One of the most powerful features iPeng offers since it’s migration from a skin to a plugin is plugin support on the NowPlaying page. While iPeng does implement support for some plugins natively (like showing CustomBrowse on the Main Page or TrackStat stars in the Cover View overlay, this is not a universal solution. What is much more flexible, is the plugin view on NowPlaying
You reach this view by doing a right “swipe” from the Cover View and i will show plugin commands. Already the look and layout of this page is quite flexible. Plugins can place Text, Icons, combinations of these or even custom HTML and JavaScript content on this page so the visualization is really up to the plugin. As with Toolbar icons, NowPlaying plugins are also user configurable, so if you want to extend or just redesign iPeng’s functionality here, you can do so by adding your own .ipeng.xml-files (see Extending iPeng).
Also, the plugins that are to be shown here are configured in the same way as Toolbar icons, you can enable/disable the through “settings->plugins->ipeng->Enable/Disable Commands”. iPeng comes with a variety of commands and please be aware, that some of these are duplicate entries of the same command, showing these commands in different layouts (for example you can get SongInfo and Add/Remove to/from Favorites each in it’s own row or grouped together.
There are some standard features that are always available (if not disabled):
- Add to/ Remove from Favorites: A green or red heart that allows you to add the currently playing track (or stream) to favorites or remove from there if already present. (from 0.4.1)
- SongInfo: Gives you Information about the currently playing file or stream.
There are various commands for other plugins, that will only show up when the respective plugins are installed and active: Album Review, Biography, CustomBrowse, Lyrics Display (from 0.4.1), MusicIP, SQL
Playlists, TrackStat…
The Plugin Content Page
While some commands are just executed to perform specific action (e.g. Favorites), most plugins will display additional content on an additional, fourth view (subpage). Here, and example for Biography is shown. This content can be related to the current track (it usually is)
and will be updated whenever the track changes. So if you want to get some background on who you are listening to, just turn on the “Biography” plugin and you will get the bio of each artist you are listening to. Cool, isn’t it?
