 4 layouts (horizontal, horizontal-right, vertical, compact), width, padding, item gap, border radius, and album artwork size/radius (including Vinyl spin while playing).
  • Customize title, artist, album, and badge formats using $song, $artist, $album, $player, $status, and uppercase *_upper tokens.
  • Adjust fonts (built-in or Load via Google Fonts), sizes/weight/align, drop shadow, marquee scrolling & speed, 5 show/hide transitions (fade, slide-up, slide-left, zoom, none), and hide-when-idle timeout / placeholder text.
• Visualizer:
  • Choose from 5 styles (bars, mirrored, dots, wave, blocks), 3 placements (top, bottom, background), and 3 color modes (album, custom gradient, rainbow), with configurable bar count (8..48), height, gap, and energy/speed.
• Custom CSS:
  • Syntax-highlighted monospace CSS editor with line numbers, Ln/Col cursor tracking, Load Studio CSS into Editor, Copy Generated CSS, Clear, and clickable CSS snippets (+.widget-container, +.album-art, +.track-title, +.track-badge).
  • Toggle Enable custom CSS for layered overrides on top of Studio styles, or Raw CSS only (disable generated Studio styles) for complete manual control (for example, .obs-stack { gap: 0; } removes spacing between a top/bottom visualizer and the widget card).

Snaz-Style Text & JSON Exports

All text exports are written inside shared/dynamic_text/ (or your configured output directory):

1. Separate Text Files: Writes TrackArtist.txt, TrackSong.txt, and TrackAlbum.txt.
2. Formatted Text File (PlayingNow.txt): Formats the active track using template codes:
   • $artist, $song, $album
   • $artist_upper, $song_upper, $album_upper (UTF-8 uppercase)
   • Example: $artist - '$song' -> Bryan Adams - 'Summer Of '69'
3. Snaz JSON (track-info.json): Outputs { mediaplayer, artist, song, album, status }.
4. Clear on Stop/Pause: Optionally clears text files or writes a custom fallback message when playback is inactive.