Music Caster is a modern music player with the ability to cast audio files, system audio, and URLs to Google Chromecasts, Google Home/Nest Minis, etc.
Display languages: English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian*, and Ukrainian*
Unique users as of April 23rd 2023: 3,800
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Install
Windows Download Music.Caster.Setup.exe
- IMPORTANT INFORMATION: The tray icon will be in the tray, so you will need to move it to your taskbar
- Command line installation:
winget install "Music Caster" - VirusTotal scan
- If Music Caster is auto-removed, open "Virus & threat protection", then "protection history," and restore all files related to Music Caster
Linux
Not maintained, but I did get it to work on Ubuntu once. Music Caster is not straight forward to package, so you can invoke a sudo-free install script.
mkdir -p ~/bin && git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/elibroftw/music-caster.git ~/bin/music-caster
~/bin/music-caster/linux_install.shDemo
Limitations
- Chromecasts only support the AAC version of WMA files
- Emojis might not work well. There's always settings.json + WEB GUI though
- Road Map
Power User Features
- Global media hot-keys are supported
- Web GUI (QR code in Settings window)
- Command Line Arguments
Here are Music Caster specific keyboard shortcuts aside from the global media hot-keys.
| Shortcut | Window | Behaviour |
|---|---|---|
| Ctrl + Shift + Alt + M | Global | Activate Main Window |
| Ctrl + (Shift) + } | Main | Toggle mini-mode |
| Esc | Main | Close Window |
| Ctrl + Shift + Q | Main | Exit Program |
| Scroll | Main | Volume and Progress Bar |
| โฌ / A | Main | Decrease Volume by 5% |
| โฌ / D | Main | Increase Volume by 5% |
| # | Main | Set Volume to # * 10% |
| K | Main | Pause / Resume / Start Playing |
| Shift + N | Main | Next Track |
| Shift + P / Shift + B | Main | Previous Track |
| J | Main | Rewind 5 seconds |
| L | Main | Fast-forward 5 seconds |
| Ctrl + R | Main | Cycle Repeat |
| Ctrl + M | Main | Mute |
| Ctrl + 1 | Main | Go to Tab 1 (Queue) |
| Ctrl + 2 | Main | Go to Tab 2 (URL) |
| Ctrl + 3 | Main | Go to Tab 3 (Library) |
| Ctrl + 4 | Main | Go to Tab 4 (Playlists) |
| Ctrl + 5 | Main | Go to Tab 5 (Timer) |
| Ctrl + 6 | Main | Go to Tab 6 (Metadata) |
| Ctrl + 7 | Main | Go to Tab 7 (Settings) |
Editing settings.json
- I do not recommend editing unless you know what you are doing
- Music Caster will detect changes within 10 seconds of editing
settings.json - Some settings values are hidden from the GUI for good reason
Data Collection / Privacy Policy
Below is the reasonable data that is collected when errors are encountered. I'm sure other programs collect way more than necessary.
# in handle_exception,
payload = {'VERSION': VERSION, 'FATAL': restart_program, 'EXCEPTION TYPE': exc_type.__name__,
'LINE': exc_tb.tb_lineno, 'TRACEBACK': trace_back_msg, 'LOG': log_lines,
'MQ[0]': playing_uri, 'PLAYING_STATUS': str(playing_status), 'DEVICE': device,
'CWD': os.getcwd(), 'PORTABLE': not os.path.exists(UNINSTALLER),
'MAC': hashlib.md5(get_mac().encode()).hexdigest(), 'OS': platform.platform(), 'TIME': current_time}In addition, I collect MD5 hashed MAC addresses and IP addresses in a Google Excel Sheet. Only I have access to this data, I will NEVER give it to anyone else. Will stop collecting analytics once I stop caring about the number of users.
- Hashed MAC so that I know how many users without knowing the actual MAC addresses
- IP because I can map out the IPs to a visual map to see where my users are located