SpotControl

Overview

SpotControl is a modern WPF desktop application for controlling Spotify playback on your account. It demonstrates C# and WPF concepts, including:

• OAuth authentication with Spotify
• MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel) architecture for clean separation of UI and logic
• Multithreading for responsive UI and background updates
• Exception handling for robust user experience
• Inheritance and class design for extensibility
• Data binding for dynamic UI updates

Getting Started

Requires .NET 6.0 or later, Spotify Premium, and a Spotify Developer app.

1. Clone the repository
2. Open in Visual Studio 2022+
3. Restore NuGet packages
4. Run the application
5. Login to Spotify when prompted

Or download the latest release from the Releases page.

Features

Low-bar (Minimum)

• Authenticate with Spotify using OAuth
• Display currently playing track info (title, artist)
• Basic playback control Play, Pause, Next, Previous
• Responsive WPF interface

Target (Expected)

• Volume control slider
• Track progress bar with seek functionality
• Shuffle and repeat toggle
• Dynamic UI updates using MVVM and data binding
• Exception handling for network/API issues

High-bar (Stretch Goal)

• Playback art (album cover)
• Search for songs/playlists and play them
• Display playlists and allow selection
• Keyboard Hotkey media key integration
• System tray minimization with pop-up notifications
• Theme switching (light/dark mode)

Architecture & Concepts

Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM)

• Model: Spotify API data (track, playback state)
• View: WPF XAML files (MainWindow.xaml, LoginWindow.xaml)
• ViewModel: PlayerViewModel mediates between Spotify data and the UI, exposing properties and commands for binding.

Classes & Inheritance

• MediaController (abstract base class) defines playback control methods.
• SpotifyService inherits from MediaController and implements Spotify-specific logic.
• BaseViewModel (abstract base class) provides common functionality for all ViewModels, including property change notifications.
• MediaViewModel (abstract class) inherits from BaseViewModel and defines properties and commands for media control.
• PlayerViewModel inherits from MediaViewModel and implements Spotify-specific logic.

Methods

• Each user action (play, pause, next, previous, seek, set volume, toggle shuffle/repeat) is encapsulated in a method, often exposed as an ICommand for WPF binding.
• Methods like UpdateTrackInfoAsync fetch and update UI data.

Loops

• Background polling for track info and progress uses while loops in async tasks to periodically update the UI.

Strings, Arrays, and Lists

• Track and artist names are handled as strings.
• Artist lists are joined into a single string for display.

Multithreading

• Uses Task.Run and async/await for background polling and API calls, keeping the UI responsive.
• Cancellation tokens allow safe stopping of background threads.

Exception Handling

• All network and API calls are wrapped in try/catch blocks to handle errors gracefully and inform the user.

Screenshots

---

Acknowledgements

• SpotifyAPI-NET
• MVVM Light Toolkit