iTunes Search Plug-in for Google Deskbar

November 23, 2004

So here’s a Google Deskbar plug-in that searches your local iTunes playlist using iTunes COM API and plays the tunes found.

using System;
using Google.Desktop;
using iTunesLib;

public class iTunesSearch : ICustomSearch {
  public string Title() { return "iTunes"; }

  public OutputType GetOutputType() { return OutputType.kDeskbar; }

  public string Run(string query, OutputType browser_type) {
    IiTunes iTunesApp = new iTunesAppClass();
    IITLibraryPlaylist playlist = iTunesApp.LibraryPlaylist;
    IITTrackCollection tracks   = playlist.Search(query, ITPlaylistSearchField.ITPlaylistSearchFieldAll);
    if (tracks.Count > 0) {
//      IITTrack track = tracks.Item(1);
      IITTrack track = tracks.get_ItemByPlayOrder(1);
      track.Play();
      return track.Name;
    } else {
      return "No tunes found for " + query;
    }
  }
}

You need to import TypeLibs from iTunes.exe manually and make a reference to the DLL file. It can be done as follows:

% tlbimp "c:\program files\iTunes\ITunes.exe" /out:iTunesWrapper.dll /namespace:iTunesLib
% csc /target:libarary /out:iTunes.dll /r:deskbarex.dll /r:iTunesWrapper.dll iTunes.cs